Stories of Songfight History

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 3:52 pm

GlennCase wrote:That's hilarious! Drew is at least partially responsible (or connected to) entries that I gave ratings of 3, 4, 6, and 10... in a single fight.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I am always up for hearing stories of songfight history. With music in general, the stories behind music tend to make me enjoy the entries more.

ROCK!

Glenn (DR FUNK)

Take a moment to recount a story of songfight history, where "songfight history" means "any fight that is over" and "story" means "anything you want to tell about the song making process for a particular song".

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 4:46 pm

I spent something like 20 full hours on my first songfight entry. I mean, 3 to 4 hours a day to come up with that first crappy song. I won after emailing all of my friends and everybody in the office.

I Can See You

It was about a hidden voyeuristic camera. It was like FATE to me that such a song title would appear just one and a half weeks after I discovered the site. As my job experience is centered on such a topic and was inspiration for that first song. Red Robot was a bit of a stretch, but I kept it dirty.

Kapitano · Post by **Kapitano** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:30 pm

Most of my songs begin as a small technical challenge. For Goodbye Monster it was 'figure out how to use this vocoder software', for Elvis in Space it was 'try to sing', and for Jimmy Hat it was 'make a song by cutting up a text'.

These are pencilled in for the future:
*Play an accoustic guitar
*Write something in locrian mode
*Use domestic objects for percussion
*Use only plucked strings
*Play the backing backwards

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:45 pm

I did the music for the Ulysses song "Adam and Steve". I wanted all the samples to relate to gayness in some way, so the songs I used for that track are: "Rain on my Parade" by Barbara Streisand, "Careless Whisper" by George Michael, The Flintstones Theme*, "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye, "Somebody to Love" by Queen, "Sweet Transvestite" from RHPS, and "Cherry Bomb" by John Mellencamp (which I originally DLed because I thought it was the Runaways' "Cherry Bomb", but then it ended up having a nice snare hit in the beginning).

*We'll have a gay old time.

GlennCase · Post by **GlennCase** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:44 pm

This is GREAT, Erik!

I am glad that you made this topic. I just can't think of anything to add to it at the moment. Maybe later...

ROCK!

Glenn (DR FUNK)

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 1:02 pm

Hopefully, this thread can also include the stories behind the lyrics...

My "Put Cindy Back on the Bus" was written while my brothers and I were trying to figure out how to convince my mom that it was time to give up driving, particularly after my sister-in-law rode somewhere with her and swore "never again." A lot of the details were fudged here and there to make a better lyric, but we did actually check with the DMV about her license (which expires in December '05).

The first verse of the song is from the kids' perspective; the second verse is from the mom's perspective, and it was important to me to include that, too... it's one thing if the family visits every couple days and can give rides; it's another when the family is as busy as everybody seems to be these days and "giving up the car" means "not going anywhere..."

Anyway, a few weeks back, we got the following from my brother:

Got a call from our Mom this afternoon, and she told me that yesterday, she ended up turning into the wrong direction of traffic on a divided road, Redwood Road, I think. She got out of that, somehow, and was stopped by some branch of the police. After a long discussion with what must have been a very patient, kind officer, she was followed home by him. He observed her driving, and spoke with her some more. He did not cite her. No accident.

In speaking to me, she stated that she's now ready to give up driving, and that she's not that sad about it. That she knew the day would come...

Turns out she's "working on giving up driving," hasn't gotten out of the business 100%, but we're also looking at options for her to move close to one of the brothers so that he can visit more regularly...

Life goes on, keep writing songs about it...

Charles (Art is my middle name!)

jack · Post by **jack** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 1:06 pm

so charles, did she ever get that shiny red coupe de ville? just curious

(btw...i NEVER get sick of listening to a-bomb's cover of this song)

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 7:54 pm

Nah, that was part of the fudging of details in order to make a better song. "Hayward" was real, though, so if you're ever coming in on 580 and you see a blue '84 Ford Tempo holding up traffic in the slow lane... be nice, okay???

Charles

j$ · Post by j$ » Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:38 am

History is bunk.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 9:04 am

j$ wrote:History is bunk.

Once this community had a guy named Johnny Cashpoint in it. It was rough times...but yet...oddly exciting times.

j$ · Post by j$ » Wed Dec 08, 2004 9:06 am

Hoblit wrote:
j$ wrote:History is bunk.
Once this community had a guy named Johnny Cashpoint in it. It was rough times...but yet...oddly exciting times.

Yeah, whatever happened to that guy?

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 9:26 am

4th fight in as redcar, 1 month after I showed up here with tonetripper, and the title Blueberry Hassle came up.

At this point, we had received no love from da man, Blue. (Who is a pretty cool dude, and who I actually miss around here...) He ripped us apart all the time (probably deservingly so..), and being new to SF, I personally felt pretty pissed at him around then. So I became a super-sneaky wimp and recorded a vocal track all about what I thought of him at the time, reversed it, and put it in the song.

So if anyone spins that record backwards, it ain't the devil talkin.....

I know..pretty sad. But did I ever feel clever at the time.

Small things and all that....

Great thread!

Post by **Spud** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 1:07 pm

The beeps that you hear in the background of our "Red Robot" is the lyrics in Morse Code.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 1:21 pm

j$ wrote:
Hoblit wrote:
j$ wrote:History is bunk.
Once this community had a guy named Johnny Cashpoint in it. It was rough times...but yet...oddly exciting times.
Yeah, whatever happened to that guy?

He pulled a prince and changed his name to a symbol

Or was it a puff daddy / p-diddy thing... you can never tell with these things.

Bolio · Post by **Bolio** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:46 pm

Cool Thread! Could ramble forever about my SF entries but maybe just some comments for now:

Deuce - Yes my mom dressed up like Gene Simmons Halloween 1977 & yes, it does explain a lot about what I'm like now.

Blueberry Hassle - Almost quit making music after getting feedback on this. But the reviews went from making me feel bad to being the best thing that ever happened to me.

Rabies - Can't believe someone actually thought those were horn samples. I don't miss 'Joshy Blue' reviews one bit.

Spirit World - After hearing this, would you believe I don't drink?(much.) Still don't miss 'Joshy Blue' reviews.

A Very Unlikely Occurence - I listened to this song about 100 times after I finished it, all night long, thinking it was sooo cool. Now I realize I must have been on something really potent. Tongue-in-cheek song about this awesome chic I work with.

Let it Be - A song about my Sister's pending divorce. By far the best reviews I've gotten have been for this. That's real emotion in this one. Finding real-life influence makes the song that much better.

jack · Post by **jack** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 5:11 pm

i'm bored with work so i'll bite.......

A Story About My Very First Songfight!
by jack shite

I found out about songfight by accident, through a posting on craigslist that i found out later had been posted by Blue. e money and i have been playing guitar and writing songs together for about 10 years now, and when we both lived in san francisco's western addition, we lived on the same street, literally about 10 flats apart. so it was on one of these random evenings of hanging out that i suggested we do a songfight. the title was shreds, and we didn't have a clue as to how to approach it. i had been doing a bit of recording, almost entirely on a tascam 488 portastudio, and was pretty digitally ignorant to pro tools. but i had just gotten an mbox and was hell bent on learning it. so the only thing we could seem to come up with was shredding lettuce. i had the idea of doing something reggae, like a takeoff on Bob Marley's "natty dread". we used to always go to this subshop on divisadero and haight, the legendary (at least in our minds) King Foot Subs. our favorite sub of all time was the beef teriyaki sub, which was their sort of specialty. so somehow in a fit of inspiration, we made this connection, this blatent motif between "natty dread", King Foot Subs, and shredded lettuce. and while e money banged out most of the lyrics, i futzed with setting up the studio. almost the whole song was done in one take per track. we recorded the bass and acoustic together. everything else was added to that, including harmony kazoos for the intro (spoofing the marley horns intro). and i mixed it, one of my first all digital mixes. i listen to it now and i cringe at the mix, the clicks i left in, etc.

we were so proud of it, that we told all our family and friends. and it won, in a songfight with some great tunes in it. there were arguably better songs in the fight but we think ours is pretty good too. and if you're ever on haight and divisadero, stop by king foot subs and tell them brody sent you!

c hack · Post by **c hack** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 5:32 pm

Spud wrote:The beeps that you hear in the background of our "Red Robot" is the lyrics in Morse Code.

That is so cool.

j$ · Post by j$ » Wed Dec 08, 2004 5:35 pm

Hoblit wrote:
j$ wrote:
Hoblit wrote: Once this community had a guy named Johnny Cashpoint in it. It was rough times...but yet...oddly exciting times.
Yeah, whatever happened to that guy?
He pulled a prince ...

That is just a vicious rumour. the video footage is hardly conclusive. (an old Johnny Cashpoint favourite for you

)

PipeFist · Post by **PipeFist** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:33 pm

Man, this site is so great. I think my girlfriend showed it to me back when you guys did Red Robot, and I always meant to do a songfight, and even started writing a couple, but for some reason I just never got that into doing it. That is, until a friend of mine showed me the winning track from left/right, and I thought I'd pop in and see what was up, and then started writing Red Skates. At first I was going to do a love song, but thought, "Nah, too obvious. I know! Serial Killer!" So, there you have it. It's too bad that song didn't come out better, because I had grand visions for it.

Poor June · Post by **Poor June** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 7:13 pm

lets see upcoming downtime the lyrics were about me moving away... which is something i had every intention of doing... and did do.. a few weeks after that...
when i came back home for visiting... i wrote sincerety machine... about the same situation...

a lot of my songs seem to be based in my own reality... except a few here and there...
and tend to be about real things... and real stuff goin' on with me... half of them are more like journal entries then anything else...

well sept for a few of course haha

*edit* oh and lavender splendor was a cool one... well with lyrics not really production or anything else haha... but... the week before i took an ora quiz or what not... and found out that my color is lavender haha... so... that song was all about my ora(sp) i know i'm spelling that wrong

j$ · Post by j$ » Mon Dec 13, 2004 10:12 pm

History is still bunk, only faster now.

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:14 am

j$ wrote:History is still bunk, only faster now.

Yeah no kidding! When I was a kid ...(uh oh, using history to bitch about history...) history was like, the "olden days"...now it's time to revive the 90's already..... I do like the songfight stories though... I jsut agree on the whole accellereatedatdafreterfds ...damn it if, you can't spell it, just overspell it.

someone say something?