Jam Mechanics S2E06: A Feral Yeehaw

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On Episode 6 we get tripped up on cantrips before ⁠Joshua David MG⁠ gives us a songwriting prompt that'll make you ask: Did they just write the songs of the summer???

Jam Mechanics is a podcast hosted by Matt (The Narcissist Cookbook) and Bug (Bug Hunter) where we are challenged to write a song demo from scratch every episode

Our Music:
⁠⁠The Narcissist Cookbook

⁠⁠⁠⁠Bug Hunter⁠⁠

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-- SPOILERS FOR THIS EPISODE BELOW --

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BUG'S SONG

Title: Loud and Clear

Lyrics:

You're playin' DJ on our road trip and my ears are going numb

It's taking every bit of patience not to mute it with my thumb

maybe pretend that it malfunctioned and I'll fix it when we stop

but then you say "this one's my favorite" and you crank the volume knob

 

Why do you like this stuff, I haven't got a clue

what made a middle class big city girl like only country tunes

you don't square dance in your Daisy Dukes or line up in your boots

and you you ain't ever seen the inside of a country town saloon

 

I've tried to give it all a chance, I promise you I did

but I can't tell when one song ends and when the next hit song begins

twenty minutes in... lets just call it what it is

every hit song of the summer sounds a little bit like this:

 

a big bar crowd sing-a-long

a four-chord kinda country song

where the chorus always mentions beer

and the title, the title hits loud and clear

 

Its always so repetitive, they've got nothing to say

every aspect is generic, every lyric feels cliché

I respect the men and women and the instruments they play

but the hacks that they are backing have put all their skills to waste

 

cause the stars are all so similar, so handsome, could it be

another well-connected white boy up and moved to Tennessee

Has a network out in Nashville, plays a chord or two or three

add a fourth and ride a horse and you can end up on TV singin'

But did you ever think...

I don't care for the lyrics or the themes
I'm wise enough to seee that its all blatant pandering
but I love to listen to it, yes, even on repeat
these are all the songs my dad put on the stereo for me

And I have endless loving memories, as far back as I go
from the car seat to the front seat turning on the radio
blaring Toby Keith and Urban, other names I barely know
but when I hear these songs it feels like I am still that little girl

and maybe when it came to this he was a simple man
didn't listen for the lyrics, didn't care for indie bands
so attack me for my music choice, I know it's pretty bad
but I love these simple songs 'cause they remind me of my dad

So just let me sing along
cause he comes through in these country songs
in the car its almost like he's here
and I hear him… I hear him loud and clear

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MATT'S SONG

Title: Comparing Yourself to a Sillhouette

Lyrics:

Amelia was born on a saturday night

in the heat of july in the heart of america

and while the city slept, her mother showed her the sky

and speckles of starlight settled on her eyes and little Amelia Earhart knew one day she would fly

No that's not what happened

Can someone tell me why we obsessively mythologise real people, real lives like this

Like no one truly exists unless they live between the lines

of a fairy story someone writes?

Is it not enough for someone just to have lived, you know?

And to have lived extraordinarily?

 

Amelia 'melia, please

Come back to earth some time

I'm dangling here by a wire

And it doesn't feel like flying.

 

Do you think jesus understood that it wasn't enough to be a good man?

To be wise and patient and kind?

Do you think he knew that in order for his message to outlive him he would have to be canonised, and to be canonised he would have to die before his time?

Or was that narrative thrust upon him

Against his will

By a disciple who loved the message more than the man

And who knew that humans don't trust humans

We trust gods

And so this all too human friend of his would have to

Whether he wanted to or not

Become a god

Or be forgotten

 

And here I am, trying to be the best version of me that I can

Comparing myself to these silhouettes who

In the way they're presented at least

Didn't exist

Thinking that because I don't have a narrative

Because you couldn't project my story on the screen

That somehow makes me less real

And the thing is

I don't think I'm accepting that

I think i'm trying to turn myself into a story

To see myself as I see them

As only a silhouette