When my old record producer presented this challenge to me, I was immediately intrigued and began brainstorming right away. Since I wanted to wait 'til after the holidays to start, I was forced not to put anything on paper just yet because I wanted the process to be as natural as possible. But with 12 songs, I wanted to have a theme and the wife suggested the months - 12 songs, 12 months, write about the months. Beautiful.
I then thought back to a Paul Simon interview where he said that when he's writing songs to construct an album, he likes to write songs in corresponding keys to the Circle of Fifths (musical terminology for you non-musicians). For instance, if he's just finished a song in E, he'll want to write the next one in B or G# minor, and so on and so forth, because through the course of an album (for those of us that still listen to ALBUMS), it's harmonically pleasing to the ear. So since there are 12 key signatures, I thought I'd do the same thing. Wonderful.
For the third element of these 12 songs, I wanted to lyrically tie them together. I was going to make it sort of one long storyline, but because I hadn't written anything down or outlined any sort of story, I abandoned that idea. Instead, all the songs are, in one way or another, about New York City - my adopted home of the past 3-plus years. And New York has so many things to write about. Perfect.
And now I'm done. Here are the (working) titles to the songs I wrote ... can't wait to share them with you:
(In the order of the months, January through December):
- Cruise Control
- Avalanche
- On the Cusp of Something Great
- Dear Aphrodite
- May I
- Father's Day
- Hot Outside
- No One's Gonna Save You with the World in Your Hands
- Barely Contemporary
- Halloween
- Newfound Fears
- Grateful
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