The Captain

[Joanna]

For the first time in 20 years, I picked up my guitar. The Captain is an old song, written back when I used to play my guitar all the time.

The production is less than perfect, but I decided to post it anyway. I hope some of you enjoy it.

-- Joanna

[Fosco]

The wordz n the photo take me directly to the 8 times I've watched the PBS 8 part Civil War series by Ken Burns... I'm a real Civil War History nut...

The words paint the picture of what happened to so many.... so sad
Hey I learned a new word today.... had to look it up... "cur"
Very well said I'd say!

[clanger]

Very cool performance. It screams out for some high violin strings too IMO.

Poor ol guitar! How cruel you are! Fancy shutting it away in that dark closet for so long and neglecting it. It must have almost broken its strings with sadness.
Glad to hear you giving it the attention it deserves at long last.

[Boris]

first off, jazz lady... get your finger-pickin' hands outta my genre!!!



i've come to know your voice with a particular style/genre, that this was completely unexpected... and a total treat!

while the setting for the song could be war-time anytime, the photo sets a US Civil War stage - a particular favorite historical era of mine. the effects were especially flavorful.

the guitar is lovely... simple, clear, and well presented. unable to tell that you're rusty at all.

the lyrics are prime, and subtly remind me of an older song of Suzanne Vega's called, The Queen and the Soldier, tho her tune is sharp and somewhat twisted.

this is no criticism of the song itself, but the story troubled me a bit. the idea of a soldier abandoning his troops who eventually go off to fight for their country and the freedom of its citizens, only to die, was unsettling for me. it's one of those tales in which i understand the perspectives of both the fox and the hound (but not the hunter).

any song which can be thought-provoking or provocative in any form, like this, gains my respect... especially when so well written. i mean, you actually used the word "cur" in a song... dynamite!

very happy to hear your voice, joanna! thank you for sharing your song!

[rcandrews]

hey joanna i'd love to put some slide to this in place of some of the "sound effects"

found a really nice scale to use

good job.. but yea whatcha all doin in this genre

[Joanna]

Fosco: I love the Ken Burns documentary as well. Although the song could be set in any war, I wanted to use the civil war as a setting (and therefore used language in a somewhat old-fashioned way to evoke that time period) so that it wouldn't seem too political or topical. That's especially helpful today because this song was written a long time ago, before today's politics existed. I wanted it be more universal than that.

As for "cur", I put the definition right after the word ("Can it be the war has lost a captain to a cur?/For surely I am base..."), a cur is a base person. Very tricky, huh?

Clanger: High strings would be cool. I may have to play around with that. Thanks!

As for my poor, neglected guitar, I never really got any good at playing it, so perhaps it was grateful for the rest. All bets are off though, because it's sitting near my computer now.

Boris: Actually, in the old guitar-playing days, almost every song I wrote was in the folk category. I actually discovered jazz later in life. I wish I could play jazz on the piano or guitar, but I lack the skills and talent, so that's a voice-only genre for me.

As for the message of the song, I purposefully wrote the last verse to have more than one interpretation.

In the distance I can hear the shouts of all your men
They're scrambling in unordered ranks, they know not where you've been
So they march without a host, each turning to a ghost
But death without a captain walks alone.

It can be interpreted to mean he abandonned his troops and they all died (each turning "into" a ghost). But it can also be read that they turn "to" a ghost (looking for their missing captain, whom they think has been killed) and survive (because death without a captain walks alone), i.e. that his absence spurred them to greater heights. When I wrote the song, I didn't want it to have only one interpretation, so I purposefully left it a bit vague.

Robert: Thanks for the offer! I emailed the file to Robert a few hours ago, so that he could get sliding. I'm not certain what that means, but I figuring it's something cool and guitary.

-- Joanna

[cStu]

I like this one, it shows off your voice in a new way. The use of language works well, too, it really does feel like something from another era.

And the wisdom in the characters vocal makes me stop and listen.

A lot of times I listen to music while I'm doing something else. The Captain makes me stop and sit still to listen.

Beautifully blended voice/words/melody.

I'd like to hear the trumpet fade off in it's own time - it sounds like you've used Garageband to fade it off sooner?

[Joanna]

Thank you, Stu! The bugle calls were all taken from a sound effects CD and "taps", the final one, stops very abruptly. It was jarring every time I heard it, so I decided to fade it down. That eliminated the weird abrupt ending. Wish I hadn't needed to fade it, but the alternative was much worse.

Made you stop and listen -- what a cool thing to say.

-- Joanna

[Boris]

when i first heard the trumpet/taps effects, i remembered you mentioning a sfx cd you had (back when i was working on my sfx tune); the sfx are very cool and add a huge dimension to the base of the song.

originally, i recall thinking "that trumpet could use some reverb to give it a ghostly depth." perhaps that might change how the sfx comes off.

also, perhaps lowering the volume a hair on those sfx will again give them that backdrop ghostliness as well.

i dunno. just yappin' again. sorry!

[Joanna]

Interesting ideas, Boris. I've uploaded a modified version for the hi fi stream. If you think it sounds better, let me know.

-- Joanna

[Boris]

Interesting ideas, Boris. I've uploaded a modified version for the hi fi stream. If you think it sounds better, let me know.

-- Joanna

well, it was great as it was, but the subtle change really sets the sfx into the distant landscape... wow! very haunting. you know, it makes your voice stand right up front - i think because the clean vocals differ so much from the sounds (with that slight reverb).

this really sounds great, joanna. nice job! the more i've listened to it, the closer i've become to your style in this genre, and you know what? it suits you well. do i see a VH1 storyteller show in your future? hmm...

[Joanna]

Thank you, Boris. I couldn't take the volume down too much, because it was already quite low. So that was a very subtle shift. But pumping up the reverb on the fx added exactly what it was missing. Great suggestion!

I have quite a few folk songs written from the old days, but until I can figure out how to play them again on the guitar, they're likely to stay buried. I do have a tape recording of me singing them from days gone by, so I can always ressurect them that way.

-- Joanna

[kilroydegeek]

The wordz n the photo take me directly to the 8 times I've watched the PBS 8 part Civil War series by Ken Burns... I'm a real Civil War History nut...

I'm a Ken Burns nut, and watched that civil war doco he did a decade ago on every repeat down here. I also love his doco on baseball! I'm a total cricket nut, and before Ken Burns couldn't careless for the American summer sport, but man he made it as interesting as a knife-edged one-day international, and nearly all with still images. Genius.

And back on topic (sorry), really nice song Joanna. Like Fosco said, very evocative of that style of music Ken Burns likes to use.

[Joanna]

Thank you, Kilroy. Ken Burns is a genius. I swear he could make any subject appealing.

While looking for a photo, I found a site about a regiment of soldiers from Wisconsin that were all Scandinavians. I've never read much about them, even though that's my home state. It was the only Scandinavian regiment in the Civil War. In looking at the roster, many survived. But of those who died, there were many more taken by disease than by wounds.

Anyway, I thank you for listening to my song!

-- Joanna