A visit to Simon to drop off his birthday present yesterday. We talked mostly about films. He recently watched Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, having hardly seen any David Lynch films, somewhat jumping in at the deep end with those. He said that with Inland Empire it's like he was trying deliberately to make a terrible film, which made me laugh, but I agree that its one of the worst films I've seen, despite my love and admiration for the director and his other films. Lynch is a rare film maker in that his films can be radically different from each other; Eraserhead, Straight Story, Elephant Man, Dune, Blue Velvet - most people could watch all five and not suspect that they are by the same director.
I spent the early afternoon singing the main vocals for Always in the Morning, Teenage Dream, and Be My Jesus - I'd not even recorded the backing for the last track, so a rare example of recording the vocals early in production. I had a few scant hours alone to sing - bliss! How it pains me not to have the space and time to sing or practice as I would like, these rare moments snatched here and there. I am continue to improve at singing, but its doubly, triply, difficult when the time to sing is so rare and stochastically intermittent. All skills, I firmly believe, are available to all of us, and we simply get better at something as we do more of it. Singing, piano playing, rock climbing, tennis playing... we get better the more we do. Self (or trainer) analysis is important, we must target and work on weak points rationally; never too proud, never too critical. Of course, tennis requires height - which we are born with, and there might be a few examples like that, but even then, there are people who defy these apparent doctrines - Usain Bolt, for example, is very tall which, before him, was considered a disadvantage for a sprinter.
I recorded four full takes of Always in the Morning, with casual and brief listens to each. I was convinced, as I often am, that the last take was the best. Today, with fresh ears, this isn't the case. A day of pause to relisten anew is important.
Be My Jesus is a very simple song, almost all A, with an FM and GM climactic chorus, with suitably catholic organs. It's practically identical musically to my song Conan, which I haven't finished or recorded the vocals to yet. The first chorus will be the first climax but the energy will, I hope, continue to drive the song to a bigger climax at the end.
