About Those 50 Songs

By Robbie on November 24, 2008

Something I hear a lot after telling people I'm working on a 50-song recording project is, "Why are you working on a 50-song recording project?" I'm tempted to quote the Austin musician who was asked some pesky and pointless question by a well-meaning listener, and after a frowning pause replied: "There are about ten different answers to that, and you're not going to like any of them." I don't think the question is exactly pointless, only that it points automatically to several other questions that are existential verging on vacuous - as "Why are you working on an 800-page novel?" begs questions like "Why are there long novels?" and "Why work?" Work, I probably don't need to tell you, fills the hours pleasantly, gives the worker a sense of solid if asymptotic progress, and perhaps earns him a kopeck, although with music you never know, do you? As to "Why the particular number fifty?" there's no rationale either common-sense or numero-mystical. It just seemed like a round number which decently defined a productive year's writing. One keeper a week is a daunting quota, but certainly not fantastic. When I was a professional songwriter, for four years in the 1990's, I managed that output and so did most of the writers around me. You might need to start ten...you just have to finish one. 

So I've finished fifty, and, disappointing to report, the job has taken closer to two years. It turned out that, along with the constant interruptions and hairpin-turns of life, there were a lot of other songs to write. Broken down by project or category, my 2007-08 season looks like this: 

"Walk Hard" movie: 7 songs (2 co-written) 

"Two Families" TV pilot: 17 songs (mostly instrumental, mostly short) 

Miscellaneous special-event assignments (my father-in-law's birthday, XM show material, school functions, and so on): roughly 12 songs 

Commercial country songs (last summer I was preparing for a job which ultimately fell through): 5 songs 

50-song project: 42 songs (I recycled 4 from the above categories and recorded 4 covers) 

That's 83 total, and for me 83 kept means well over 200 started - not bad for two years which also saw a fair amount of travel. The only other time I've written so extensively was during those four years when I was paid to do so. I was able to coast on that effort for a good while - it furnished half or more of my first four CDs - and I hope to gain a little mileage for myself again now. Along those lines, it's very gratifying to have the support of the fine Chicago radio station WXRT, who will be playing a song a week from the project on Monday nights, starting the beginning of February. I'll have the package up for sale here about the same time, broken down into digestible fragments, and with more exculpatory verbiage, no doubt. Itunes and distribution to other online outlets will likely follow later in the year. (Digital-only, though, at least for now.) 

In other news I should mention that my end-of-the-year show (formerly my New Year's Eve Show) is taking place at Fitzgerald's in Berwyn, Illinois, on Saturday, December 27. As always, my band and I will be satirically saluting the big events of '08 and eulogizing its dead, with guests, costume, song, audience competition, drama, and other tomfoolery. The stupidly talented Scott Ligon** will again join us as instrumentalist/buffoon, and of course we'll do a full country-rock-goes-downtown set on top of the gimmickry. You can get tickets now, and I wish you would. 

You can get tickets as well for a unique show I'm doing next May 3 at Chicago's Old Town School in support of the 50-song release. It's quite a ways off, but I thought I'd mention it. Thanks for the interest, and I'll be back with you in a week or two...RF