O2B - 2018

The party's a blast...until it isn't.

For most of the year, I commute to work by bike, choosing routes that go through as many parks as possible. Although riding a bike in a major city comes with its own set of stressors, it is leaps and bounds better than any other commute I've had to suffer. Sometimes, while riding, fully formed songs will even pop into my head. I usually enjoy them for a brief moment, and then release them back into the aether whence they came. Sometimes though, a little songlet bores its way into my dome, and the only way to get it out is to record it. Then I am free! FREEEEEEEEE!

In recent years, the homeless population has really exploded in Berlin, and it is quite common to find people living in the bigger parks, often even in tents. One day, as I rode past what some films might sell as a post-apocalyptic settlement in Tierpark, it made me think about how fortunate I am. And then I got sidetracked thinking about partygoers sleeping in parks (which I have never done) and the buffoonery of youth. I am grateful to be past the stage where it seems normal to party all night. "At my age, it's just not cute anymore," I thought, which would be the "resolution" of this song in my head. For me, just like everyone else, "O2B young drunk n dumb" eventually becomes just "oh, to be drunk and dumb."

All in all, this recording is not my best effort, but i do like a couple aspects of it:

• That one weird little bar of 3 at the end of each stanza feels like it belongs there
• While i often have a tendency to overplay my guitar, i used the electric tenor here quite sparingly
• I am not a very good bass player by any means, but some of the lines here are exactly what I imagined during my bike commute

Even though I never managed to record the second verse and chorus that would finish the "story" of the song, I felt I had done enough just by thinking about it. I didn't have the patience to think about a cool intro or more lyrics or other sections. And I didn't really like the song THAT much to keep going. The party was draggin, so I bailed!