My first solo record was a concept album circling the life of Judas Iscariot. Why? Because that was the record inside me at the time. Hardly a crowd-pleaser, but it was what I needed to make and I was glad get it out. Betrayal, murder, suicide. (Sing along, everybody!)
I was self conscious about it. Still am. At one show on that first tour I was singing a song from the eighth century from the perspective of a sex worker in a room full of men, complete with a drone in a minor key, and heard someone say "Sounds like a fuckin' seance." Maybe it was.
Fear is contagious, you know.
I backed right away from those songs, tried to bring some light back into the room. On the last show of the tour, somebody spoke up between the songs.
"Play us something you're really proud of, Dan."
And I've been doing that ever since.
I was self conscious about it. Still am. At one show on that first tour I was singing a song from the eighth century from the perspective of a sex worker in a room full of men, complete with a drone in a minor key, and heard someone say "Sounds like a fuckin' seance." Maybe it was.
Fear is contagious, you know.
I backed right away from those songs, tried to bring some light back into the room. On the last show of the tour, somebody spoke up between the songs.
"Play us something you're really proud of, Dan."
And I've been doing that ever since.
I've been thinking about family trees lately. I'm in my 30s. It's a thing, you know.
My elder Songbrother, Jeff Buckley really opened my eyes to the tree thing. On Grace, you can trace his own musical lineage to include Leonard Cohen and John Cale, Nina Simone and Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin, folk music, eastern music and the myriad artists produced by Andy Wallace, including Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow and Prince.
There's literally about a hundred more in the tree, but we'll start with the first branch, Mr Cohen, who once spoke of his artistic lineage saying "you're not just talking about Randy Newman, who's fine, or Bob Dylan, who's sublime, you're talking about King David, Homer, Dante, Milton, Wordsworth. You're talking about the embodiment of our higher possibility."
The embodiment of our higher possibility. Geez. You can think about a phrase like that for the rest of your life. Maybe even write a song about it.
Just don't cover Hallelujah.
My elder Songbrother, Jeff Buckley really opened my eyes to the tree thing. On Grace, you can trace his own musical lineage to include Leonard Cohen and John Cale, Nina Simone and Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin, folk music, eastern music and the myriad artists produced by Andy Wallace, including Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow and Prince.
There's literally about a hundred more in the tree, but we'll start with the first branch, Mr Cohen, who once spoke of his artistic lineage saying "you're not just talking about Randy Newman, who's fine, or Bob Dylan, who's sublime, you're talking about King David, Homer, Dante, Milton, Wordsworth. You're talking about the embodiment of our higher possibility."
The embodiment of our higher possibility. Geez. You can think about a phrase like that for the rest of your life. Maybe even write a song about it.
Just don't cover Hallelujah.
Most performers go through a Honeymoon Phase.
It starts with you singing your compositions to the bedroom wall, just you and the echo. Then it's you and your webcam (or, in my case, a cassette dictophone). When you finally stand on a stage, the room will be filled with your friends singing your lyrics back to you. Magic. Mwah. All your dreams.
The Honeymoon Phase.
Soon enough your friends will stop religiously attending your shows (because good friends keep you honest) and the real journey begins.
In my experience, you can gain some useful insights when it's just you and the barman, and then he asks you to watch the bar so he can go have a smoke. Or when you play to a room of four strangers and sell five CDs.
It starts with you singing your compositions to the bedroom wall, just you and the echo. Then it's you and your webcam (or, in my case, a cassette dictophone). When you finally stand on a stage, the room will be filled with your friends singing your lyrics back to you. Magic. Mwah. All your dreams.
The Honeymoon Phase.
Soon enough your friends will stop religiously attending your shows (because good friends keep you honest) and the real journey begins.
In my experience, you can gain some useful insights when it's just you and the barman, and then he asks you to watch the bar so he can go have a smoke. Or when you play to a room of four strangers and sell five CDs.
In 2005 I wrote a song called You Just Don't Talk About It. I played it to my mother and she respectfully advised me against playing it again.
I revisited it in 2007. Changed the key, changed the melody. And again in 2009, not really getting anywhere. In 2011 I rewrote it as a first-person narrative. In 2013 I picked it up, edited the lyrics to be more empathic, thinned out the guitar work and tried out some falsetto.
I recorded it in 2015. It's called You Don't Say a Word.
Move slow. Make Things.
I revisited it in 2007. Changed the key, changed the melody. And again in 2009, not really getting anywhere. In 2011 I rewrote it as a first-person narrative. In 2013 I picked it up, edited the lyrics to be more empathic, thinned out the guitar work and tried out some falsetto.
I recorded it in 2015. It's called You Don't Say a Word.
Move slow. Make Things.
Hey, dead rock stars. RUOK? What's that? Self-medicating your depression? Quelling your anxiety? I see, I see.
Well, your music has certainly helped me with my own version of crazy. And we've come a long way since you were here.
Love you.
Well, your music has certainly helped me with my own version of crazy. And we've come a long way since you were here.
Love you.
It's a lonely road.
You'll meet plenty of other pilgrims making the same journey as you,
but your footsteps are still yours,
your hunger is still yours
and your voice will always be yours.
So let your feet make the beat, and sing as you go.
All these things are free.
You'll meet plenty of other pilgrims making the same journey as you,
but your footsteps are still yours,
your hunger is still yours
and your voice will always be yours.
So let your feet make the beat, and sing as you go.
All these things are free.
Hey, Daniel. Do you get nervous before you perform?
Nervous?
Yeah, like, anxious?
No. But I do write the show date on my fridge calendar and then start to mentally sculpt my life around that impending engagement. How I'll get to the show, where I'll stay, if I can bring the family. That stressful sort of mini-holiday planning.
I think about the venue, the audience, what's going on in the world and what I have to contribute to the conversation. I write new songs in my head. I dedicate half a notebook to refining that song, which may never be performed but demands to be written anyway. Thoughts of songs and setlists rattle around my mind like a handful of marbles in the car glove box.
I buy strings the week of the show, change them all over again. The day before the show, my mind checks out and rehearses all by itself. Sometimes I'll dream that I'm naked in public or that I've rocked up to work without my shoes. I get to the venue allowing enough time for my soul to meet the place, meet the people I need to know and immediately forget their names, had to the green room and walk in circles with my guitar. Don't eat. Drink water. Choose to breathe deeply. Visualise the first two songs in my set, then the final two. Rewrite my set. Question my judgement. Re-rewrite my set. Then it's five minutes and I am intensely present...
Yes. I get anxious every time. But I don't get butterflies, if that's what you mean.
Nervous?
Yeah, like, anxious?
No. But I do write the show date on my fridge calendar and then start to mentally sculpt my life around that impending engagement. How I'll get to the show, where I'll stay, if I can bring the family. That stressful sort of mini-holiday planning.
I think about the venue, the audience, what's going on in the world and what I have to contribute to the conversation. I write new songs in my head. I dedicate half a notebook to refining that song, which may never be performed but demands to be written anyway. Thoughts of songs and setlists rattle around my mind like a handful of marbles in the car glove box.
I buy strings the week of the show, change them all over again. The day before the show, my mind checks out and rehearses all by itself. Sometimes I'll dream that I'm naked in public or that I've rocked up to work without my shoes. I get to the venue allowing enough time for my soul to meet the place, meet the people I need to know and immediately forget their names, had to the green room and walk in circles with my guitar. Don't eat. Drink water. Choose to breathe deeply. Visualise the first two songs in my set, then the final two. Rewrite my set. Question my judgement. Re-rewrite my set. Then it's five minutes and I am intensely present...
Yes. I get anxious every time. But I don't get butterflies, if that's what you mean.
I remember the first time I heard Fleet Foxes' song Helplessness Blues. It was on someone else's radio and I was on a work site. I stopped what I was doing and listened.
The lyrics resonated with me and the melody was perfect top-of-the-lungs material. I was surprised to find, after the song had finished, that I had memorised the first verse. Or maybe the song did all the work for me, climbed into my soul through my ears. Either way, I carry it with me like a boombox or a memory:
I was raised up believing I was somehow unique,
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes,
Unique in each way you'd conceive
But now after some thinking I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me...
The lyrics resonated with me and the melody was perfect top-of-the-lungs material. I was surprised to find, after the song had finished, that I had memorised the first verse. Or maybe the song did all the work for me, climbed into my soul through my ears. Either way, I carry it with me like a boombox or a memory:
I was raised up believing I was somehow unique,
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes,
Unique in each way you'd conceive
But now after some thinking I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me...
A Comprehensive List of Narrators in Daniel's Recorded Songs:
Joseph, speaking to Mary
A sex worker in the middle east
Judas
A young woman in love with a travelling man
An olive tree
Jesus
An old Irish sailor
A palawa boy from Tassie's northeast
William Lanne
A ticket-of-leave man near Circular Head
A servant burned alive in Bothwell
Alison Reid of Beaumaris Zoo
The neighbour of a large family in the outer suburbs of Launceston
A little girl whose pregnant mother comes home from hospital without a baby
Kate O'Toole from ABC Darwin
A German Jewish father, fleeing his country in 1939
Joseph, speaking to Mary
A sex worker in the middle east
Judas
A young woman in love with a travelling man
An olive tree
Jesus
An old Irish sailor
A palawa boy from Tassie's northeast
William Lanne
A ticket-of-leave man near Circular Head
A servant burned alive in Bothwell
Alison Reid of Beaumaris Zoo
The neighbour of a large family in the outer suburbs of Launceston
A little girl whose pregnant mother comes home from hospital without a baby
Kate O'Toole from ABC Darwin
A German Jewish father, fleeing his country in 1939
Dear young songwriter,
This will pass. You can do it.
Your friends and family need you around. You are important and your creativity is important. You have made some really beautiful things and have so much more to create. It is better to burn brightly than to stay cold in the dark. (Just ask the sun.) And, if you've got no fire, be like the moon and reflect back what you see.
Hello, cool world.
Your friend,
Depression
This will pass. You can do it.
Your friends and family need you around. You are important and your creativity is important. You have made some really beautiful things and have so much more to create. It is better to burn brightly than to stay cold in the dark. (Just ask the sun.) And, if you've got no fire, be like the moon and reflect back what you see.
Hello, cool world.
Your friend,
Depression
