One is the loneliest

Ever find yourself doing things by yourself? Are you happy doing them? Do you avoid doing things if there is no one to join you? Are you comfortable in your own skin?

I wonder if I’m strange sometimes. I’m fully capable of going to see a movie or eating dinner in a restaurant by myself. I’m not self conscious about it, however, I do often wonder what it’s like for other people. I think the reason why I don’t think much about it is because I was taught to make sure I could entertain myself. I know it’s a good thing to be able to keep yourself occupied. The odd thing is that much of the social fabric of our society can make it seem weird to be happy with yourself. Am I wrong?

Don’t get me wrong it’s fun to have friends around too. In fact it’s rather difficult to play games like poker, or scrabble by yourself. I’m not into playing solitaire. Usually when I leave myself to my own devices I’ll pick up my guitar, or read a book. At this point I even explore the music of others for this blog.

It’s not often you hear a cover version of a song and think, wow, you know that version stands on it’s own and is every bit as good as the original version. Today’s song is just such a song. One was obviously written by The Beatles. Here’s a slightly more modern take by Aimee Mann and the chops of Jon Brion. Have I ever mentioned Jon Brion here before? Hold on, I have to go check…

Oh my, yes I have. Here’s a link to the post: Joining a Fan Club. I guess I don’t really need to repeat myself if you read down a few paragraphs you’ll see what I mean.

In addition to Jon, it’s well known that various artists would get up with Jon during his set and jam with him. Either on songs you’d know or they’d make stuff up right then and there. Aimee Mann and Jack Black are some of the names that come to mind immediately. I will say that I have been fortunate enough to have jammed with Jon myself. Well, it goes like this… One night while there Jon asked for people to come up to play. A chance to play with him is too cool, so I jumped on it. He put me on piano. Mind you, at the time, I didn’t know much about piano, I was strictly a guitarist. I mentioned it to him (weird to admit something like that to Jon, he shreds on every instrument), so he tells me which keys I need to stick to while we’re playing.

He counts of the song and away we go. Another cat was on Chamberlin, a big piano like instrument that plays tape loops on each key. Kinda like an early synth with pre-recorded sounds. Me on piano, a drummer, a bassist and Jon on guitar and vocals. At one point he calls to the Chamberlin guy to play a solo. He shakes his head and refuses, he wasn’t a keyboard player either. The Jon says, piano solo. I think about it for a second and say to myself why not? So I start bashing away on the keys more than the simple melody I was doing. I start to really get into it and I pound on the keys, and figure it would be funny to use my elbows and forearms too. So I did. It must have sounded awful, but I was being so animated and goofy that the audience was screaming and yelling for more until Jon moved on to a drum solo, guitar solo, etc… I went back to just the notes he asked for at the beginning.

What was cool to me was how those few notes he had me playing sounded great over every part of the song he had. It was brilliant. I’m sure the piano solo was a mess, but at least I made it as fun as I could and everyone really seemed not to care. It was a musical experience I won’t forget.

Getting back to this song. I bow down to Jon and his musical skills. I would love to have his abilities. While I can now play piano a bit better, I really don’t shred on it, not like I can on a guitar or even sing. Jon is so adept at music that it’s frightening. Thus it’s not surprising that this version of One is so cool. There are lot of cool little production tricks. It does have some very Beatle-y / George Martin-y things going on in the mix. If you listen closely in the song there’s a point where you’ll likely hear some Chamberlin. I’m also hearing some backwards guitars. Lots of little tricks to make this song and exploration of painting with sound. You can’t beat that.

Don’t have this song with Aimee singing? Why? Stop now, go get it. You need to experience Jon and Aimee.

(** Disclaimer: If Michael’s people decide to make me lonely in a cell, I’ll have to kick the audio to the curb and be happy with only the text. The post will remain to show that I can entertain myself. **)