The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Good job Generic

Congratz Jon.

irwin wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:31 pm

seemanski wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:01 pm

I'll definitely be showing up next year.

Hey no need to wait a year! Show up for the main fight!

Fully intend to, but for now Last of Us Part 2 is calling.

crumpart wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 02, 2020 2:11 am

Video

This is great! I mentioned this elsewhere, but I just want to say this is my favorite song of yours. It’s beautiful, with a good momentum and a lovely swell, and the way you incorporate the photo’s back story into words is really well done. Thank you!

Aww, thanks Cybronica!

http://podcast.songlander.com/?name=202 ... t_dawn.mp3 Make sure to listen for the outtakes at the end!


Congratulations, Jon Eric! Welcome back. Stick around. Keep doing what you’re doing!!

Thank you contestants! It is a delight to see the return acts, the old-returning acts, and especially the new acts. It’s like a beautiful, enigmatic renuion every year. And each of you has your own special sound. Truly, the salt of the earth, adding flavor to this contest. I love hearing you all evolve.

Thank you judges! You sacrificed your fun for the game. You put an above-average amount of thought and effort into judging and doing things your own way, and it showed. When you challenge the status quo, you inevitably get blowback, especially with everyone stressed out with current events. The game needs judges and anyone could have judged, but you did, even with the knowledge of the drama of previous years.

Thank you finalists from last year! It’s so refreshing that you contributed back. I hope you’ve started a new trend... (HINT HINT JON ERIC AND CAVEDWELLERS)

Thank you shadowers! You finally got me doing shadows. Although, my gosh, it’s a huge extra amount of podcast work!

Thank you Niveous! You’ve organized this for 15 years, holy cow! How many people can say they’ve done something for 15 years consistently? And you gave me the opportunity to be a part of the machinery. Wait, why isn’t it 16 years? Why didn’t Nur Ein start at 0???

Thank you Boffo! The listening party is a cherished tradition.

Thank you Ben and Abigail! Good podcast dynamics!

Thank you podcast listeners! I don’t really know what it’s like to be on the receiving end and I often worry about it. I only make it out of love, and I hope that is apparent.

Thank you close friends whom I connect with mostly once a year during this time.


I am declaring my independence from Nur Ein XV!!!! Now, I am going to try to reassemble my life after this yearly two month tornado.

grumpymike wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:26 pm

http://podcast.songlander.com/?name=202 ... t_dawn.mp3 Make sure to listen for the outtakes at the end!

I haven’t got to the end yet, but thanks for the podcast. Just wanted to clarify the use of ‘bloody’ and ‘fucking’. One would never say “bloodying up your shit”. It doesn’t work in context. It’s more like “Bloody hell, you don’t know Bolero? Sometimes I forget not everyone listens to classical music. Here’s a cracking ballet version. There’s a few fucked up notes from the orchestra, but the dancing is bloody good.”

Mike: "We know who won..."
Jon: "I wonder if this was recorded after the first announcement or the second."
Mike: "Niveous just rescinded it so people can still vote if they haven't!"

I enjoyed that too, excellent dramatic podcast-recording-session scheduling!

Thanks for consistently covering the shadows too. My "oohs" were way off but apparently my voice had had enough and I was stuck with them, let this be a lesson not to record all of your vocals on the final day!

Okay, I've finished listening to the whole episode. Here are some responses to the things that Mike, Ben, and Abigail said.

Ben, don't feel like you let me down by publishing last week's episode too late. There is no universe in which I would have used Dawn as a proper name in the final round. I noticed that it was a possible interpretation, predicted (correctly!) that some shadow entries would do it... But I never even considered taking that approach myself. Couldn't bring myself to do it.

Abigail: "If you had asked me to predict the top two after listening to all the 'This is Fine' songs, Jon Eric would not have been one of my predictions." HARD SAME.

There is no ukulele in my song. Crazy, right? It sounds like ukulele should go in there! I sat down to record a uke part at one point, but couldn't fit it around the existing arrangement (the banjo took its place). I'm pretty sure the instrument you identified as the ukulele was actually my mandolin.

The comparison to Train's "Hey Soul Sister" was apt. It was one of a small handful of upbeat indie-folk songs I'd had in mind when doing my arrangement. (I bet you can guess at the other two without burning through too many wrong guesses.) I'll hastily point out, however, that I was doing the upbeat-vaguely-swingy-indie-folk thing before Train turned in that direction and made that type of sound inescapable.

You and a couple of reviewers pointed out the juxtaposition of the serious, personal lyrics against the upbeat sonic texture of the song. I get that it's not for everyone, and I did consider it a bit of calculated risk as I was writing my song, but I think of that as "a feature, not a bug" when it comes to my music. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on it. It made a lot of sense to me this round, to work in my "genre comfort zone" to focus my energy on polishing the piece as much as I possibly could, as opposed to "Homestretch," where I spent half the week basically teaching myself how to do synthpop. It's strange to me that some of the listeners and judges actually didn't have the context of what my music used to sound like most of the time, but that was also part of the risk, I suppose.

(For a much less-polished version of Jon Eric singing in a similar genre to this, here are some quick hits: "Back From Juvie," Song Fight 2008; "Schadenfreude," Nur Ein 2009; "Rhymes with Lucia," Song Fight 2006, reworked for an album in 2009; "Surrender (Peace)," album track from 2009).

It's been a great year, and listening to The New Ugly each time a new episode was published was definitely a highlight of the whole thing. Please let me know if you'd like me to be a guest on next year's podcast! And any of you will be welcome to be a guest on my podcast if you'd like. (Mike, in particular, I'd love to chat about a Cake album with you.)

grumpymike wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:26 pm

[Why didn’t Nur Ein start at 0???

One day we'll have a special secret Nur Ein. It will happen in the fall of ????. It will be Nur Ein Zero, the lost episode. The facts of what happened during that Nur Ein will be kept a well guarded secret. All the recordings will be placed on a single flash drive, locked in golden case and hidden in the floor boards of a house whose location can only be figured out through a DaVinci code style puzzle built into the cover art.

Niveous wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:35 pm

All the recordings will be placed on a single flash drive, locked in golden case and hidden in the floor boards of a house whose location can only be figured out through a DaVinci code style puzzle built into the cover art.

As long as Martin Shkreli doesn't end up with it, sounds great!

Finally, I know really late, sorry got around to listening to your podcast. FYI, Grumpy Mike you are right and my name is Mike Szymanski, I am really lazy when coming up with aliases.

Thanks for your constructive critism as always.

In the immortal words of Peelander-Z, there are so many Mike.

(I am also Mike)