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Well, hello. I’m still testing this.

Music Notes

A blog, generally about music, usually for projects hosted by Jeff

. I may also write about the 48-Hour Media Prompt Challenge if I don't feel like writing a story or poem inspired by the given song. Other bits of poetry or different topics of discussion might end up here as well.

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

SAD Holiday Potato

Oct 15, 2024 at 12:09pm
In response to "500 Miles (I'm Gonna Be) (ID cover)"

That was an amazing performance. Dan certainly has a sense of showmanship..

1 Like

Merry QPdoll

Oct 12, 2024 at 8:00am
In response to "I Heard It Through the Grapevine (CCR)"

I've only known the Marvin Gaye version. I have to say that CCR did it justice. The drums and that bass. So cool.

Excellent choice!

1 Like

♥HOOves♥

Oct 12, 2024 at 7:45am
In response to "I Heard It Through the Grapevine (CCR)"

Great song choice! There is also a version with Gladys Knight and the Pips that may or may not have been the first one. It was the first one that I heard.

1 Like

Dave Ryan

Oct 11, 2024 at 8:19am
In response to "If I Had a Hammer"

Puff the Magic Dragon is a great song for traumatising the kids. There's nothing like a happy ending, and that one is definitely nothing like a happy ending.

1 Like

Merry QPdoll

Oct 10, 2024 at 7:57am
In response to "Fast Car (Jonas Blue cover)"

This is great! I love this song and have heard a couple of different versions, but I've never heard this one. Thank you for sharing.

1 Like

♥HOOves♥

Oct 9, 2024 at 9:07am
In response to "Fortunate Son"

Love Centerfield and Have You Ever Seen the Rain, also!

So many wonderful songs!

1 Like

♥HOOves♥

Oct 8, 2024 at 9:00am
In response to "I Won't Back Down"

Great song choice!

1 Like

Merry QPdoll

Oct 8, 2024 at 6:15am
In response to "I Won't Back Down"

I like Tom Petty, too. My favorite song is Mary Jane's Last Dance. However, I like the message of I Won't Back Down. It's a fine choice.

1 Like

tracker

Oct 7, 2024 at 12:23pm
In response to "Creeque Alley"

This is when I like AI. The song is a story about when the group was formed. It was released when I had first started college. Where? In California! Good choice of song.

1 Like

Merry QPdoll

Oct 6, 2024 at 7:58am
In response to "Three Little Birds"

It's been a long time since I've heard this song. I don't know if I've heard it from beginning to end. I think it's just been in pieces in different instances. Thank you for sharing. I don't have a playlist, but the song is fun.

1 Like

September 22, 2024 at 8:56am

#1077122

Dreaming Out Loud (deep cut)

Track #2 is a bonus track off of OneRepublic's debut album, released in 2007: Dreaming Out Loud. The song has the same name as the album.

This is another one of Ryan's cryptic, mysterious songs where he discusses his career hopes and dreams in language cloaked in metaphor. It struck a deep chord with me; so deep, in fact, that I have literally dreamed about hearing it a few times over the years.

Once in autumn of 2017, I saw this beautiful notebook cover at a Hamrick's store in South Carolina, and it immediately meshed with the song, which I'd only just learned. It became one of my earliest digital collage artworks, where I experimented with applying text and interesting patterns to images.

(When I uploaded the image here, I tried doing a Google Lens on it, expecting to be able to credit the original artist, but I couldn't find it. Thank you to whoever drew this.)

I always wondered why the title song was not a single released from the album, but merely a bonus track, only included in certain markets. Last year I discovered something when Switchfoot released the 20th Anniversary edition of their album The Beautiful Letdown. To celebrate the influence the original had on downstream artists, Switchfoot invited numerous of them to come alongside and sing their favorite track with the band.

Ryan Tedder chose the song Dare You to Move, waxing eloquent about how much it meant to him as a young songwriter just starting out in life. I had never heard of it, being from an era before my musical "coming of age." So I downloaded the collaboration and listened (it's the kind of song that sounds much better with high quality audio equipment.)

The hook tickled my awareness… hadn't I heard that melody before? Then, yes! Syllable for syllable, beat for beat, the chorus of OneRepublic's Dreaming Out Loud follows the identical melodic path of Switchfoot's Dare You to Move.

I dare you to move, dare you to move,
Dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

Vs

I'm dreaming out loud, dreaming out loud,
And all at once so familiar it seems

Good grief. No wonder OneRepublic never released Dreaming Out Loud as a single! I smiled at Ryan's youthful inspiration and didn't count it any less of him to do something so quaint.

If anything, it’s rather fascinating, because Dreaming Out Loud always made me think of Alice in Wonderland, where Alice tries to remember popular nursery rhymes but they come out with different words. This phenomenon really does happen when one dreams; I have experienced it myself.

Word count: 442.

1 Like • Comment

September 22, 2024 at 2:51am

#1077116

The Perfects, OneRepublic (Demo)

For Jeff

and his "Invalid Item"

challenge, I've chosen OneRepublic because I'm a huge fan and know (and love!) every song they ever made.

Lead singer Ryan Tedder is the glue holding the band together: with an optimistic, enthusiastic personality and more projects on his plate in a week than a normal person could juggle in a lifetime, he applies himself wholeheartedly to everything he does, and it shows.

I have my ten songs picked out, and I've tried to go for deep cuts or tracks not associated with album cycles, to keep it interesting. I'm sure we're all familiar with OneRepublic on a surface level (2013's Counting Stars has over 3 billion views on YouTube) but there's plenty more to explore than what you might hear on the radio or at a gas station.

My first choice is a demo, an unreleased version of the 2009 single All The Right Moves from 1R's sophomore album Waking Up.

All The Right Moves has been a favorite 1R track of mine for as long as I've known them as a band, since 2017. With elaborate organs, the famous 1R cello, and a post-bridge that sounds like it's run through a gramophone, it carries a distinctly timeless, quirky and old-fashioned vibe.

It was one of the first songs I listened to on my first pair of dollar store earbuds. The music video is fascinating, showing a story of a luxurious Victorian masquerade ball with dancing ladies and gents and a little boy picking their pockets after they turn up their noses at him.

The lyrics captured my fancy; I saw Ryan's words as ominous, moody and mysterious, and I delighted in imagining vague, fleeting storylines around them. I always felt as though the lines "you'll be the Queen of Hearts, and we're the King of Spades, and we'll fight for you like we were your soldiers" were especially cryptic, jarring, even perhaps out of place. Gradually I pierced the metaphor, as I realized a major yet subtle theme of Waking Up was Ryan's concern about his band's sudden and potentially tenuous rise to fame and success.

I discovered the demo version of All The Right Moves a mere handful of days ago, while browsing YouTube videos. I scrolled through a playlist of Ryan Tedder's demos from his golden years in the mid aughts; these are nearly all his personal "covers" of songs he wrote for other artists.

This particular song, of course, is not one which went to anyone else, being instead made with his band OneRepublic.

The main reason why this demo is special for me is in the lyrics. Rather than singing metaphorically about kings, queens and soldiers, Ryan shares his heart directly and honestly: "I don't know what it is they found, but we're going down to where everyone's getting it right… I don't have it figured like they do. You see I got my worries and I got my vice; there's nothing in my world that they're used to." These lines serve to explain, as well as add depth and realism, to the chorus.

Perhaps the most vulnerable and touching moment is the bridge, where he turns to address his significant other: "I push and pull away, but I cannot seem to break someone that'll love like you…" These words didn't make it to the final version, replaced by words focusing on the dilemma of artistic uniqueness versus formulaic success.

These new unreleased lyrics make perfect sense to me. It's exactly what I thought All The Right Moves was supposed to say.

The demo is technically untitled, being available solely on YouTube and apparently having had a title appointed by the channel owner. Being a Genius contributor, I took it upon myself to add this track

to Ryan's discography there.

I'll add the music video below the demo for comparison.

Word count: 644.

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