The Song for Ingrid Michaelson

So remember when I said I would write a song for Ingrid Michaelson? Well Im finally finished and I going to let you see the lyrics before I officially record it. Its called "Looking Up". It's my "shot in the dark but I'm still wishing to meet you" song.
Feel free to throw your two cents in, although Im unlikely to change anything about it since I went through about 5 drafts and Im quite happy with the way it sounds, musically and lyrically, I always like to hear feedback. Think Nick Drake, Paulo Nutini, and of course Ingrid. Simple pretty, diatonic finger-picking pattern style playing with soft mid-range vocals and earnest tone.

"Looking Up"

(verse, verse, refrain, verse, refrain, bridge, verse, refrain)

I can’t seem to find a good beginning
That plays as well as the reel my head’s been spinning
But I figured I
At least should try

You might think I am just a little crazy
Or I’m long lost in a sea of reverie
So I’ll just say
Please come my way

I’ve been looking up
Waiting for the chance to come

Maybe we could go out for a coffee
And we could trade a few funny stories
And then from there
Who knows where

I’ve been looking up
Waiting for the chance to come

If you are weary of my intentions
And I won’t ever win your time or your affection
Just tell me I’m looking in the wrong direction
So I can get this crick out of my neck

Til’ then I’ll be holding onto my wishes
Dreaming that the sound of all your kisses
In sweet array
Will gently say

I’ve been looking up
Waiting for the chance to come


(painting by Jim Thalassoudis)

So there it is. Im realizing as iI look at the lyrics more and more this can pretty be used for any two people, so it will be open up to a wider range of listeners who are looking up as well. Since you dont know what the music sounds like I'm interested in how what you expect will differ from what I've written. Hope you enjoy it and again, feel free to let me know what you think. It's one of about 6-8 songs Im going to try and get recorded and put on a new, entirely acoustic album. And Ingrid Michaelson, although your probably never going to read this, Ill be looking up.

DC stands for Directional Cluster-f#*%

Honestly. I know Im a night owl and my job requires late hours but this is not cool.

I want to know who designed the roads and intersections in DC? Was it designed by a group of lemmings? Look closely at the time stamp on this post. Yes, 5:10 A.M. Why? Because it took me almost an hour and a half to make my way out of the intestinal track of satan that is currently known as downtown DC. Now the gig itself went pretty well (James Hoban's; an Irish pub with a really cool staff and lots o' drinks, wa woo wee wa). My Mapquest directions led me there correctly but the last tenth of a mile was absurd. Du Pont circle is pretty much the biggest shit show of city road planning you will ever see. It looks something like this:



("Welcome to Du Pont circle, please check your mental health and well being at the first stop light")

Yeah, Imagine that steaming dump of a traffic circle with fifteen side streets that all have the same name and stop lights every 12 feet that stay red for 5 minutes and green for .06 seconds. Seriously, why do pedestrians need 45 seconds to cross a 10 foot area? Is everyone in DC quadriplegic? Are they out walking their turtles? After already being late to my gig from having to circle the restaurant 5 times around figure A to find a parking spot I was a little on edge. The 3 hours of playing music to pretty girls and fellow Irish brethren helped me quell my heart attack for while. A couple of Jameson's on the rocks didn't hurt, either. However, after the gig was over and I was packed up and headed back home I pretty much had a full on aneurism within ten minutes of trying to follow the Mapquest directions backwards. On top of having to follow the directions backward and being in completely unfamiliar territory, every road sign in DC looks like this:



So you are lost in DC. It's 2:30 A.M. Everyone is drunk and seemingly a potential threat to your well being. You see a guy puking all over the road, two people are making out on corner (not romantically but sloppily and angrily), a girl gets her heel stuck in a crack and plummets into a fire hydrant. Now these sights can be amusing and/or hilarious, but not when you don't know how to get away from such an area. And just when you think you've taken every single road and you cant get any more lost you come to this little diddy:



(so do I just get out my car?)

I almost lost it after my second attempted escape was foiled by a construction detour that led me right back downtown after 40 minutes of what I thought was proactive driving. Apparently the city was not ready to let me go just yet. My nerves were tingling, my eyes were bloodshot, and people in cars next to me appeared to be uncomfortable when they timidly glanced over at me talking to myself in my seat, rocking back and forth. Just before I became Michael Douglass in "Falling Down", by some miracle, I made it out onto the interstate. I have never been so happy to see the beltway. As of this moment, I never want to go to DC again. Am I being dramatic? Of course, that's half the fun. Actually thats all of the fun because nothing else about this was fun. Getting out of DC when you don't know how is about as much fun as using a cactus as toilet paper. Probably a little less bloody, though.

If you are reading this and you, either wholly or in part, are/were responsible for the designing of the roadways in the downtown area of the District of Columbia, please contact me at 1-800-jump off of a bridge with rocks tied to your feet.

You have a blessed day.

Emergency Songwriting

My friend Sean and I were making some food at my house. His friend-girl (not girlfriend) was planning on meeting us for some Balderdash later in the evening. By some turn of events, she texts him on his new, amazing Droid that she can't make it. It's always an unfortunate time when the prospect of being in the presence of women, in all their splendor, is impeded. So rather than sulk in the corner and spend the night playing Halo and crying in a puddle of urine (foreshadowing), we decided to try and turn the events back around. He texts back "No way, you have to come, I'm making food and I even wrote a song for you I was going to play, its called peeing in your pants". "Aww, really!?" she replies hinting that there may be hope after all. I wasn't entirely sure how a song about peeing yourself would get such a response, but whatever. It's still a shot in the dark, and more likely will just make her feel guilty than actually change her mind and decide to come over. She replies "I'll be there in fifteen". Wahuh!? We look at each other. We realize a new predicament. We have no such song. Sean doesn't want to look like a huge, lying d-bag, so that means we have fifteen minutes to write a full song, lyrics and melody, about "peeing in your pants" while still maintaining a lighthearted, slightly romantic and funny tone without being too ridiculous (assuming that would be the appropriate style for this situation). I also have never met this girl, so she may hear it, be completely offended and say "You guys are dicks" and then leave. We run upstairs, abandoning the veggie burger on the stove and we get crackin'. Sean was preoccupied guiding her, via the Droid, to the house and time was of the essence, so I scrambled to crank out some lyrics as fast as I could. My degree has finally come in handy. The lyrics go as follows:

You've got the prettiest smile
And I love the way you move when you dance
Something about your hair falling in your face makes me a little crazy
But its not as half as cute as when you pee your pants

So come a little closer
I'd like to give you a little

Tickle, tickle So I can watch you
Trickle trickle
Tickle, tickle So I can watch you
Trickle trickle

You shouldn't feel ashamed at all
It's something I can definitely overlook
Because the only thing that I really can be concerned about
Is the heavy beating heart you recently took

So come a little closer
I'd like to give you a little

Tickle, tickle So I can watch you
Trickle trickle
Tickle, tickle So I can watch you
Trickle trickle

If it would make you feel better
I don't mind clothes a little bit wetter
I never told anyone, bit I do it too, we can pee together

So come a little closer
I'd like to give you a little

Tickle, tickle So I can watch you
Trickle trickle
Tickle, tickle So I can watch you
Trickle trickle

Song Form (be careful, advanced songwriter use only):

Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Pre-Chorus, Chorus

Yes, cliche lyrics everywhere, but that happens when you have to crank out a song in about ten minutes. Also I've never seen her dance, but it rhymed with pants, so leave me alone. I finish just as Sean is going back downstairs to let her in the door. He walks her up the stairs and through my bedroom door and I'm just finishing printing out the lyrics for us to read. Just as we are introducing one another, Sean goes "what's that burning smell?". Veggie burger. Fire. Death. He sprints downstairs and comes back up with something that looks like a veggie burger on one side, asphalt and charred seagulls on the other. He still ate it, though. Anyways she loved the song. Maybe we'll put up a recording of it sometime soon. In hindsight, I feel this may have been a little bit creepy to sing to a girl the first time meeting her. A very interesting way to make a first impression, but I think it was a worthwhile endeavor. I know what you're thinking. "Wow, Dylan, how much did it cost to harness such awesome skills that allowed you to write a song about peeing your pants in ten minutes!?" About $100,000 from Berklee College of Music. Dammit.

Miley Cyrus Death Metal

Usually at OBrien's on a tuesday night, there is a very, very small and quiet crowd. Sometimes an occasional bar patron will bob their head and seem to be into what Im playing. The bartenders are always great, they always give a good applause after every song. But nonetheless, its usually a quiet night for the most part, without much suprise, because its tuesday. This only one day after terrible monday, the worst day the world will ever now. The dreaded workweek is only 2/7th done, lots of pain to suffer through, so understandably, the morale of the tuesday nighters is about equivalent to the Jonas Brothers before a bare-knuckle bar fight with Jason Statham. However, last night was a little different.

A small group of my good friends came (about 10) and made OBrien's sound like a baseball game, which may or may not have been enjoyed by the manager. I'm sure he didn't mind that much when he saw the bar tab, though. I was loving every second of it. Judging by the applauses after the songs and the volume of the voices singing along, it was like playing for a family of Tazmanian devils with megaphones, every solo artists dream come true. Well, at least mine.
My dear friend Danny had a few sips of a couple beers and was Gobstoppin' (Annapolis jargon meaning "dancing") and singing opera style vocal harmonies. He's a jazz vocal major from Towson with a larger than life personality. To give you an idea, this is Danny:



(The piercings are fake)

A couple of my lovely lady friends from home, Steph and Erin, all gussied up and looking fine, made the one and a half hour journey all the way up from Leonardtown to come see me. I was quite happy about that. So they walked over and sat at the bar near the table the rest of my friends were at and began whaling away to all the lyrics of the songs also while also making the view even better. Soon after they arrived, by some strange scientific anomale, almost 30 people trickled in over the next 45 minutes. Obriens was packed with a bunch of singing, dancing fiends and it couldn't have been more wonderful.

The highlight of the night, had to be when of my friend at the table began singing along with "Party in the USA". He has a God-like volume to his voice and was screaming in death metal style "YEEEEEAAHH-EEEYAA-EEYA-EEYA, ITS A PARTY IN THE U.S. A." Now I'm aware that this glass shaking, bird-exploding, baby killing screaming (which was as loud as my voice going through the P.A.)cannot be fully described in text, but imagine M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold wearing Darth Vaders Helmet. Also keep in mind it was enough to make almost the entire bar stop mid- conversation in awe of what they heard.

After hearing his Miley Cyrus death metal voice, I started laughing while I was trying to sing. My attempt at trying so hard not to laugh made it even harder not to laugh, and my friends, especially Danny, whose two sips of beer had him buzzing like a neon sign, absolutely lost it and almost coughed his beer all over the table. The chain reaction spread to everyone else at the table and it just snowballed between us. I began to laugh so hard I stopped mid-song, keeled over in hysterical pain and almost fell to the floor. It was the first time in my life someone had made me laugh enough mid song to make me stop during a show. I really hope it wasn't the last, either. I finally composed myself and finished my set with half the bar singing "Wonderwall". Not my favorite song of all time, but people seem to like it.

After the show, we all headed to the famous "Double T" after an overzealous douche bag of a police officer screamed at us for standing around my car, quietly discussing plans of where to go and eating a bag of organic almonds. Then he gave Danny a stare down, as if he had just sexaully assaulted a small rodent in a public place. I guess officer douche-bag doesn't like almonds. Maybe he's having family problems. Maybe he just pooped his pants. All in all, it was a great night, definitely my favorite time at Obriens so far. Thank you guys for coming and I'm looking forward to more shows like that.



(Hey, get the hell out of here! There are no almonds allowed on this street!)