Periodical acoustic podcast: I’ll Be by Edwin McCain on acoustic

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I am hoping to make this a constant habit:  record a song about once a week just for sharing it here on my blog.

The song for this post is “I’ll Be” originally done by Edwin McCain back in the 90s.  Nothing special, just me on my acoustic, in my studio, recorded on my Sony ICD-SX700 digital voice recorder.

The file is here:  podcast.0001.Edwin McCain-I’ll Be

I learned this song a few years ago, but my band, “Town Crier,” incorporated it into a set list, so I’ve been playing it a lot recently (and singing it), and this is my acoustic arrangement.

No modifications other than trimming at the beginning and end.

More Jeremy Tharp material available at http://www.jeremytharp.com/

Rush “Freewill

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“You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice //
If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice //
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill //
I will choose a path as clear. I will choose free will”

This chorus really bothers me. The concept of making a choice has an implied adjunct of options. That is, there are limited things to choose from. Free will implies that each individual can make up their mind, and yes, I would agree with that for the most part, but the choices are limited and unaffected by the chooser.

The idea of choosing free will is simply preposterous, because the choice is being made in order to express the chooser’s freedom, yet in choosing it, the chooser is accepting that it isn’t something innate to him. Does this not seem a bizarre contradiction to everyone else? On a side note the music to this song, as with the majority of Rush songs, is unbelievable. Anyway I am not certain that Neil Peart didn’t have some sort of ironic reason for saying this the way he did, but it really bugs me at face value.

(This was written a while ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

Grammies 2000

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Watching Santana blow the world away on this just inspired me to ridiculous heights. I really, at this point, began to identify myself with the music community, and promised myself that one day I would do the same thing, in some capacity. I will play on the Grammies one day.

(This was written a while ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

Queensryche “Silent Lucidity”

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Before I had heard of this song most people told me about how great it was, the saviour of mankind, etc. But when I first heard it, the only thing that stood out to me was the guitar riff. So I learned it, but because the vocal track sounded so cheesy, I never really got into the song. Anyway, now as I listen to it, and that usually tends to be while I am driving, I always imagine that it would be the song that I would die in a car wreck while listening to. It just gives me that sense of irony that no one would ever know how fitting it was to my death but me. Anyway, the part where the octave-higher vocals come in now gives me goosebumps, and at the end when he is singing something over a continuous ascent of notes and it finally resolves, well that part is amazing.

(This was written a while ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

The Police “Message in a Bottle”

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I have mentioned in various forums that this song was a big influence on me on my “Unnatural” album. That was mainly because the drums are amazingly well done–and for a long time I couldn’t even figure out how they were being played. Anyhow, there is a moment of metaphorical, poetical genius in this song that makes me wish I could one time reach such a profound level of connectivity with my words, without leaving the metaphor as when Sting says:

“Woke up this morning // Can’t believe what I saw // Hundred billion bottles // Washed up on the shore”

This line is perfect, simply put. It just amazes me how that particular line tells me so many things without telling me any of them.

(This was written a long time ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

Crash Test Dummies “God Shuffled His Feet”

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I will unhesitantly classify this as one of my favorite all time albums. Yes, I listened to it religiously during a very interesting part of my life (my mid teens), and it has always spoken to me. It may very well be one of my biggest producers, so to speak.

Anyway, I didn’t even fully appreciate it until I started making my own music, and I realized how incredibly adept this album is musically. The bass player alone will bring you to your knees, and the lyrics have such a beautiful subtle satire and cynicism that I don’t think I could ever master a work so perfect. Every song just tells me something new.

(This commentary was written a long time ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

JeremyTharp.com News Archive > May 19, 2007

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Ok obviously I have disappeared for a while, and honestly I will probably not be doing much here for a while. I just thought it would be nice to drop a line and kind of update things.

For the many of you who don’t know, I am getting married — in August (2007) and between my quite occupied social life and the very significant amount of work I’ve had to do lately (no regrettably of course) I really have not had much time to do musical anything. In the last few weeks, however, I have picked up my guitar a few times and again I am getting some tinges — ideas on maybe a new album. (Don’t expect too much). The idea, however, is to work up some very rocking album using lots of finger tapping and heavy rock guitar, combined with a complementary banjo, overlayed with some awesome philosophical theme that I have yet to come up with.

Hey it will probably be a while, but here I am, still alive — on my grandmother’s birthday and my 5 year college graduation anniversary. I hope everyone is rockin and I hope soon I am again too 🙂

JeremyTharp.com News Archive > June 9, 2006

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Ok so it has been a severely long time since I updated anything!

Honestly it is because not much has been happening … a lot has been going on in my life, moving, new g/f (not so new anymore) etc. and anything musical has kind of taken a back seat. Of course, looking back on things, this time of year is always kind of lethargic for me musically. I think I’m ready now to get back into the swing of recording TSOTSS, and maybe even work on some new stuff, but anyway I am going update some other things that need updating and hopefully keep on top of things here again. 😉 Thanks for stopping by.

JeremyTharp.com News Archive > April 14, 2006

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I just finished recording “Hope (The Nightmare)” and it too is a boorish piece of unexciting pop with absolutely no listenability. This album sucks, and is going to be a pain in the ass to listen too, and I hope I can finish recording it and get it over with so I can get on to making some music that isn’t candy melancholic filth. Update terminated.

JeremyTharp.com News Archive > March 17, 2006

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day ! … It’s been a while so I thought I’d post some updates. I celebrated my mom’s birthday last night by playing Open Mic … you know totally different than my typical Thursday evening. I played a pretty good set anyway … one of my best performances by at least one count 🙂 I think my mom, stepdad, and granddad agreed but it’s hard to tell. Not really their style of music anyway.

I have the first four songs of TSOTSS recorded, although I will likely need to redo the acoustic guitar on “Appreciated.” Recording has gone relatively well, considering, and the final products are excellent. I haven’t budgeted my recording time terribly wisely, however. It’s the time of year when things start to get hectic, and I have a lot on my plate as of late. Hopefully, I can get it all together and get another two or three recordings kicked next week. I’ll let you know.