Crammed Tuesday

Being a thoroughly normal person, I wash clothes and dishes and cook in the kitchen. The room does, however, have another use: it's a recording studio. So while the washing machine was churning and spinning, I was importing backing tracks into my Logic programme on the computer on the kitchen table, and setting up the microphone to sing with. I had to wait for the machine noise to calm down before I could record the vocals.

One of the songs is a cover of an Amy Rigby song, Vote That F*cker Out, which has been given the analogue electronic treatment by Willie G so I can sing his adaptation of the lyrics, to be released before the local elections in May. I have to sound angry on that one, which is easy. I need to make some tweaks tomorrow, and then it's done.

The other is a topline for a track by Sarah Corina, who used to play bass for The Mekons and The Bomb Party, and who produced one of The Monochrome Set's albums. The chorus came to me in the middle of the night, and I wrote the verses later in the morning. There is a high harmony I need to do again; all that angry vocalising made me squeak, but in general I was quite happy with what came out.

Then of course, being a thoroughly normal person and university lecturer, I had to do some last-minute marking and input the data into the system. Checking my emails later, I found an urgent request from work to write a short piece about songwriting for The Conversationalist, prompted by the Twitter spat between Damon Albarn and Taylor Swift. My initial thought was 'No, I can't do it; there isn't time', but More 4 TV has reverted back to the beginning of the Minder series, and I can't face watching it again (I prefer the later episodes without the odious Terry character). So I wrote it, and who knows if they will publish it.

I then spoke to my foster cousin on the phone and was horrified by what he told me about the way his partner's body was disrespected after his death. Humans are still sometimes chaotic and downright primitive, no matter how much we tell ourselves that we have become sophisticated beings. That's all I can say about that: it threw a shadow over the afternoon. So now I'm in pensive mood; watching TV does not appeal, and nor does reading the sort of senseless crime paperbacks that I normally find so relaxing. 

I have a long list of things that I haven't done and that I'd hoped to do today. I will be isolating from next week onwards and I'm trying to set things up this week to make that easier. There is always tomorrow, and there is some compensation that the weather outside is cold, grey and gloomy. There's no incentive to leave the house. Inside is cold, grey and gloomy too, but not quite as bad it is out there!