Fluent Chinese (DEMO)

This is a demo for a song I wrote a few weeks back, and it felt like the exact right kind of song for the inaugural demo installment.

What makes this is a demo, as compared to a full-fledged track, mix, song, (or whatever insider, gake-keepy lingo you want to throw on there,) is the intent and imperfection. I didn’t record this to a click track (metronome), or mix it, or even worry about getting the best takes I could because I only had a few hours throughout this whole week to get this to place that I felt okay about showing it to people.

So, the rawness is there. There are moments where my singing is off key, my timing gets off, I cack some notes. It’s raw, but I like it!

It’s also the first folky song I’ve written in ages. Before Silhouette, all I wanted to be was an indie-folk singer. A couple weeks ago I had a few hours to myself, and I decided I would write an entire song, lyrics first – which is usually not my process at all.

“When you’re writing a song, what do you write first, the music or lyrics?” is a trite and tired question that usually gets asked by people who have never written a song before. I always sort of roll my eyes at this question because the answer changes on every song. It’s never the same for me, and I think most songwriters would give a similar answer.

It’s very relevant with this song, however, because I went in knowing lyrics were coming first, and as a result, I think they’re some of my most “out there” lyrics, for lack of a better word.

I heard MJ Lenderman say in an interview that when a lyric makes him laugh, he knows it’s usually a pretty good one, and I cracked myself up with a few phrases on this song. He’s been a huge inspiration of mine lately, mostly as a lyricist. I guess this is because when I listen to him, it seems like he’s just writing about whatever the hell he wants.

There’s one track on Boat Songs that’s all about his conspiracy that Michael Jordan’s iconic “flu game” was bullshit, and he was just hungover the whole time. Another song on the album begins with, “my Daddy saw Dan Marino in a Harris Teeter in South Carolina,” and the whole thing is just about his Dad seeing Dan Marino and thinking about how Tom Brady has replaced him as the stand-in for the “great NFL quarterback.” It’s super silly, but there’s depth there if you look for it.

So although I wasn’t directly inspired by Lenderman’s sound in this song, his sensibilities were definitely in the back of my head when writing this.

I recorded all of this in my apartment onto my Focusrite into logic. (that’s a lot of prepositions wow). I recorded the vocals and guitar at the same time, no click, hence the timing mistakes. I added bass, banjo, background vocals, and (per Olivia’s request) slide guitar.

Listening to this makes me giggle, it’s silly, and I like it.