The Freshman Experiment

So this is our last video.

Kait said her goodbyes in her most recent post, but I just want to reiterate how honored I am to have been part of this project with you. We had a blast making this video - it’s a tribute of sorts. If anyone else is mourning the end of the experiment and looking for an outlet, post a video response.

Lots of love,
Brian

At long last Brian found the lost “Pretty Girl Blues” footage. I am probably more excited about this than you are because I heard the song and it has been stuck in my head ever since. I love this song. I think it’s so much fun. You should most definitely try humming it to yourself when you’re walking around campus or New York City or wherever it is that you walk. I think I’m exaggerating when I say you will feel prettier.

In the video, Natalie Weiss (recent Penn State grad whom you might recognize from her sillygood YouTube videos where she sings her face off) and I sing the first half of the song. Brian was having some difficulty with the bridge at the time, so we couldn’t sing the whole thing. Keep in mind, that she arrived at Brian’s house, learned 2 other songs, recorded a song, and then learned this one. We made up some harmonies on the spot and sang it immediately.

There is no sheet music. The girl just happens to be a musician too.

Enjoy!

I look so fine that no one likes to walk with me.
My hair’s so poker straight I go to clubs for free.
But when I get inside there’s not a girl as pretty.
No one understands my plight in this whole damn city.

I got a new haircut, new dress, a pair new shoes.
I got an attitude that might be rude but that’s how I cruise.
I got a palpitating heart in my itty bitty chest
So I’m the best dressed whose got the pretty girl blues.

I’m not complaining ’bout the fringe benefits
I’m stuck with this dilemma cuz the Prada shoe fits.
I know I know I know I got a good thing going.
But up here on my pedestal it’s not so easy knowing.

I got a new haircut, new dress, a pair new shoes.
I got an attitude that might be rude but that’s how I cruise.
I got a palpitating heart in my itty bitty chest
So I’m the one who’s getting lonely feeling she’s the only one
whose got the pretty girl blues.

Hey it’s Brian.  This is probably going to seem like a weird response to Christine Coke’s post “Saturday night part 1.”  but that post really made me want to write music.  i agree w/ kait, “last week’s alcohol” is a great title, and there was something about the techno idea that was interesting to me.  so imagine all of this pretty music w/ a techno beat behind it.  like a Death Cab song.

so yea, I just kind of sat down at my piano for the past hour and played, and i like some of it, and some of it is complete crap.  usually i would then give it a couple days, then go back and listen to it and pick out the melodies that aren’t crap and write them down.  but, in case anyone out there is looking for some piano music to listen to, here they all are.  the first track and the last track are the best i think, i have a nice simple treatment of what i think is the verse material in the first track, and then i found my chorus in the last track, and the prechorus in the last like 2 minutes while looking for a bridge.

i don’t know why this makes sense to me tone-wise.  i know it’s really sad music, but i want to put a beat, and lyrics and scenes that are telling this story overtop of it

also i kind of mumble a lot in the second one.  sorry bout that.

I want write a song called WISHY OR NOT inspired by the last two posts of CC. I want it to be, like, bubble gum pop, I think. Not because CC is bubble gum pop - quite on the contrary, though she can occasionally be giggly. Rather, bubble gum pop is the perfect genre for a song with the hook WISHY OR NOT.

CC: Write me a list of pros and cons? Can you manage that amid the pot, alcohol, and soaking your old tired feet? / Heels??? In January??? You crazy.