In an effort to celebrate the official launch of djphillips.com, challenge my songwriting/ recording abilities and to take my own swipe at a 30 Day Project I will now post a new song idea every day for the next 30 days. These are not necessarily finished products. They are not necessarily fantastic pop nuggets. But they will be new ideas (written at least within the last few weeks). They will be (pretty much) on time. And they will be original.

Along with each posted song, I'll include a little story of the writing and recording process. If you're the kind of person who doesn't like to know what's behind a song, feel free to skip all the content below the track.

I'm putting these out there-- warts and all-- so let me know what you think! The songs that get a good response will be the most likely to be included on a future release.

Down

I've been getting really into this live Donny Hathaway record the last few months. I looked him up because I didn't remember much about him and I became fascinated with his story. To put it succinctly he suffered from intense bouts of depression, became a paranoid schizophrenic and eventually killed himself. Check out this documentary for a way better synopsis.

I've had the chorus idea for "Down" for a long time but I could never come up with a satisfactory verse. It wasn't until I thought about it in conjunction with the Donny Hathaway story that it really clicked with me. Donny said at one point that he wanted to die just to get relief from the voices in his head and eventually he killed himself to try and do exactly that. So, this song is basically singing from that perspective. The second verse is about how during one of his last recording sessions, he claimed that white people had hooked up his brain to a machine and were trying to steal his music.

I can't claim to have Hathaway-level funk in me, but I tried to keep it as funky as I could and it was fun to do. I used several drum loops but tried to keep the drums with a real live feel. The bass part is once again me on my baritone-- this time trying a little slapping. Eek.

I had a blast with the guitar solo and it's probably my favorite part of the song. I also "played" the clavinet and organ parts by laying them down a couple of notes at a time with the MIDI controller. With the clav part in the 2nd verse, solo and outro I put down a simple three-note lick then added delay to make it sound twice is fast. I then added a second delayed clav part and then pushed it back so that it came in an eight note later. So what started as me using my very very rudimentary keyboard skills for a simple part turned into something that sounds much faster, rhythmic and hopefully cool.

Down

I hear voices in my head And I don't know what they want from me I hear voices in my head I just wish that they would let me sleep

Just make it stop I just wish that you could see Make it stop That I would die to free

I've been down I've been all but underground I've been down I've been gagged and tied and bound It's all over but the shouting So dim the lights and kill the sound Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now I've been down

I've got people in my dreams They've got me strapped down into this machine I've got these people in my dreams And they're stealing every word that I sing

Just make it stop I just wish that you could see Make it stop That I would die to free

I've been down I've been all but underground I've been down I've been gagged and tied and bound It's all over but the shouting So dim the lights and kill the sound Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now I've been down

Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now

I've been down I've been all but underground I've been down I've been gagged and tied and bound It's all over but the shouting So dim the lights and kill the sound Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now Goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now, goodbye now I've been down

I've been down I'm getting down I've been down