In case you missed it last night you might want to make plans to see it tonight. The moon, Jupiter and Venus will be aligned in the night sky just after sunset. I was driving last night to visit a friend with my sister. As we were cruising along we were able to see the moon in it’s crescent shape along with Jupiter and Venus. It sorta looked like they were making the shape of a triangle or rather the stems of a slingshot where the crescent moon was the pocket for the rock to be slung.
It was really quite cool. Tonight it should look more like a smilie face. Two eyes and a curved mouth. I’m sure someone will get pictures of the event, but see it with your own eyes, it’s really cool.
It’s now officially December 1st. What that means is it’s time for things like Advent Calendars. I really didn’t know much about them until last year when a good friend of mine asked me if he could use one of my songs as the background music for his video podcast. I agreed because he purchased the song and made very prominent links and credits for it in iTunes and CD Baby. You can now see it at www.grantsadventcalendar.com.
I even did a guest appearance in one episode where I played the song live.
That was 2007. Now it’s 2008 and I believe the first video or rather the first video of the opening of day one should occur today. I know there’s a couple of videos up already from Grant doing funny little commentaries on getting the calendar and even fans of his video podcast showing themselves counting down to today to watch it.
Being that it’s getting to that time of year and it’s brought up in my head that my song is getting used for such outings and that several peeps on Twitter are telling all their twitter friends to pick up my song and my Christmas albums, I’m going to start it off with the song that has become the staple of the oldest running video podcast of advent calendars – Christmas Brought Me You.
It’s kinda bizarre to be sharing what I think works about my own songs. I know I’ve done it a couple of times in the past, but here goes…
We start with a guitar riff that is pretty darn recognizable right off the bat. In fact I was told by a friend of mine that knows my music well, that when he played it for some of his friends and didn’t tell them who it was, they were able to recognize that I was the artist from that part alone. How is that for having some DNA type of musical imprint that someone could recognize a song by your playing alone? That’s pretty cool if you ask me.
Then we kick into the verse that describes a story that many of us can relate to, getting up super early on a Christmas day to find out what goodies were brought in the middle of the night. Of course this relates best to those that observe Christmas. Additionally we get the imagery of scents of hot chocolate, etc. Mmmmmm…
The chorus kicks in and we get the idea that those same feelings occur in a grown up state when you’re with someone special that you love.
The melodies in both sections are a bit more angular. Especially in the verse, it moves a bunch. Whereas the melody in the chorus has a tendency to lift and fall in a more gentle nature.
There are bits of different instruments that come in at certain sections of the song to provide a bit more interest. The outro is a play on the chorus hook being sung over the verse riff which provides a tighter tie to the song over all.
As song about Christmas it’s certainly a whole lot more edgy than most classic Christmas music. But that’s a bit of the point of the album that it hails from: Christmas future. It seems that as younger generations get older, they’ll be more inclined to accept Christmas songs that are a bit more edgy. It would be darn fantastic if this song could become a classic, but only time will tell.
Enjoy Grant’s Advent Calendar. I do think you ought to go get today’s song legally, I’ll be happy about it, you’ll be happy about it, and that’s a win win which is a great thing. Have a great day and may Santa bring you that someone special this year.