When the Music

April 12, 2016 — 2 Comments

For week 14 of #songaweek2016, an extra challenge was thrown out to anyone who wanted to try it – use three particular words in the song. Those who wanted to participate sent a word of their choice to one person, who then wrote all those words on a sheet of paper, cut it up, put the words in a hat, and chose three at random. And the winning words were:

Valparaiso
Socks
Moxy

I wrote this song very much stream-of-consciousness with those three words in mind. Except the last verse, which was inspired by a motorcycle ride and a weekend road trip with my love. Who, by the way, came up with some pretty fine bass and guitar additions, as well as pulling together a tasty drum track from our Studio One software.

As always, there is lots of great listening for you at the songaweek2016 website, and you might especially enjoy hearing all the different songs that came out of the 3-word challenge in Week 14. I haven’t finished listening through the list yet but from what I can tell so far, challenge-accepters were Jen Bluhm, Phil Cowan, Anielle Reid, Deborah Kelly, and James Tristan Redding. So fun to hear the different directions people took it.

For all I know he’s in Valparaiso
kissing some other girl
for all he cares I could be standing there
it wouldn’t even faze him

That’s when the music comes to me
That’s how the music sets me free

Would you eat it with a fox in socks?
Take a brave new bite
Chase it down with moxy on the rocks
It’s a bold concoction

That’s when the music comes to you
That’s how the music feels brand new

Honey take me back to Loveland
on your motorcycle
With the Badlands in our mirrors
we’re alright for now

That’s when the music comes alive
That’s how the music feels inside

January Night (Don’t Wake Yet)

January 25, 2016 — 4 Comments

Here’s my song from last week. #Songaweek2016

It was especially fun to work with Nathan on this one – it had been a while since we made a videosong together (except our annual holiday greeting in December).

A Song A Week!

January 19, 2016 — 5 Comments

I am excited to announce that I have joined the Song a Week 2016 challenge. As you might guess, this means I and a number of other songwriters will attempt to write a new song every week. I’ve never tried something like this before, and I know it’s going to be a good exercise in fighting my perfectionist tendencies – a song a week means I’m sure to put out some stuff I’m less than proud of, some that bores me, some I will probably even regret or look back on in embarrassment at some point!

But I think I can count on doing some good work too, since I’ll be exercising those writing muscles regularly!

Here’s to a year of hard work and a batch of 50-some new songs! (I joined a week late so I’m not sure how many weeks that actually boils down to).

And here’s the first song I submitted:

Another one is already written, recorded and in the midst of editing work for this week! Starting strong 🙂

Lastly, here are a couple songs I recorded recently but forgot to post on the blog:

A Human Called Woman

May 1, 2015 — 2 Comments

Here’s a solo album I recorded in 2005, that I re-released last month on Noisetrade where you can download it for free.

http://noisetrade.com/juliabloom/a-human-called-woman

Manifesto of an Unchosen Musician

March 24, 2015 — 10 Comments

Heaven and the music industry* have twisted themselves together in my brambled mind. I mean the heaven I used to believe in, and the music industry I used to dream about, and the way they both still affect me on a gut level I’ve not paused to think about before.

Something about being chosen, about higher-ups moving in mysterious ways, about knowing the right people, being in the right place at the right time.

And clashing with that, having a voice and a soul that feel too large for my timid self, that come tearing out sideways if I try to box them up – but not having enough of the mysterious something – the look, the drive, the belief, the secret decoder – to make it with the gatekeepers.

Something about scarcity, about me and scads of people I know or have heard, who keep making music and living big soulful lives because what else can they do? – and the airwaves being just too crowded, the need for the higher-ups to choose only some, the ones who work the hardest, clamor the loudest, get born into the right family at the right time.

And how I don’t feel like I really want to be chosen in a system like that, and how I feel more alive outside the contrived paradise, where kids and old people and loud people and shy people and generally awkward people and anyone else below the industry standard are making their music and living their lives, sans audience, sans halo.

No mansion for me, and no platinum record. I’ll just be out on the front steps of heaven, singing my guts out** with the rest of the unchosen.

*Whatever heaven may be, this ain’t it; and “the music industry” is hardly such an easily-generalized monolith, and there are many highly successful musicians making music I love and doing good authentic work. This post is about opting out of elitist mentalities, wherever they crop up, and not letting fear of being unchosen keep us from being who we really are, making music whether anyone listens or not, searching our souls despite the disapproval of the gatekeepers of faith or tradition or clout in any form.

**“You’ve been singing your guts out / Is that not enough to do?” – I love this phrase from a Luka Bloom song, whose lyrics also seem relevant to this post: http://www.lukabloom.com/lyrics/riverside_album/the-one/

Extra credit – these songs:

Julia Bloom

veteran amateur singer/songwriter

music