May 26ths

5/26/1969, Montreal

John and Yoko’s second and last “bed-in” for peace.

5/26/1997

Cold and windy, 55 degrees. Is this Memorial Day?—the coldest I’ve ever seen.

Apparently there is a keen interest in memes on the Web.

[1997–when I first saw changes in weather patterns].

 

5/26/2005

One of the biggest mistakes in listening to music is just reading the lyrics and not listening to the music. They really use two different areas of the brain: one of the challenges of writing good songs is to target one of these areas in a positive way or to get both areas in sync. (John Lennon was good at this.)   

[Or it's the opposite--listening to the music and not listening to the lyrics. Sometimes lyrics can just be another sound, so they don't have to make sense or even be intelligible, and can just be mumbled. Pop music isn't about the music].    

“Orange Rhyme” [How shadows fall at 5:30 in May]

 

5/26/2023

More and more I see songwriting as making a painting. Not that it’s “painterly” in its emotion, but rather a collection of “events” or “markers” that are deeply (sometimes methodically) contemplated. This is where it’s more compositional than improvisatory. I like making the frameworks in which improvisation can happen.

5/26/2024

Watched the first episode of the Paul Simon documentary. I didn’t realize there were two “verses”. I liked the segment about the Cecilia sessions where they merged two 8-track boards but they were an eighth note out of sync and created a natural delay effect, not to mention the hugely hilarious use of 4 synced tape machines. It was the perfectly happy industrial-strength accident, which are in essence, synchronicities. Imagine it without the industrially-produced eighth note claps. The problem with getting attached to the idea of happy accidents is that you’re looking for them too much and they start to become meaningless. They have to be like the scarab that flies into the room. Now with the cicada swarms, one flying in at some point would indeed be a synchronicity. Also, Paul Simon has Harry Partch’s Chromolodeon—I can’t imagine that would be usable for something, as historically fascinating as it is.    

        
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I’ve been collecting the Songdays for two months now so I have about 60 ideas. This is like making a small prototype for a sculpture every day, and now I have them scattered all over the studio. Paul Simon had talked about having to find a sound for his recent album, and that’s my current logjam. Perhaps I should work from visuals or find a concept or narrative. Should I make artworks first? I’ve also experienced this when making the Dynaxiom videos, where it’s easier to make them starting with the visuals than with the words. I recall Todd Rundgren saying he would use one of the songs as a sonic template for the whole album. I ran across this errant bit: “You are collecting fragments of your life almost as an archaeologist gathers the shards of ancient pottery. Later these fragments will organize themselves because they “know” where they belong.”