I started my "day two" last night around 11pm. I was so excited to get rolling the night before that I kind of inverted my sleep schedule, so after I had some food and got situated after sleeping all day, it was coming close to the official end of the day according to the clock.

I ended up writing four more songs during the night. If I can keep this up, I'll have written all 12 of my songs by the end of day three! The details of last night's songwriting output follow.

• Missouri: "Show Me Yours" is what happens when a throwaway idea ends up being a lot of fun. I really like making an effort to "genre hop" when putting together collections of songs, even if I'm not particularly good at all of the genres I'm trying to pull off. I'd hoped to be able to do that with this album, and even back in October I had told myself "well, at least if it comes down to the wire, you can always whip out a cheap and easy hardcore punk song and do it quickly and sloppily and still pull it off." So, I did, only it ended up being a lot of fun to write, and I bet it will be a lot of fun to record when I get to that. Obviously, I've given a nod to Missouri's state nickname here, although the only lyrics in the whole song are the appropriately screamed "You show me yours! And I'll show you mine!" There is a spoken word section over what I can only describe as "the mosh part," and it has a little Minor Threat reference that makes me chuckle, but I won't ruin it for you.
• Minnesota: My long-time friend Phillip recently moved from Nashville to Minnesota to work with another photographer. I've talked to him a few times since his move, and his primary impression of Minnesota is that it's cold there. So I wrote "Phillip in Minnesota" as a song about his adjustment to the new climate.
• Kansas: "We Are Not in Kansas Anymore" is a love song about stargazing. I actually promised someone that I'd write a balls out love song for this album. Perhaps it borders on cheesy, but it's certainly the least cynical or black love song I've written to date. Once my dad told me "I really like your songs, but I'd like to hear you write something that's happy." I guess this song isn't as much happy as it is overwhelmed, but it is happy, and I think that will fly with my dad. Hopefully it will also fly with its intended recipient.
• South Dakota: "They Never Finished Mt. Rushmore" describes an isolated incident during a road trip that perhaps shouldn't have taken place. It actually sounds more perverted than it really is, but I like things that are more open to interpretation than my original intention. So in that way it feels more like a successful bit of writing to me, and that always makes me happy. Totally pisses off my internal critic too, and I fucking hate that guy about three quarters of the time.

Just like the night before, my brain eventually turned to jelly, and songwriting had to stop. I shifted over to recording and programming.

I tweaked the drums for "The World Is Flat" a little bit from what I'd done the night before, and then I settled on a bass part and recorded four takes. The first take was trash, the next two are okay with a couple little fuck ups, and the last one was great, so I kept all but the first one just in case I need to cut and paste a little if I listen later and find out that the last take wasn't quite as aces as I thought.

After I finished up recording bass, I spent probably a little too much time playing lead guitar over the song (which has a scratch rhythm guitar track at the moment) to try to figure out how the lead part will go. The song will feature a good amount of lead guitar, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted, so I put the whole thing on loop and played along with it several times to let ideas take shape. Of course I couldn't actually record any of my ideas in the middle of the night, but in the end I at least figured out more or less how I want that part to go.

I started putting together the loops that are going to make up the drum part for "We Are Not in Kansas Anymore," and I programmed the simple version of the drums for "Show Me Yours."

At that point I was in need of a break. It was about 6:00 am, so I took a shower and went out to get breakfast and a frou-frou coffee drink.

Even though I will probably be working again tonight before it's technically day three, I'm gonna call this entry the end of day two and continue tomorrow from this point.