A couple of new songs, a couple of covers, a couple of fake record sleeves!

Diefenbaker: A scrappy little outfit eternally struggling within it's own limited means, be they in songwriting ability, instrument-playing ability, technological savy, or simply musical taste in general. A combo, though, that, perhaps through sheer pig-headed naivete and contrarian determination, forges ahead through the endless snowy tundra of music making like a mountie, determined to bring in his fugitive prisoner and see her returned to the custody of the authorities even if he has to carry her hundreds of miles on his back after being trapped in a cave with her for days on end and falling in love with her. What? Oh, sorry, I got bored midway through that sentence and started thinking about a Due South episode. Anyway, in that spirit, I present to you some new demos. They're solo demos, so it's just me, Johnny D. Hopefully, we'll work up some full-band demos before too long, as, in my opinion, these two new songs are up there with the best stuff we've written so far. In typical Diefenbaker smoke-and-mirrors, intentionally confusing fashion, I've paired each new demo with a cover that I'd recorded a while ago but hadn't put up yet, and made fabulous fake record sleeves for each imaginary 12" single! Isn't that exciting!?


First up, new one "Mine" backed with a cover of Tegan and Sara's "The Cure"

Download links:
side A - Mine
side B - The Cure

The chord progression and melody for "Mine" has been sitting around forever. I believe I may have even uploaded the work tape recording I made of it with no lyrics here at some point but I'm too lazy to look. At one point Shari was going to try to write lyrics to this song but ended up not doing it. I had part of the lyrics to the first verse in my computer for a long time, but actually sat down over the long thanksgiving weekend in '09 and finished the song. Well, it wasn't entirely finished; for some reason that I don't recall, I lost interest with two lines in the last chorus left blank and finished it off a couple weeks ago. This was my attempt to write an "upbeat" (relatively) song, a "pop" song if you will, that people might actually "like" and "enjoy listening to". I think it's pretty good, it's just sad-sacky and "f$%&ing brooding" (as my brother would say) enough that I still like it. Simple drum part, lyrics mixed to the front (again, relatively for my taste), and there you have it. On the b-side is a cover I did a while back of "The Cure" by Tegan and Sara, from when my T+S obsession was at it's peak and I was considering forming a Tegan and Sara cover band (consisting only of myself, of course) called Black Mountie.


Second, new one "World Winds Down" backed with a cover of Tegan and Sara's "Monday Monday Monday"

Download links:
side A - World Winds Down
side B - Monday Monday Monday

This song's rough concept came after I had watched the excessively long NewOrder Story documentary DVD and was totally geeking out over New Order. Barney Sumner said something in the film with regard to how he writes lyrics, that he just writes stuff that sounds right, and it's sometimes years later that he realizes what the songs are about. Well my eyes grew as big as dinner plates in the soft glow of my monitor at that point, and I vowed to try that ASAP. So I was messing around with chords, trying to get something that sounded intersting using the capo, and trying to find a rhythm track on the ol' trusty Casio CTK-601 that would go with them, and this sort of fell together. The melody of the chorus is something I usually try not to do, which is just sing along blatantly with the guitar lick, and I wrote the lyrics for the chorus immediately after coming up with the guitar part. So, that in place I proceeded to write lyrics for the verses in a similar Sumner-esque way, just off the cuff, right in the computer. Well, it turns out there's a reason Bernard Sumner is is a wealthy rock star and I'm I turd that works in Pikesville. The original lyrics for the verses were pretty bad, and oddly angry and unbecoming, so I scrapped them, drew some narrative inspiration from a source that couldn't be further from NO's musical realm (which I shant reveal here), and I'm pleased with the finished song. Flip the imaginary record over and you have a cover of Tegan and Sara's "Monday Monday Monday", a highlight from their 2002 If It Was You album that I think I tackle admirably.

Cover art for both sleeves adapted from the painting The Angel in the House by Jon "Poopbear" Hoffman. Stop by his DeviantArt and tell him it's awesome, won't you?

Your friend,
Johnny Diefenbaker