Stupid Boys (14 of 14)

[lyle_from_minneapolis]

Woot! I made it--14 songs in 28 days. (#13 is written but not entirely recorded, a collab with the Couchgrouch...will post soon.)

This here song is the first Kaufman-Kaufman-Kaufman cowrite, a collab between me and my two daughters, Madeline and Lucy. And my wife Teresa helped with yelling "football!"

And so we present..."Stupid Boys".

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7382383

Stupid Boys

His name was Alejandro and he was hot
But when I needed him he was not
He said that vacuuming would ruin his hair
And at the television he would stare

For unknown reasons I still loved the guy
I had a plan that I just had to try
Who knew that high heels and a tight red dress
Would make him clean up every mess?

Stupid boys
Your words are fading into background noise
But it’s just because you’re stupid boys
Don’t know what I was thinking of
Stupid boys
Have no idea what a girl enjoys
I guess it’s just because you’re stupid boys
I wonder why I’m so in love
With stupid boys

Stupid guys you will never tame
All they want to do is watch the game
And every time you want to take them out
They stare at you and really pout

When I am mad I don’t shove him off
I make him go no matter what the cost
Yeah I make him cringe with fear
Now time to throw away his expensive beer

Chorus

Little boys they need a guiding hand
Be our mom is what they command
And all the girls they just roll their eyes
We know all about stupid guys

Our advice to those who’ve had
One or more who’ve made them mad
You know they hate to admit defeat
So make ‘em march to your own beat

Chorus

(Copyright 2009 by Lucy Kaufman-Madeline Kaufman-Mark Kaufman)

[ram]

Mark,
Congrats on the tally! This has been fun. I think I have lisetened to all at least once. I’m impressed with the volume of material! Stupid Boys – a great finish (although 13 has yet to be released). Great to involve those who are so very important. So what happens now? Are you going to polish any of them up or do you just put them in the can – Done?

[lyle_from_minneapolis]

Thanks Tom! I plan to polish some and let some others do what they like. A few I think I can pitch.

What I learned from this that I didn't know before, is that upping quantity, for me, is like exercise. It doesn't necessarily lead to poorer quality (although it certainly can.) Some of these songs took me places I've never been. Funny thing is, I'm not even sick of it...I feel like writing more.

Thanks for listening to all that noise!

-Mark

[bbrem5]

Good run Mark............... What is your best estimate on total hours spent recording 14 songs in one month? It amazes me on the amount of material you came up with......Was any of it "works" already in progress?................... Great job

[walker]

Cheeky! Nice job on the instrumentation. Real accordion?

Congrats on making it through this project having not only produced a bunch of great music, but also appearing to have (most of) your sanity still intact!

[lyle_from_minneapolis]

William, I think I averaged about 20 hours each week, so something like 80 for the month. Looking at the list, five of them were based on an old idea and wrestled into a real song. The first verse of "Leaving" was written in high school in 1978. I had two verses and nothing else...for years I couldn't remember more than the first two lines, then last year the second two came back to me...never did remember the other lyrics, so I wrote the music and the other verses 31 years later. That's a hell of a gestation period. But all the rest was fresh from scratch. And there's still one more, #13, "Serena". I call it #13 because Robert George sent me the lyric Friday morning and I composed it Friday night. I recorded some of it but had to stop when the family came home and demanded I join the living again. We finished "Stupid Boys" Saturday, making that one #14. Anyway, I'll have the recording of "Serena" finished tomorrow and post it.

And thanks Mark Walker! Very humbling to be called your new hero (other post). I for one am in awe of your stuff! No, not a real accordion, just a VST instrument included with Cubase, but I like that sound a lot. But tell me, what is this sanity of which you speak? Is it tasty? Is it nice?

I really gave up on making it all the way early in the 4th week. And then I kept finding extra moments, like two hour stretches, and ended up pulling some of those last ones out of thin air under extreme time pressure (as in, I have to leave for work in two hours). It left me with no time to second guess myself, and the stuff just came.

Thanks for putting up with all these posts! Sharing it helped me to keep the pressure on myself...if I hadn't posted them, I'm not sure I would have stuck it out. Something about other people watching.

Cheers!

-Mark

Oh, and this just sent to me from FAWM.org:

Fellow fawmers, 2009 goes down as the biggest February Album Writing Month success yet!

* 754 active fawmers this year
* 339 hit the 14-song goal
* 7,375 brand new songs that did not exist a month ago
* 548 songwriting collaborations!

Pretty cool, I think. This was the 4th year they've done it. But I'll take a pass on their 50/90 challenge...50 songs in 90 days.

[walker]

It was really an encouraging event to watch; thanks for sharing with us. I find it amusing that you "gave up on reaching the goal in the middle of the 4th week" after having basically accomplished 80% of it!

Last year a friend of mine declared that starting in 2009 he was going to write & record a song a week for the whole year. So far he's cranked out some real gems and hasn't missed his quota yet. I too, considered taking on this goal awhile back, but have too many obstacles to get out of the way before I feel I could actually do it and not end up homeless and living under a bridge. That's what we all face in varying degrees, I'm sure, so I may just have to bone up on my Time Management and give it a shot. I hope to get started before the arrival of 2010.

Enyhu, thanks again for the inspiration. Shawn Farley is my friend doing the song-a-week project. Here's his link if you're interested:

Shawn Farley's 5240 project

He's not a Rick owner, but he still manages to do SOME decent stuff!

Good speed, Mr. Kaufman! Looking forward to the new tunes as always.

[ram]

Mark, will you keep us posted on the 'polishing' tunes. I really enjoy hearing tunes evolve and mature. I don't know that I'd pitch any of 'em thou - you never know a little time in a can in a dark room brought out to sunlight after a break........

Once again great job! Very impressive!

[lyle_from_minneapolis]

Sure, I'll post as I go...I'm a musical exhibitionist.

Mark, the reason why I thought I was done was similar to your post--too much other stuff going on too. At one point I was looking at another four songs, but also two open-to-close work shifts, and a bunch of other commitments that sucked up all the rest of the time. Ah, but seemingly. I definitely learned that you can squeeze time out of unexpected places.

A song a week? That's my usual pace.

People write a lot of different ways...some want a long stretch to take an idea to a flawless place, and just polish the hell out of it, and that might take a few weeks. To me, that's like eating one food at a time...corn first, then mashed potatoes, then damn it the meat is cold. I like to seize any idea and work it a bit. Maybe finish a thumbnail of the whole song (usually the way it works with me). Sometimes I'll work on three ideas in a two hour stretch, then revisit them at random for the next few days, see which ones are worth watering. After a month of this, I usually have four or five songs and a bunch of other ideas being worked up. Musical ADD.

Tom, I might well pitch some of these. TV/Film and music libraries are my best bet though...pitching to artists is something I do, but I view that like lottery tickets. Still, you never know...I wrote an exceptionally stupid song long, long ago called "Fartin' Man". Yes, well, you can imagine. Anyway, without pitching that at all, someone approached me, and last week it was added to the soundtrack of a new xBox 360 game called xFart. No lie.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

[kiramdear]

Still, you never know...I wrote an exceptionally stupid song long, long ago called "Fartin' Man". Yes, well, you can imagine. Anyway, without pitching that at all, someone approached me, and last week it was added to the soundtrack of a new xBox 360 game called xFart. No lie.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

And isn't that just like success - only your own smells nice

I'll be looking forward to hearing all the material finished soon.