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Rob’s Blog

My first Newsletter of 2026!

Hey Everyone! Did you know I have an email list?

I do! I send out an update about once a month and I just sent out the first one of 2026. Instead of recreating all of the info in a blog post, I just cut and pasted the bulk of the newsletter below. Mostly so the first post on my site isn’t from November of 2025

You should sign up! I only send about 1 email a month, I promise not to blow up your inbox like everyone other company in the world seems to do, and you’ll be up to date on the latest stuff 🙂

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Is the wave of end-of-the-year, Xmas, Black Friday, and New Year emails finally over? Jeez Louise, I’ve been so bombarded by promotional emails I can barely bring myself to do my monthly newsletter!

💌 But here it is, I have found the gumption!

This year will mark the 20th anniversary of my first posts on YouTube, with the Pachelbel Rant video turning 20 in November, and that really boggles my mind! I’m working on some ideas to commemorate the milestone; it’s been an important part of my life and career and I love hearing how people have found and enjoyed it over the years. In the meantime:

Cover Tuesday is back Tuesday, January 13th, 8:15 NYC time! The theme is “Command Performance,” meaning the titles of the songs are commands, like “Don’t Bring Me Down” by ELO, though I won’t be doing that song because I’ve been warned that there would be protests. Plenty of others to choose from, like “Don’t Do Me Like That,” “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go,” “Gimme Three Steps,” and such. It’s the perfect combination of my strengths: dumb covers and grammar nerdery! You can reply to this email with requests/suggestions, i.e. ‘requestions.’

For NYC I have an early warning for a show: Friday, Feb. 13 at ReCirculation Bookstore in Washington Heights (info below). It’s a great songwriter forum and I’ve been working on new songs that I’m excited to try out for the first time, which is a big step for me after my year of mostly creative hibernation.

🚙 I also have a car for the first time in a long time and my goal is to start doing more shows on the road, first around the East Coast and eventually more widespread. I even have a compact PA system that works well in small bars, performance spaces for about 40-50 people, or house concerts, so I’m open to venue suggestions!

Or maybe I’ll just throw the guitar and PA into the car and drive around looking for places to play, rolling in to some dusty, high desert watering hole filled with glum faces, breaking out the ax and asking, “who likes clever and jaunty pop songs?”

If I disappear without a trace, the above plan going horribly wrong is what happened.

Thanks for reading and be excellent to each other!
RobP

Christmas Song Instrumentals (Chord Solos)!

Last winter, while I was mostly skipping holiday stuff and taking care of my mom’s house out of state, I started messing around on my guitar trying to put together an instrumental version of Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmas Time is Here,” that classic mellow jazz piece from A Charlie Brown Christmas. By the time it started sounding good it was mid-January so I’d missed my opportunity to share it during the actual holidays 😜  I set the arrangement aside with a mental note to try to post it in time for the holidays this year.

And I remembered to do it! In fact, I enjoyed working on the arrangement so much I attempted 2 more holiday songs: Mel Tormé’s classic, made famous by Nat King Cole, Merry Christmas To You (aka The Christmas Song, aka Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, the non-jolly Met Me In St. Louis version of which remains my favorite.

And if you’re a guitar player and want tabs of my arrangements, I made some! You can download pdfs of all 3 songs from my store, and if you wouldn’t mind sending me $2 for the effort it would definitely help make my season bright. They’re intermediate level so if you’ve got a little guitar experience and are comfortable reading tabs you should have no problem with them. Heck, you can probably embellish them a little and make them your own! And if you do let me know, I’d love to see what you do with them.

I hope you have a lovely holiday season and if you have a youtube playlist of holiday songs, I think these would fit right in.

And for you gearheads, I’m playing a Gretsch G5622 into Apple Mainstage using the Boutique British Combo amp and the Boutique British 2×12 cabinet miced with a Dynamic 57. There’s a little room reverb using the Space Designer reverb plugin “Diffuse Hall” setting. My audio interface is a MOTU M4 🤓

A few things while I’m away…

Rob seated, playing guitar, wearing a black and white plaid shirt, in front of a blue graffiti tagged brick wall

As you may now, things performance-wise have been slow for me lately. I’m still dealing with my mom’s affairs, not to mention the life changes that come with saying goodbye to a parent. But I have started to tinker around in the studio, working  on some new and new-ish tunes, here’s a peek!

@robprocks Work in progress in the studio 🙂 a disco-riffic track with mellow overtones and a hint of cheese 🪩 #homerecording #musicproducer #disco #originalmusic #comedymusic ♬ original sound – Rob P.

And last month I did a really fun singers in the round show that was streamed live from the stylish Milliron Studios here in NYC, check it out below! Also on the bill were Amy Englehardt, Mark Aaron James, Matt Gronert and a few guests!

My songs are at 23:00, 41:00, 1:05, and 1:30, but if you have time I highly recommend watching the whole thing, everyone’s really good!

I’ll keep you posted on when I’ll be doing more shows and putting out more stuff. And it’s a great time to catch up on anything you might have missed! My whole discography is right here.

Somewhere Else Lyric & Karaoke Video!

Somewhere Else

Are you an American who wants to travel overseas but wants to avoid talking politics and the embarrassment of being attached to Trump and his policies? Then this is the song for you!

I wrote it back in 2017 and I’m re-upping it now because I’m feeling this times a million.

Here’s the lyric video I just made for it. Listen! Laugh! Cry! Sing along!

And here’s a karaoke version, so you can perform it at your school’s talent show! A local open mic! When you’re trying to filibuster fascist bills in the legislature!

And here’s the original official music video from 2017, directed by Victor Varnado and featuring backup dancers!

While I’m very sad this song is relevant again I am proud of the writing and arranging. I recorded the whole thing in my home studio and am particularly proud of the bass track. No timing tweaks! Just punched in where I needed to. It’s so upbeat and frenetic I jokingly referred to it as the “cocaine bass line,” picturing a Tom Jones style lounge band playing a casino in Vegas in the late 60s and chemical augmentation being the only explanation for how the bass part was created.

So take a moment to enjoy the music, and then we’ll get back out there to work to restore democracy.

Cover Tuesday March 11!

Cover Tuesday is coming at ya on Tuesday, March 11, with a new fun set of stoopit covers to add a little love to the world!

This month all songs will have the word ‘love’ in the title; it’s a simple theme so dig deep with those recommendations!

I hope to see you there at the live stream on my twitch channel, replay will be up for 7 days for those of you not able to join live 🙂

Cover Tuesday ‘Love’ Edition!
Tuesday, March 11, 8:15 NYC time
Twitch.tv/RobPRocks

Irony is even more dead

A song I wrote as a joke 16 years ago is basically the GOP platform of today.

It was 2008. A presidential election year. Sarah Palin, a half-term governor from Alaska and John McCain’s surprising pick as a VP candidate, was constantly talking about “real America,” or “pro-America parts of America, creating the unspoken assertion that there were parts of America that weren’t real or were anti-America.

To clarify what she meant by “real America” Palin would say things like: “We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America.” 1  You know, the folks! the rural folks!

Yeah, we know. Appealing to these archetypal rural folks—the volk! Volkisch!—has been a tactic to build support since early 20th Century Germany.

On the surface these appeals to Americana looked like it was all apple pie and Chevrolet but I could feel that undercurrent of resentment. The othering of anyone who disagreed with them. The delegitimizing of people who weren’t in their in group. That was the unspoken implication in the GOP’s message.

So as a satire I wrote a song that blatantly spoke that unspoken implication. My hope was that by calling out the underlying worldview of those folkish appeals the general public would see the dark direction in which that worldview pointed. I thought it was a pretty good satire. Salon even called it “Funny, and bold.” (emphasis theirs)

Well, here it is 2024 and this song is basically the Republican party platform. I listen to it now and think, “this is what they’re saying out loud.” The die-hard right wingers saw the dark direction of those folkish appeals and said, “yep! That’s for us!”

This is what we mean when we say irony is dead.

My video-making skills have improved in the intervening 16 years, check out my latest work in my special “The American Songbook: Redacted!” 11 music videos inspired by US History and culture.

New Special Premieres May 22!

We have a date!

My new comedy music video special The American Songbook: Redacted will be premiering on YouTube May 22! At 9pm eastern the new special that’s part Schoolhouse Rock, part The Daily Show, and part Friday Night Videos, will premiere on YouTube with an online watch party kicking off an hour earlier.

The night before, Tuesday, May 21, there will be an in-person premiere party where we’ll watch the special, have a few beverages, and enjoy some swag at Crystal Lake in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The party starts at 7pm and we’ll start the screening at 8.

I’m really excited to present this project in this form, it’s the culmination of the work on the album, the live shows, and a few of the individual lyric videos from the album. I think this video and format is the best way to experience these songs and stories, and it’s the perfect distillation of two years of work. I can’t wait for you to see it!

In fact, here are a couple of trailers I made to give you a feel for what’s on the way:

The 1-year Anny of The American Songbook: Redacted!

It’s been a full year since the release party/show for The American Songbook: Redacted studio album! In the year since the album’s release I’ve created 8 lyric videos  and refined the live show into an intelligently silly powerhouse that showcased at the 2023 Edmonton International Fringe Theater Festival. I also made buttons!

ASR-Oct12-22-SanwichBoard
October-Caps-Backstage-Sq
October-Caps-CAPT-point-Sq
October-Caps-side-eye

The release show took place at the lovely Caveat theater in NYC on October 12, 2022, which was the 530th anniversary of Columbus’ ships arriving in the Caribbean. What better day to launch a project that digs into the myths and beliefs of the culture that’s developed here on this continent? This October 12th is a perfect time to a look at the project as a whole and appreciate the creative journey it took me on.

The lyric videos were a lot of fun to put together and working on them helped me refine the monologues and intros in the live show. And the 7-show run in Edmonton not only gave me the opportunity to tighten and punch up the script, it featured a new opening song that really set up the tone and theme of the show. That song, “Were Those Really the Days?” has been added to the album exclusively on bandcamp, give it a listen, we’ll embed it below for your convenience!

And check out the lyric vides, they were a ton of fun to work on, especially the collaborations like The Invisible Hand, with the hilarious video-making team of Steven Rosenthal and Peggy O’Brien, and Corporations Are People Too!, featuring the wonderful artwork of Dan Pavelich!

And don’t forget the merch! You can still help support the project by picking up some merch! I really love the way the 4-button pack turned out, there’s a cool patch, a keychain, or a sticker sheet!

So what’s next for The American Songbook: Redacted? I hope to shoot the monologues and intros and create lyric videos for the remaining songs, putting them all together into a visual album/comedy special. But that will have to wait until after the release of my next project, a new album by The Green L.E.D.s.!! 

Yes, I’m doing something completely different again, but I’m very excited about it! I even have a new website for the project! Thanks for supporting and helping me pursue all of these ridiculous ideas!

Some new Socials

Broke-ass Social Scene

tl:dr: I have new Mastadon and post accounts

I really liked twitter. I followed a lot of comedians so my feed was full of jokes and funny takes on current events. I also enjoyed following accounts that were experts on various subjects, accounts from bands I liked (it’s how I found out about the Local H show here in NYC the other week), and official accounts like NASA. Accounts like We Rate Dogs gave me a little boost of happy every day.

And sure, there were things about twitter that sucked. Sometimes my feed was an endless scroll of complaints and lectures about the same subjects. Or people loudly arguing a point I agreed with as if I were on the other side of the debate. And there were trolls, there are always trolls. They can be nasty and legitimately dangerous when they get going, especially to women and people of color. Thankfully I avoided the worst of that.

And the upside was fun. As a comedian, twitter was a great medium for joke writing. The 120, and then 240, character limit forced you to be concise and get to the joke as efficiently as possible. As a performer it was a great place to announce shows and post highlights from them. Interacting with other comedians and musicians helped build a sense of community without having to be in the same place or having to hang out until 2 am after shows.

When the Musk-man took over I knew there’d be changes and I waited to see what they’d be. If he were just another idiot on twitter sh*t posting alt-right memes and buying into conspiracy narratives that would be one thing, but this is ridiculous. A self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” who capriciously bans reporters who cover him, exaggerating their coverage as an assassination threat while his own posts force his former executives into hiding from his troll army, is something I can’t tolerate. And the fact that the CEO of an electric car company AND a successful space launch company can tweet out anti-science, evidence-free opinions, coupled with the evidence that he makes decisions for the platform based on these ideas, clearly indicates it’s only going to get worse.

So I’m out.

If twitter finds new management I’ll think about going back, so I’ll leave my account open for the time being. Until then I’ve set up a mastodon account and one over at post. Mastodon feels the most like twitter so far, post doesn’t yet feel much like anything. I’m still on instagram too but holy cow, the amount of comedians posting clips of their sets is out of control. I’d unfollow you but some of you have cute pets!

Anyway, I’ll miss you guys on twitter but I hope to see you in other places.

Pre-orders live for The American Songbook: Redacted CD!

American Songbook:Redacted front cover

Order today, ships Friday!

My online store is now accepting pre-orders for the CD version of The American Songbook: Redacted! And it’s even on sale for only $12 for the rest of the month! Shipping is $5 flat rate for everything in your order so if you wanted to pick up The Green L.E.D.s debut album or maybe the Rob P. Digital Box Set, it’s still only $5 to ship it all!

The album officially comes out this Friday, October 7, and if you order by Thursday morning, Oct 6, I may just send it out a day early! There are only 100 pressed, hand numbered, so don’t wait too long! And I’ll also include a bandcamp download code so you can grab a digital copy of the album without having to dust off your old CD player 🙂

I’m really excited about this album, it’s very me, in that I like a lot of different styles of music, like weird stories from American history, and love making fun of the stupider parts of American culture. Be the first (and most likely only person ever) on your block to own it!

See the CD packaging in action! 👇

@robprocks The record showed up in time for the record release party! #musician #music #cd ♬ original sound – Rob P.

AS:R had debuted!

AS:R debut, May 18, 2022!

American Songbook: Redacted logo

The American Songbook: Redacted has finally hit the stage! The show last week at Caveat was a lot of fun and I’m really excited by how everything went, from the material to my performance to the crowd and the all the tech. Performing 11 new songs (with detailed intros and slides, no less) is a daunting task and something I would never consider in a regular standup set. But this show—an attempt at understanding American history and culture through music and humor—is near and dear to my heart and something I’ve been eager to try.

I want to give a huge thanks to everyone who came out the the show in NYC, it was on the later side on a Wednesday night in the middle of yet another Covid variant surge, so I know it wasn’t easy to show up in person. The team at Caveat was also top-notch, from front of house to the tech, everyone there was helpful, friendly, and damn good at their jobs. When I checked out the video of the live feed I was blown away by the quality and was so excited to realize that the people watching the live stream (thank you all so much for tuning in!) got such a great view of the show. If you’ve seen any of my Cover Tuesday DIY livestreams from home you’ll know that I know that tech is hard!

Now that the debut has has debuted I’m excited to develop the show further with performances, festivals, and more. I hope to do the show many more times here in New York, perhaps even an extended run somewhere. I’d also like to take it to select theaters and venues in other cities, and now that I have video of it to prove it actually exists, I’m going to start reaching out to places. If you have thoughts on a venue that could be a good fit let me know!  I’m also going to start recording studio versions of the songs for a companion album. Maybe I’ll release it as a live/studio double album! 

So many possibilities, and the possibilities feel even more real now that show #1 is in the books! Thank you to everyone who helped get it going!

“Let It Run” Behind The Song

“Let It Run”

Behind the songs of The Green L.E.D.s debut—Track 11

Let It Run is one of the first two songs I wrote when I started working on this album and I wrote it right after Show Me Something Else in March of 2021. I wanted to try to write something upbeat and optimistic to balance out the pensive mid-tempo vibes of “Something Else,” and for the first few days the working title was simply “upbeat” or “uplift.” As the basic tracks came together I knew it had to be the closing song on the album, it had a driving energy that would get me to stand up even when just listening back to rough mixes. I wanted that to be the lasting impression as people went off into the world.

I also think this is a perfect song for a running playlist, so if you’re looking for new tracks for your workout mix this is a great candidate. It’s about moving forward and trying to push through to something better, about being determined to keep trying (seriously, add it to your playlists, it helps the algorithmic faeries show the song to more people!). Funnily enough though, the word “run” in the title doesn’t refer to exercise, it’s about computer programs.

Mixing early 80s musical influences with thoughts of optimism and hope somehow got me thinking about my first computers and playing around with the BASIC programming language. It was exciting to try to learn what could be done, I played around with simple games, tried to design fun screen visuals, and was always trying to figure out how to do more. The way learning a new language can make you dream of travel to other parts of the world, experimenting with my Timex Sinclair and Atari 800XLs helped me learn what computers could do and got me dreaming of the future.

And speaking of retro technology, the intro to this track features a very weird piece of vintage gear, The Ludwig Phase II Guitar Synthesizer, which makes weird phasing and “yoy-yoy” sounds. I bought it from my friend and neighbor when I was a teenager and held onto it all these years mostly because it has lots of cool looking lights and switches. I really wanted to use it somewhere on the album and I think it creates a happy and otherworldly soundscape leading into this track.

Ludwig_BlogPost2
Ludwig_BlogPost

Let It Run is one of only a couple of tracks that have an acoustic guitar anchoring the mix (the other being I Ain’t Gonna Play That) and I think it really drives the chorus, especially in the break after the bridge. It’s also the highest vocal part on the record and I debated whether or not to lower the song to set the vocal in the range of the other songs. I tried a few versions in which I kept the voice lower but it just didn’t match the energy of the music so I deviated a little from the rest of the album and tried to belt it out.

In the end I’m really happy with the vocal and the track overall, and I like the way this song and “What’s In Store” create optimistic bookends for an album that has a fair amount of angst. It’s like a compliment sandwich: a sweet coating of peppy vibes surrounding a creamy nougat of melancholy and despair. Maybe that should’ve been the title of the album!

Nah, The Green L.E.D.s was the way to go, a blinking signal that the listener can decide the meaning of.

LetItRunNotebook

“Here Comes The Money” Behind The Song

“Here Comes The Money”

Behind the songs on The Green L.E.D.s debut—Track 10

Here Comes the Money had a very interesting journey to becoming a song for The Green L.E.D.s debut. The music was written sometime near the beginning of 2018 but the only lyrics I could come up with to fit the melody told a story about a haunted corn maze. The song lingered in my notebooks as a novelty/oddity for about 2 years.

In the summer of 2020 when we were all stuck in our homes thanks to the global pandemic, John Bolton was all over the news hawking his memoir of working in the Trump administration. I found it vile that was hoping people would pay money to hear the information he should have given in testimony at the first impeachment trial and I started singing the line “F*** you John Bolton” to myself over the Haunted Corn Maze melody. I recorded the song and made a lyric video for it. I posted it online and promptly forgot about it, but the melody stayed in my head.

I really liked the music; it’s dark and moody and I always felt that if I found the right lyrics it would make a really cool song. When I started toying with the idea of doing The Green L.E.D.s album I went back to this song to see if I could come up with lyrics that would fit the project, most importantly trying to find a phrase that would fit the rhythm of “a haunted corn maze” or “f*** you John Bolton.”

I tried a ton of options, including “you know it’s bulls***,” “it’s not the answer,” “I’m not a robot” (which would’ve been about captchas), “this song is blockchain(?)” Then finally, in mid-May, I scribbled down “here comes the money, there goes all the fun.” It hit on the idea of investors coming in and with their money and influence ruining the thing they’re trying to acquire. It’s ostensibly about startups but also applies to the entertainment industry, when studios and producers ruin the unique aspects of a project in an attempt to broaden its appeal.

The song also had a few incarnations on the music side. At first it had a sort of dark cabaret vibe, then there was an attempt at a Latin go-go feel before I settled on the upbeat, guitar driven version heard on the album.

I think this version fits in well with The Green L.E.D.s but who knows if the song won’t be reborn again? A reggae song about cruise ships? A country song about drive thrus? Stay tuned!

Here-Comes-the-Money-notebook

“I Ain’t Gonna Play That” Behind The Song

“I Ain’t Gonna Play That”

Behind the songs on The Green L.E.D.s debut—Track 9

I Ain’t Gonna Play That is about trolls, and not the cute fun kind. It’s about the online a-holes who stir up anger, grievance, and resentment to get ratings, boost listenership, or “drive engagement.” Political radio hosts like Rush (may he rest in torment) and Glenn Beck, TV pundits like Tucker Carlson, or the thousands of podcasters and vloggers who all poke at hot button issues to get attention, like spoiled brats flicking your ear to get you to engage with them.

Can you tell I hate these kind of people?

Getting that anger into a song that wasn’t just me screaming out at the universe was tricky, but I think I came up with something that makes the point while still being fun to listen to. In fact my biggest concern with the song wasn’t the subject matter but that the track’s feel and arrangement are a bit different from the rest of the album. I wanted the album to be a cohesive project with a strong foundation of early 80s alternative influences; would a track with a laid-back shuffle beat and acoustic guitars fit?

“Is it too groovy for Green LEDs?” is a question I asked myself in my notebook when I was working on the song, because that acoustic shuffle groove was the first thing I wrote and was the core of the song. The shuffle beat makes this track a little more bluesy and roots rocky than any of the other songs so I worried that it would stick out and be too much of a gear change, But once I hit on the subject of not engaging trolls I worked to convince myself to keep it in.

TooGroovy-

I wasn’t lying! I literally asked myself “Is it too groovy for Green LEDs” in my notebook 😛

I had tried some other lyrics here and there but nothing quite fit the feel and attitude of the music until I thought of the “Homey the Clown” sketches on the 90s sketch show In Living Color. Homey was a birthday party clown whose catch phrase was “Homey don’t play that,” which he’d employ any time a kid wanted him to do something clowny that he felt was beneath him. Once I landed on my version of the phrase, matching it to the subject of trolls came up almost immediately, because here in 2021 trolls are ascendent and everywhere. We have sitting US Senators who seem to care more about trolling the media and their political opponents than doing anything remotely resembling legislating, for crying out loud! They’re taking over.

Even when the track was finished though I still debated whether or not to include it on the album. “Is it really a Green L.E.D.s song?” I asked myself, as if I were the A&R guy at a major label. In the end I liked the track too much to leave it out, and the advice to not engage toxic trolls—advice I constantly need to remind myself to take—was something I wanted to include.

I still ask myself if it fits. Does it? Let me know what you think in the comments, but please, no trolling 😀

“I Can Feel It (Can You?)” Behind The Song

“I Can Feel It (Can You?)”

Behind the songs on The Green L.E.D.s debut—Track 8

Not only is I Can Fell It (Can You?) the earliest official song by The Green L.E.D.s, it’s the song that launched the sound, vibe, and the very name The Green L.E.D.s. I wrote the song for the “Back in Time: Vol 2” project put together by my old Steppingstones bandmate Dan Pavelich. It was a concept album wherein people wrote 80s style songs under an assumed name of an 80s band, as if they were “lost hits” from the decade. 

The original version of the song had a synth bass, following the inspiration of the song “Cars” by Gary Neumann (which was released in 1979, sue me). I was also influenced by The Cars, the band, because I knew I wanted to mix in some guitars with the new wave synth sounds. Vocally I wanted to use my lower register to give the song a bit of a different sound from my comedy recordings, and it was something I knew could sound pretty decent because for an earlier project that Dan put together I did a full on Peter Murphy/Bauhaus impression. When I put all those musical elements together what came out ended up sounding a bit like the Psychedelic Furs and Echo and the Bunneymen and is a sound I loved. When I decided to do a full album of original non-comedy music it was the sound I wanted to explore further and having that starting point and direction really helped me focus the project.

As the new project was taking shape with some of the newer tracks on the record I went back to my original recording of ICFI(CY?) to see if it held up or if I should rerecord it to better fit in. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I still liked what I did and how well the subject and the style fit with the newer material. I decided to change just a few things to bring it into the fold: I replaced the synth bass with a new electric bass part, replaced the drum machine sounds with the drum kit I used on the other rock songs on the album, and I redid the guitar solo. The original solo was fine but not great, and I felt that after a full year of playing a 12–14 song set of covers every week my guitar chops were leveled up a bit so I gave it another go.

The lyrics, written back in 2017–2018 also fit really well with the angst and mood of the newer material. When I approached the song for the original project my goal was to capture the feeling of late March in the midwest. There’s something about the feeling of the snow beginning to melt, the smell of mud, the hope of spring mixed with the fatigue of a long winter;  I wanted to set that to music. Those seasonal transitions remind you that time is passing, that you’re a year older, but also you have a new season coming up to try to get it right again. It’s a combination of hope and dread that is both exciting and terrifying and I’m sure the Germans have a word for it.

And if it weren’t for this song and that original Back In Time project, I wouldn’t have come up with the name The Green L.E.D.s! Having a name in place was a huge help because I’m sure I would have gone back and forth on what to call the project. Do I release it under my own name? What if people are expecting a comedy record? Do I come up with a pseudonym or a band name? Having a name in place that I liked was another reason I was able to hit the ground running.

So why The Green L.E.D.s? For that first project I was focusing on early 80s influences, (ok, late 70s if you factor in The Cars and Gary Neumann) and there’s something about green LEDs that remind me of that era. Handheld electronics were just starting to add green LEDs in addition to the red ones that were in everything prior. Lots of electronic devices and pretty much any amp I had had red or green LED indicator lights. And when blue and white LEDs hit the consumer market and started showing up on everything, I hated how bright they were. The indicator light on my external hard drive doesn’t need to light up the whole room at night!

Green LEDs, especially the lower powered ones from the 80s, have a nice, warm glow. The color is soothing. It’s like the color of Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. Thinking about them helps me take a little step outside myself and try to connect my past to my present. I can feel it, can you?

“Start over Again” Behind the Song

“Start over Again”

Behind the songs on The Green L.E.D.s debut album—Track 7

Start over Again kicks off “side 2” of the album and, as the advance single released back in July, it was the first public glimpse of what the album would sound like. Since The Green L.E.D.s had yet to release anything on the streaming services the decision to put out an advance single was more of an administrative one than anything. I needed to establish artist accounts at Spotify, Apple Music, and other places in order to properly promote the release of the album in the fall. Still, I wanted the single to showcase the best parts of the project and get people excited to hear more. There were three songs I considered for the single: Start over Again, What’s in Store, and Show Me Something Else.

Even though I think What’s in Store one of the strongest candidates for a single I decided against it because I already knew it would be the opening track of the album and I didn’t want to kick off the album with a track people had already heard. I wanted the album to start off with something brand new, with that upbeat energy the track has, and a song that sets people up for, well, what’s in store.

The remaining choice between Show Me Something Else and Start over Again wasn’t as easy because I think they both have intriguing elements and are catchy enough to stand as singles. Show Me Something Else has a guitar solo I’m really proud of and I wanted people to know the album was going to be guitar oriented. Start over Again has a dramatic chorus and a lot of angst, which is also an important ingredient in the album. In the end I felt Start over Again not only best captured the overall mood of the project, starting over again is what the album is. It’s a restart. It’s one of the many times in my life and career I’ve felt I had to take a few steps back in order to move forward. It’s me trying to navigate a way out of the abyss of 2020-2021.

Start-over-Again-Notebook_web

above, from my notebook on March 29, 2021

With the working title of “Chicago Bar Chords,” the second working title to include ‘Chicago,’ Start over Again started taking shape early in the project. My first audio note for the song is on March 28, 2021 where I have the chords and melody of the chorus, and by April 12 I had the lyrics worked out and had named the piece “Start over Again.” As I worked on the backing tracks I started to hear the angst and longing coming through in the chorus and my goal with the song was to set that up and deliver it as best I could.

From a songwriting standpoint this song has a bit of an odd structure in that there’s a prechorus that only appears once, before the second chorus (the section that starts with “it’s a waste to wait another day”). The bridge is in a more traditional position after the second chorus, which means chorus 2 is sandwiched between two sections that only appear once in the song, which is a little bit weird. And is it really a prechorus if it’s only in the song once? Are they really two bridges?

This deviation from the formula was one of the reasons I thought maybe the track wouldn’t be the right choice for a single. But in the end I felt the sections flowed so well that the exception to the songwriting “rules” wasn’t an issue. And the fact that the song so perfectly summed up why I was making this record—the hope, the doubt, the dread and fear of a restart—made it the perfect song to introduce The Green L.E.D.s new album to the world.

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