Daily Refrain » Daily Songs

#43: “Portents”

Gwilym — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:28:06 +0000

Hmm.

#42: “Cat Lady”

Gwilym — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 07:48:01 +0000

This is a song about gender stereotyping.

Also, a few of the lyrics lower the brow of this entire project by a good few milimetres. I was powerless to resist them.

(YouTube link)

#41: “Daily Malaise”

Gwilym — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:40:41 +0000

I was wondering if I’d put any instrumentals on this site. Now I know.

(YouTube link)

#40: “Mochaccino”

Gwilym — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:33:22 +0000

Had I lived in the 50s, I’d totally have been a jingle writer.

(YouTube link)

#39: “In 5 Seconds”

Gwilym — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:11:49 +0000

There’s a craze on YouTube of humorously editing movies to sum them up “in 5 seconds.”

Note the quote marks.

Just so you know, tomorrow will be another microsong too.

(YouTube link)

#38: “Catchphrase”

Gwilym — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:09:49 +0000

(YouTube link)

#37: “Cranberry Horse”

Gwilym — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:26:10 +0000

A song about the lesser-known “no horses” conspiracy theory.

(YouTube link)

#36: “Foolishness”

Gwilym — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:36:46 +0000

And today I give you yet another rushed last-minute song with bland lyrics and bad singing. Enjoy.

(YouTube link)

#35: “No Birthday Song”

Gwilym — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:49:31 +0000

Happy Birthday, Dawa! You’re disappointed in me!

(YouTube link)

#34: “Maintenance”

Gwilym — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:28:58 +0000

Goddammit, YouTube. All of these songs are rushed, but this song is super-rushed; done in about ten minutes when I saw YouTube was going down for maintenance, and would not be back up before I left for work.

When it was done, YouTube had already gone down for maintenance. Oh well.

(YouTube link)

#33: “Inspiration”

Gwilym — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:22:43 +0000

In which I turn last-minute laziness into a learning experience!

(YouTube link)

#32: “Happy Birthday, Shane”

Gwilym — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:46:02 +0000

And now this, which science has proven to be the polar opposite of yesterday’s song in every conceivable way.

(YouTube link)

#31: “Mirror Village”

Gwilym — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:37:01 +0000

“A mirror looks at another mirror” ~Dawa

I hope this story reads. I’ve never written anything like it before, and there are some big plot points that I leave unspoken. I hope it’s not too difficult to follow.

(YouTube link)

#30: “In Defence of Tomorrow”

Gwilym — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:52:26 +0000

I am bored of the way pop songs won’t shut up about “living for today,” “embracing the moment,” “making the most of now” because “tomorrow may never come,” and all those other worn-out platitudes. Tomorrow’s been feeling very left out (Annie notwithstanding), so hopefully this song will make it feel more appreciated.

One of my few songs where I don’t try to be funny.

(YouTube link)

#29: “Thumb Fighter Street”

Gwilym — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:44:11 +0000

This is a cautionary tale.

I should try reversing some of my other song names, see if they give me ideas too.

(YouTube link)

#28: “Street Fighter Thumb”

Gwilym — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:02:27 +0000

I started playing Street Fighter IV last week, which inspired this.

(also oops, it’s not a microsong! My mistake.)

(YouTube link)

#27: “The Clapping Song”

Gwilym — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:30:04 +0000

Real instruments? In my Daily Refrain? It’s more likely than you think.

This is a happy song about clapping.

(YouTube link)

#26: “Widescreen”

Gwilym — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:06:18 +0000

Not sure who this ‘we’ is, but I tried it with ‘I’ and it sounded weird.

(YouTube link)

#25: “Wayward Muse”

Gwilym — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:27:15 +0000

I really couldn’t be bothered today. You can probably tell.

(YouTube link)

#24: “Ta-Ta-Ta-Taa”

Gwilym — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:19:41 +0000

My tribute to the delightfully surreal http://tatatataa.cn/, which appears to feature Duke Nukem reading the menu tree for TextEdit.

No, I have no idea.

Special thanks to Mika for showing me the site.

(YouTube link)

#23: “Hiding Behind the Metaphor”

Gwilym — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:38:05 +0000

Apropos of nothing at all; I just like the term. And wrote a song about it.

Is it actually a term? I heard it somewhere, I think.

(YouTube link)

#22: “Harmonies”

Gwilym — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:21:13 +0000

(whilst hearing #21)
Nate: harmony
Nate: that part is so amazing
Gwilym: there are no harmonies
Gwilym: it’s all unison
Nate: oh you semantic jumble
Gwilym:
Nate: ok here is your theme for tomorrow: a song with a whole lot of harmonies about harmonies

I’m not sure this song actually works. Thanks, Nate. Thate.

(YouTube link)

#21: “The Alexander and the Swine Flu”

Gwilym — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:09:36 +0000

This song is precision engineered to make my sick friend feel better.

(YouTube link)

#20: “Unexpected Microsong”

Gwilym — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:13:01 +0000

Time is a cruel mistress.

edit: some people have asked what “that 2012 bullshit” means. If you haven’t heard about it, consider yourself lucky, and then read this, and then despair. Or laugh. It’s ridiculous, really.

(YouTube link)

#19: “Eye-Dog the Nightmare”

Gwilym — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:23:10 +0000

“seeing eye dog jogging (hyphenate as you see fit)” ~ansgaros

Today we investigate the downside of recurring dreams.

(YouTube link)

#18: “Microsong Wednesday”

Gwilym — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:33:26 +0000

Remember when I asked how to give myself time off this project? And gave three options? I ended up settling on ‘none of them.’ My friend suggested microsongs, and remembering the greatness of TMBG’s “Fingertips,” and just about anything by Bob Drake, I liked the idea.

So I think I’ll divide up each week’s songwriting with a microsong every Wednesday. No more weeks off. Like all my plans, this is of course subject to change massively.

In hindsight, Headphones should’ve been a microsong.

(YouTube link)

#17: “Vegetable Stew”

Gwilym — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:50:43 +0000

“I know it’s only breakfast time but I was thinking of veggie stew for dinner tonight. I’m currently off wheat and sugar so foods not as much fun as it used to be, but thank god for veggie stew. Lentils, barley, stock, potato, kumera, butter beans, kidney beans, carrots, and, of course, peas. Sometimes I add chick peas, but I really shouldn’t.” ~Fiona

Definitely the strangest thing I’ve received via the Suggest a song idea section. Whether it was a a genuine suggestion, someone messing around or possibly even a spambot, I have no idea – but I couldn’t leave it alone.

(YouTube link)

#16: “The Lateness”

Gwilym — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:18:33 +0000

Usually I’m good about replying to e-mail, but sometimes I’ll take between a million years and an eternity to respond – and it’s almost always for the exact same reason. This song is for those who have suffered this terrible fate.

I’m sure that someday I’ll get over this whole ’super-dramatic song about trivial thing’ schtick, but that day is not today.

(YouTube link)

#15 “Cover Me!”

Gwilym — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:07:35 +0000

(YouTube link)

#14: “Grim Beards”

Gwilym — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:20:40 +0000

A tribute to an awesome narrative convention, especially popular in serial television.

I wish I’d included a lyric about Riker being the exception.

(YouTube link)

#13: “The First Song (Reprise)”

Gwilym — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:27:06 +0000

Kind of a game-changer, this one. Hope you’re not disappointed.

(YouTube link)

#12: “Larry Baldock”

Gwilym — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:48:31 +0000

In which I suddenly go political. Which is of course incredibly stupid, because (a) most of my regular listeners don’t live in New Zealand, so the song won’t make the slightest bit of sense to them unless they do lots of googling, (b) it’s going to age badly, and (c) going political is always stupid, because it alienates the people who don’t happen to share your exact point of view.

For what it’s worth, I only genuinely believe about 14% of what I say in this song. I have nothing against Larry; I’m sure everything he’s done has been with the purest intentions. But when when you single-handedly spend $9,000,000 of your country’s money, I’d say that makes you fair game for some good old-fashioned theatrical vitriol.

In related news, “theatrical vitriol” is really fun to say.

(YouTube link)

#11: “Steal From You”

Gwilym — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:13:04 +0000

Vocals are still cold-y, but this track-doubling thing covers it up decently.

Some end-of-word consonants get lost though, which is something I’ll need to try and avoi.

(YouTube link)

#10: “I’ll Miss This”

Gwilym — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:51:57 +0000

In today’s song, Gwilym writes way out of his comfortable vocal range and damn near passes out on the high notes. Also, totally emo.

Which I guess means this is my first non-comedic song.

(YouTube link)

#9: “Bunnysong”

Gwilym — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:49:41 +0000

“now make one about bunny rabbits or possibly random foreign people texting you out of the blue” ~ansgaros (10 Jun 2009)

It appears that I now do requests! I might add a ‘Suggest Song Ideas’ page to the site, but in the meantime feel free to let your imagination run wild in the comments section.

(YouTube link)

#8: “Cold”

Gwilym — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:24:10 +0000

I have a cold. This song started off as about that.

(YouTube link)

#7: “Happy Birthday, Dennis Mott”

Gwilym — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:17:20 +0000

This is a song about Dennis Mott.

(YouTube link)

#6: “A Skeleton Song”

Gwilym — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:38:27 +0000

This is a song about skeletons.

(YouTube link)

#5: “Dr. Horrible”

Gwilym — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:25:56 +0000

In today’s song, I lament the fact that Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog only lets Americans watch the show.

This may sound like a thin concept (because it is), but bear with me.

Special thanks to Dawa for helping out with a handful of lines.

(YouTube link)

#4: “Brevity Apology”

Gwilym — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:49:50 +0000

This began as a silly apology for yesterday’s short song, then went all metaphory and ended up about… I have no idea, actually.

Were it not for the bizarre bridge section, I could almost call this the first non-comedic song I’ve recorded. Oh my.

(YouTube link)

#3: “Headphones”

Gwilym — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:29:16 +0000

I’m disappointed I got stuck on the second verse, but oh well. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

(YouTube link)

#2: “Ted’s Joke”

Gwilym — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:08:54 +0000

Not sure exactly where this came from.

If this is your first time here, be sure to listen to yesterday’s song as well. It explains what this project’s all about.

(YouTube link)

#1: “The First Song”

Gwilym — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:38:49 +0000

The first of many! This song is mostly an introduction to the project.

From here, you can either listen to the next song by clicking the button at the bottom of the page, or you can head to the Archives and be more selective.

I should mention that while this song pretty well represents my lyrical style, musically the project goes all over the place. So even if you hate toe-tappy stage musical swing, you’re bound to like something here. Browse around.

(YouTube link)