Jordan Hirsch: Technologist, Improviser, Rock Star

1. How Does It Feel?

   I wrote this one for FAWM 2010. I composed this song using Reason, using my new M-Audio Axiom Pro keyboard. I started out just playing around with different instruments and voicings, and really enjoying the old-school 8-bit sounds I was finding. The structure went through several revisions but I'm really happy with where the music ended up. And even though I hate it, I've always secretly wanted to play with autotune, so this was my chance.

   The lyrics started out as a bad breakup song, then my wife Amanda Hirsch (who's a great writer) helped me turn it into a much better breakup song, but in the end this song just didn't want to be a breakup song. It wanted to be a song about a killer ship's computer who falls in love with an astronaut and goes insane. That construct was loosely based on an iMusical show I saw recently where my friend Karen Lange played a ship's computer who falls in love. So I basically stole that idea and ran with it.

2. Drum Song

   Another one from FAWM 2010. Not the most compelling title, but a fun song nonetheless. My first time playing with the vocoder effect in Ableton Live, which I started using this year to record, mix, and master my songs. It ended up drowning out the vocals for the most part, which was pretty much what I intended. My friend John Argentiero is featured here on guitar - he sent me several guitar tracks to play with, and I used Ableton to splice them together to create something new.

3. My Country Tis of Me

   The aforementioned John wrote this one for FAWM 2010, and that's him playing almost all the instruments. He wrote the first draft of the lyrics and sent them to me to do some rewrites. He liked the result, so I laid down the vocal track and the keyboard parts, and he layed down the other ~40 tracks of ear candy and mixed the whole thing. I defy you to find more danceable social satire.

4. The Game

   Another FAWM 2010 collaboration, this time with Norwegian electronic composer Kristian Børresen. Kristian wrote the music and posted on the FAWM forums that he was looking for a lyricist and vocalist. I filled both roles on this one. The lyrics just sort of popped into my head the first time I listened to his excellent music.

5. My Name In Lights

   I co-wrote this one with Amanda for FAWM 2009. This was the first time I'd really written a song since high school, and I had very little confidence in my abilities at the time. Almost all the songs I wrote that year centered around the theme of being a blocked artist. I had this chord progression I'd been playing around with, and Amanda came up with the lyrics and melody, then John mixed and mastered it for me, adding a few effects to polish the overall sound.

6. Hey Girl

   Amanda and I co-wrote this one for FAWM 2010. We were out at a bar on Valentine's Day, and some Barry White song came on the sound system. Then an R&B song. Then 10 more R&B songs. We were laughing at the way each one started with a long spoken intro, consisting mostly of the singer asking some girl if she was ready for him to begin. We wondered what a song might sound like if the girl was ready, but the guy wasn't. This song is the answer to that question.

   Both parts of this were improvised, then I looped and pasted Amanda's lines as needed to create the final product.

7. Not As I Do

   I'd had the piano part for this one in my head for about a year, and finally did something with it for FAWM 2010. It's about a guy who's done more than any of us will ever do in a lifetime, except for the one thing he wants to do most of all...

8. Shattered

   I wrote this song in 1993 for my high school band, "Twisted Fish," which featured John on guitar and bass, me on vocals and guitar, and our friend Mat Schulman on the drums. This song was the result of a bad breakup (I guess all breakups are bad, especially in high school), and the lyrics definitely reflect a certain 16-year-old mindset. Years later, our drummer, Mat — who had produced Twisted Fish's album on his Tascam 4-track back in '93 — opened up his own recording studio in Baltimore, MD. We thought it would be fun to revisit some of the old Twisted Fish tunes, so John recorded the guitar and bass tracks at his home in Madison, WI, Mat did the drums in Baltimore, and I laid down the vocals at my house in Washington, DC. We sent all the tracks to Mat, who performed his studio wizardry and thus created the hair-metal masterpiece you hear today.

9. Figure It Out

   This was the last song I wrote for FAWM 2010. 2 days away from the finish line, this song suddenly popped into my head, pretty much fully formed. At first I ignored it, since it sounded too tricky to record in time, but then I realized I probably wasn't going to get another flash of inspiration so close to the deadline, so I sat down and wrote out the lyrics before I forgot them and started plunking out the musical parts.

   This song is my take on what I imagine Amanda must be feeling half the time when I ask her stupid questions like "do we have peanut butter?" (asked while I'm standing in front of the fridge) or "does this tie go with this shirt?" (asked while she is not in the room). She's since taken to singing the chorus at me whenever I ask a stupid question, so I get to hear it a lot.

Thanks for listening!