'Til We Wake Up in Brooklyn - a comparison between drunk lyric writing vs sober lyric writing

For your consideration this Sunday we have a song written several years ago (Sunday, June 25th 2006 if you care) and posted on my then blog "Tomorrow's History Today". Basically, that night I been sitting around on the web, had a few drinks of my favorite Czech liqueur, and had downloaded (legally) a copy of Okkervil River's "Don't Fall In Love with Everyone You See". After downloading I listened to approximately the first 15 seconds of the first song before deciding that was a nice chord progression and I should just write my own song. I didn't want to get corrupted by listening to the rest of their song so I turned Okkervil River off and continued to write and drink, drink and write, until I cranked out this little ditty. Here's some of the original blog post from that night-

As I write this I have actually yet to finish the song, but have continued the Becherovka drinking unabated. If you'd like to follow along with this blog entry authentically, go have a few drinks and come back in a few hours. Actually, to be more authentic, have a few drinks, then read the first part again, then have some more drinks. Play some guitar. Have some more drinks. Write some lyrics, cross out lyrics. Have some more drinks. Decide you need harmonica on the song. Change key of song to fit key of harmonica you have. Have some more drinks. Try to learn how to play harmonica. Have another drink why don't you?

The end result of which was this-

This turned out a good deal better than I expected it would given I had had quite a few shots by the end of the evening and it was the first time I had written and recorded a song in one sitting while drunk. (I realize this admission compromises my rock 'n' roll credentials.) In general, while the song was alright, I felt it had a few problems.

1) Though a passible performance, some slurred words.
2) I totally don't know how to play harmonica.
3) Good God, what maudlin lyrics!

Everything could be dealt with by just rerecording except of course changing the lyrics. I tried rewriting them in the next few days, but I just wasn't getting it so it sat on the backburner for a few years until I decided to record this new album, which is all songs written (or at least started) during the Bush administration. This seemed like a good one to finish and I went through a few months of trying to change the lyrics, which also wasn't working out too well. So finally last week I hit on some lyrics that I liked (except for one line, can you guess which one?) Anyway, here's a demo with the new lyrics.

As you can see, a couple lines stayed intact, some lyric ideas crossed over from version one to version two, and the general feel of the song, sans annoying self-pity, stuck around. The new one is less about me me me and more about charting a dreamstate relationship with the borough (and, apparently, some romance*) as kind of a metaphor for the real estate bubble (though, interestingly, the line about buying all the brownstones was written in the initial rewrite in the week after the post, well before I knew we had a real estate bubble). Yeah, sure, there's a few me me me moments in there still, but at least more entertaining and/or hidden.

But yeah, I'll probably embark on recording this for real for the album in the next week. I guess it'll be guitar, bass, drums, and, if I can find someone who plays, harmonica, or maybe pedal steel for the lead, unless anyone out there has better ideas.

cheers,
dave

* Here's something I never realized before, which gives you an idea of how many love songs I've written, but not many words rhyme with "love". For straight rhymes you basically have "of", "above", "shove", "dove" and "glove" as far as I can tell (though you could add .gov in there somewhere I guess.) I opted for the half rhyme of "up"