 01)
Just Friends 4:51
02) Creative Drought 5:13
03) The Girl On-Line (Carolyn) 3:23
04) Sweet Dara 3:12
05) Edge Of The World 4:23
06) Cheryl 3:04
07) Diversion 2:54
08) Hum A Few Bars (And Fake It) 4:28
09) This Song (Is Not About Julie) 3:49
10) Voice 2:53
11) Oh, Reilly (Memories of Vegas) 4:14
12) theme to Shoot The Aliens 1:03
13) excerpt from Lonesome Embrace 2:09
14) Just Friends: Reprise & Finale 4:49
15) Yes, Officer, That’s My Girlfriend 2:22
This was the culmination of the
beginnings of my home-recording career. It wasn’t the first
collection of my songs to be called an album, but it remains my
official first album for a few reasons. Mainly, it was because
it was the first to be available for purchase, had full artwork, and
at least the semblance of structure. Nine songs from SHW
were originally on Cognitive Autostimulation (the
first of its name), an album currently possessed by no more than
five people. It showcased my very first home-recording
attempts of songs that were relatively new at the time. Those
same recordings are the ones on Still Haven’t Walked
as it currently exists. These were, by far, not my first
actual songs, however. I’d been writing songs for at least
five years prior and my “style” had started kicking in, insofar
as finding what’s easy to do over and over again and then
proceeding to do that over and over again is one’s “style.”
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There could be an awful lot to say
about these songs if I gave it the time. Since this was my
first real album, I put what I thought was my best, most meaningful,
most noteworthy songs on it. So each one has a story.
But I’ll try to edit for brevity as I proceed.
Just Friends was my
first really good song, as people told me. It marked my
confidence as a songwriter. This recording was not
particularly impressive, but who cares? This girl I went out
on a date with decided to wait until the end of the date to tell me
that she was already seeing someone, wanted just to be friends with
me, and didn’t think it would be fine to “park.” This
made me slightly bitter, and the opening lines to this song were
written that night when I couldn’t get to sleep.
Dara was a girl I worked with at my
first job and she was a few years younger than I was (and probably
still is), but she wasn’t quite, uh … old enough. Sweet
Dara has fun pointing out just exactly how seventeen she
was.
Cheryl is an early
recording of my song F*** Me, Cheryl which appears
later on Proceed Without Caffeine UNCUT!. Since
this was an instrumental, though, it wasn’t necessary at all to
leave the profanity in there. This recording was my first
attempt to mimic Boston.
This Song (Is Not About Julie)
is actually about Julie. But I wasn’t the one with the
“thing” for Julie. My friend Rich was the one with the
“thing” for Julie. But he didn’t want to write any more
songs about his “thing” for Julie. So I, on his behalf,
wrote a song about a “thing” for Julie, without it having to be his
“thing” for Julie, nor my “thing” for Julie.
And to avoid confusion on the matter, this song was titled in a
clever way so as to divert suspicion that this song could possibly
be about Julie. Are we all clear now? This song became
one of my favorites, when I didn’t actually think much of it when
I recorded it. I think it is a very strong song.
Voice is a good song,
written from a set of lyrics that had already existed for four of
five years at the time. The music was written in such a way
that it really works on just one guitar, and I wish I could write
more songs like this one. It remains to be a favorite.
Reilly was a girl I met in Las Vegas,
Nevada on St. Patrick’s day. There’s really a whole story
there that would exceed the length of the stories of all the rest of
these songs, combined. The lyrics to Oh Reilly (Memories
of Vegas) really tell much of it, so I’ll leave it said
here that I really liked Reilly. I’m positive she liked me
in the same way. A misunderstanding (or perhaps just my
idiocy) prevented anything from happening, and I’ll never see her
again.
The theme to “Shoot The
Aliens” is a cheesy piece of music I composed for a dumb,
little game I programmed on my TI-82 scientific calculator.
No, the calculator has no sound, but that didn’t stop me from
writing the theme. Since the Texas Instruments people made
scientific calculators that could link up and swap programs amongst
themselves, my whole Calculus class awaited the days that I made my
new games available. It gave them excuses for not paying
attention in Mr. Luscher’s class. But since I had 102% in
his class already, I used the time to design and program the games,
instead of playing them, which I never did anyway. “Shoot
The Aliens” was a Galaga rip-off, and not nearly as cool. I
went on to do “Shoot The Aliens 2: The Text Adventure” which was
very Douglas Adams inspired, and I wish I still had it.
“Shoot The Aliens 3: The Flight Simulator” was actually a
graphic flight simulator that simulated your location and speed in a
3-D space and compared it to the location and speed of the enemy,
and when close enough, you could fire. The problem I ran into
was how to convert those numbers (which were accurate) into graphic
lines and dots. A lot of it was fudged, but it worked. I
still have this one! After high school was out and I entered
college I did “Shoot The Aliens ’97”, which was strikingly
similar to Missile Command, but with one base, and you had to turn
the turret the laser was mounted on to aim at the randomly flying
aliens which killed people to the tenth. (eg. “Civilians Not Dead
Yet: 283.5”) Good stuff.
As a composition major in college, I
had to compose things. (I know, who would have
thought!?!) A piano/flute piece I wrote was performed to a
crowd and the recording was okay, even if the performance wasn’t
flawless. It is for that reason that I only give you an excerpt
from Lonesome Embrace to hear. Yes, if you listen
closely, that is the first occurrence of the Just Friends
theme in any of my works. I use that figure a lot. My
thanks to Ellen Golden (piano) and Jennifer Michaelson (flute) for
their performances, otherwise I wouldn’t have a recording of this
piece at all.
Ah, yes, college was a fun
time. My friend Kombiz and I spent one evening in the library
trying to make each other crack up by writing increasingly-humorous
titles to possible Morrissey songs. If I recall, some of them
were “I Was Happy Until She Took Off Her Clothes,” “I Held A
Gun To Your Head And Now You’re My Girl,” and the one that would
eventually become a song, Yes, Officer, That’s My Girlfriend.
For some strange reason, that last title made us laugh quite a
bit. Perhaps because of the ambiguity behind what the speaker
could possibly be referring to. As I recall, the full title
was “Dead In A Traffic Wreck (Yes, Officer, That’s My
Girlfriend)”, which limits the ambiguity, but increases the humor
by adding the morbidity. When I, as a joke, turned this title
into an actual song, I added the twist behind the accident that
apparently happened. Keeping it subtly ambiguous is part of
the charm, I believe.
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©2003 Brian Michael
Weidemann