Internet Musician | Singer/Songwriter | Steve Chatterton

Masters of Song Fu #2 Round 1 Goes Live - Vote Today!

   » Chilling at my friend's farm waiting for the other Fu to drop «

And when you vote, please vote for me!

Okay, voting on round 1 of Song Fu #2 is now live:

Masters Of Song Fu #2: Round 1 Challenge Voting Begins!
» Quick Stop Entertainment

I’m one of 13 challengers, and I need your vote so I can be one of the five who get to compete in the next round.

Anything you can do to help get the word out would be greatly appreciated. Blog it. Forward this link to anyone’s who ever sent you an email, including your aunt who only forwards you chain letters. Spread the word in whatever forums you visit. Let all your cyber-friends in your second life know about it. Accost random strangers on the street and make sure they vote for me.

While you’re at it, be sure to pick one of the three Master tracks as well. If all goes well, you can help engineer it so I’m the last challenger standing so I can have my ass handed to me by one of the masters in the final round.

Listen to / download my song, “Someday (You’ll See),” right here:

1. 01. Someday (You’ll See) - DRM-Free MP3, 3.90 MB, 3:47
   

Also, if you’re in the mood to remix, here are all the tracks isolated so you can slap them into your digital audio workstation and totally transmogrify them:

Remix stems - 79.28MB Zip archive

[I've taken the remix stems offline for now. I'm going to redo the vocals on this one and wouldn't want any derivative works done until I'm happier with this. Thanks.]

Tune Trivia

• This song was written in a grand total of three hours. I found out about the challenge (to write a song about the moon that’s at least 1:45) at breakfast last Wednesday and had the lyrics and music all done before lunch.
• The song is about the moon without even making reference to the moon by name. I thought it would make things sound a bit more mysterious this way.
• The song’s first draft included the lyric “howling at the moon.” To add the sense of mystery alluded to in the previous point, I soon changed it to “howling up at you” at my wife’s recommendation.
• I’m of three minds about the lyrical perspective on this track: I’m either writing in persona of a moonstruck astronomer/astronaut, romantically likening an unattainable object of desire to the equally unattainable moon, or else I’m just playing with words and talking out my ass in a desperate attempt to show the world what a clever songwriter I am. You be the judge.
• In order to get a good signal on the quieter bits, I had to buy a new audio interface. I chose the Tascam US-144, and I’m very happy with it. It would be a total kick-ass solution if my actual computer wasn’t so awful.
• At the 1:55 mark, I recorded my three year old son beatboxing. He’s been fascinated by Biz Markie’s “Biz’s Beats” segment on Yo Gabba Gabba lately, so I thought I’d share his experimentation with the world in this tune (as I used to do with my daughter on the 11t1 album [on the track "No Other One"] and the Viewer Mail jingle). Aside for a little help quantizing the rhythm, the sound has not been effected.
• Introducing the sound of a celeste to coincide with the lyric about “celestial mathematics” is not some desperate attempt at a musical pun. I just thought the arrangement needed a bell-like lullaby-ish quality at that point, and it wasn’t until I had everything all put together that I realized what I had done.
• On the other hand, making the background vocals pan back and forth at regular intervals behind the “revolve rotate at an even rate” bridge section was quite deliberate.

The lyrics

Someday (You’ll See) - © 2008 Steve Chatterton

Do you gaze at your reflection
Upon the surface of the ocean
And do you ever look at me
The way that I look up at thee
Hoping that our glances meet

Your many phases I remember
January through December
And when it’s harvest time
I swear you look sublime
You move me like you move the seas

Do you know my name
Or is this just some game
That you play up in the heavens
Looking down on everyone
Is your idea of fun
Connected to the sun in any way

Revolve, rotate
At an even rate
So you can keep an eye on me
And your dark side’s never seen

Inspired celestial mathematics
And bovine feats of acrobatics
I’m howling up at you
With this lonely little tune
You’ll probably never hear

Do you know my name
Or is this just some game
That you play up in the heavens
Looking down on everything
Every not I sing
I offer up to you
And I hope you know it’s true
If it’s all the same to you
It’s all the same to me
I hope someday you’ll see
I hope someday you’ll see
I hope someday you’ll see
I hope someday you’ll see

Chord Chart

Coming Soon!

So there you go. If you enjoy the track half as much as I do, then I guess I’m getting twice as much out of this. Don’t forget to vote, please. Thank you.