In 1998, I decided what I really needed to do was write a musical.
Seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.
I wrote a script.
I wrote songs.
I rewrote the script.
I wrote more songs.
I rewrote the script.
I enlisted the help of friends and family.
There were hundreds of recording sessions and a plethora of read through's and then life just happened.
I never put it on stage in front of an audience.
Which is not as tragic as it sounds. If nobody ever sees any of the vanity projects I have stored on 3.5 floppy disks in the garage, I will still most likely live a good life.
Someday I may trot it out again and rework it, but who knows.
Anyway, even though the whole show may never see the light of day, there are some songs that demand they be resurrected in some way or another.
This one: "You Are Everything To No One But Me" has been floating in the back of my mind for some time because I never produced a recording of it that I was satisfied with. And at last count there are about ten different versions.
This particular version is unique because it is essentially the first, and I'm pretty sure only time, I have ever created a guitar riff. I also really enjoyed doing the background vocals for this. They lilt really good at the bridge. I've never been satisfied with any recording I've ever made ever, but most of them have their nice bits. I like the nice bits on this one.
The song is about a boy, who is in love with a girl, who doesn't love him back.
Pretty basic stuff.
The twist is that everyone else hates her guts.
So instead of the "You Are Everything To Me" love song, I get to employ a cute little turn of phrase.
I love employing cute little turns of phrase.
Anyway, on a parallel line of day dreaming, I've been helping Calvin in his pursuit to solve a Rubik's cube for the last week or so, and since I can't let him beat me until I am old and done, I too have been practicing my solution time.
It is nothing to be proud of.
My best time is just under six minutes.
So far.
But his best time is just over seven.
I win.
And it's really not THAT hard. You basically memorize a set of turns and build up each layer, and then the corners and then the middle edges. It took me about two hours to learn, but I could teach it to an eight year old in just under ten minutes.
Anyway since my average solution time is around seven minutes, and the average song is about three and a half, I thought it might be fun to shoot a single shot of me solving it and then doubling the speed, giving it this frantic look.
Kind of show off my mad skills while at the same time making fun of the fact that my skills ain't that mad.
And then I thought, what better soundtrack to a silly old man trying to solve a silly little puzzle than a song about young unrequited love?
Parallel lines crossed.
So I sat myself down with the puzzle and a camera and hit record.
Then about a two minutes in I kinda lost it and had to start over.
Then I lost it again.
And then while working on move number two (Of which there are five) I suddenly found the cube primed for move five. So it ended up pretty much solving itself in just over three minutes.
And since I'm not the kind of guy that knows what a gift horse's mouth looks like, I sorta just went with it.
So the video ended up being in real time.
And you can kinda see where I lose it right around the two minute marker after the first chorus.
Originally I wanted the video to be black and white, cause I thought the futility of trying to solve a black and white rubik's cube would be all artsy cool, but after review, it just didn't look very good, so I just played with the colors a bit to give it a saturated look.
Also, I decided to forgo the lyrics this week and just let the song do it's thing.
Anyway, enjoy, and please send along your thoughts for other ideas in the future.
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