This song is about falling further and further behind on recurring obligations, when it can be hard to push through and get to a point of rest, and it can be just as hard (if not impossible) to break the cycle. It may or may not be a bit meta and referring to Jamuary itself. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do a song tonight because I’m catching one of the many fashionable respiratory diseases going around Seattle right now, but luckily this all came together without much friction.

Musically, it’s fairly diatonic, with the verse’s sus4 chords and the V7 being the only departure from basic triads, along with the Cadd9 chord in the intro. I had originally written a bridge with a minor IV chord and a modulation up a whole step, but decided to simplify in the end. I believe that the refrain here marks the first appearance of the Bo Diddley beat in one of my Jamuary tunes.

This is a fairly basic setup: Zoom recorder X/Y pair for the uke and SM-58 for the vocals, both recorded live. The keyboard is a live pass with an organ patch.

Lyrics

Did you wait until the end of the day?

Hoping your burden would go away?

A minute there, an hour here

Wishing your problem would disappear

Now you’re ready to watch it fall

Snowball, snowball

 

Now you’re worried about falling behind

Accumulation of squandered time

Time is constant but doesn’t forgive

Moments lost as if through a sieve

How could you have missed them all?

Snowball, snowball 

 

Break the pattern or suffer the fate

Compounding denial of being late

Now’s the time to think laterally

Pull the ripcord and you’ll break free

Have the courage to make the call

Snowball, snowball

 

Did you wait until the end of the day?

Hoping your burden would go away?

A minute there, an hour here

Wishing your problems would disappear

Now you’re ready to watch it fall

Snowball, snowball