Category: Jamuary

Being the first day back to my day job after a nice late-year break, I couldn’t help but think of how we sometimes get into “survival mode,” hopping between isolated islands of events to look forward to. There can be a therapeutic element to writing songs. I get hit pretty hard by post-Christmas blues for a number of reasons, so the month of January can really be a struggle for me. It’s a combination of not having holidays to look forward to, having work spin up again after lots of people have been out, and probably a bit of Seasonal Affective Disorder — I do live in Seattle, after all, and our January – June timeframe can be… bleak, to say the least.

The original idea for this song, the “spark” or “seed,” was to do a Bob’s Burgers end credits style song, with a call-and-response portion. Something like, “Visiting the park with my family / that’s an island in the week / Playing music with my friends / that’s an island in the week.” However, by the time I had the rest of the material it didn’t really seem to fit, so I had to leave it on the cutting floor. It still did its duty, because I’ve been finding that a huge part of writing one song a day is coming up with something to write about.

Recorded live with just a ukulele as accompaniment, into the mono microphone on my laptop.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2023 Day 3: “Islands in the Week”” →

This is the first song I actually wrote and recorded on the day, after taking a late start. I have a young child enrolled in school, and as the winter break progressed, we lapsed on bedtime, letting it slip later and later. As the 2nd was the last day of Winter Break, it was a struggle to enforce the usual school day bedtime. I realize this can be hard on kids, especially with the excitement of a return to school coming. This song is an appreciation of the attempt to get to sleep, even though young ones often feel compelled to move their bodies, fidget, and make up excuses to delay bedtime.

Recorded with a ukulele as accompaniment using my laptop’s mono microphone.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2023 Day 2: “Thanks For Trying To Go to Sleep”” →

This song’s about a local Seattle conservative radio personality who passed away right at the end of 2022. When people with disproportionate power use it to harm the less powerful we need to discuss that harm; death is not a shield from one’s misdeeds in life.

My buddy and bandmate Nathaniel suggested we do Jamuary together at our New Year’s Day party on January 1, and I didn’t get around to actually writing and recording anything until the January 2, after I recovered from my hangover. This is the first of two tunes written that day. Recorded live in mono on my laptop microphone with just a ukulele.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2023 Day 1: “Ditching Dori”” →