By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to your Tuesday edition of The Laptop Sessions on the best video blog on the planet- that’s right- the planet!  And the views don’t lie- we’re growing every single day and we’re showing no signs of stopping.

Tonight, I bring you a song from yet another new band to our list of cover songs, the Bee Gees, one of the most popular bands of all time.  Of course, this song is from the period before the disco stuff.  My parents used to love to see the Bee Gees in concert- I wish I got to see them before one passed away.

This sin’t even my favorite song from them.  I guess I’d have to go with “Nights on Broadway”, but that’s quite a bit more difficult to do acoustically than this one.

“I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You” is actually a morbid song.  It’s about a man being sentenced to death and on his way to be executed, he pleads to get one more message to his loved one.  There’s even a mention of the famed “Green Mile”.  Growing up, I had no idea that’s what the song was about, but you learn quite a bit when you learn how to play a song.

Enjoy tonight’s video and I’ll be back on Friday for another great acoustic cover song music video.  Stay tuned tomorrow for Chris Moore’s next Original Wednesday entry and then back to Jeff for another great song on his infamous “Thumpin’ Thursday”!

Related posts:

1. “Come and Get It” (Badfinger Acoustic Rock Cover Song) – The Laptop Sessions
2. “Do It Again” (Steely Dan Acoustic Rock Cover Song) – The Laptop Sessions
3. “Handle With Care” (Traveling Wilburys Acoustic Rock Cover Song) – The Laptop Sessions

Welcome to the first-ever Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song music video in high definition, which I’ve dubbed, “LSHD”.  I’m so excited to be on the cutting-edge of technology and hope that more YouTube viewers will see my cover song music videos because of the enhanced new look.

But, what a project doing this for the first time…  Even on my fast Mac Pro, it still took almost an hour just to render this video, and then the audio and video sync kept going off.  So, it was a project that took WAY more time than anticipated.  I think I have a pretty good system going now, so I hope the future music videos will be a bit easier to produce.

Tonight, I enlisted the help of  my colleague Noreen’s 1967 Gibson 12-string acoustic guitar.  It’s pretty sweet, as you see in the video, but also sounds pretty great, as well.  It’s really easy to play and has a very powerful sound.  As soon as I picked it up a couple weeks ago, “Holiday” from the Bee Gees just popped into my head.  Something about that 12-string sound that just reminded me of this song.  So, I knew I had to have it for this video, and I knew I wanted something special for my first one in HD.

Actually, this is also my first music video from my new house, which I share with my new wife.  Yes, the awesome studio is long gone now, but I’ve got a pretty good setup here in one of our spare bedrooms.  Someday I’ll rebuild the studio, but I don’t think it’ll be in the house.  We’ll see.

“Holiday” is one of those songs I’ve known for all my 25 years.  My father put it on his famous Christmas compilation cassette tape set and we heard it every year.  It took me quite a long time to realize that this wasn’t necessarily a Christmas song, though I do hear it on the oldies stations during this time of year.  I thought it would be a nice way to usher in the “season”.  Actually, there are a lot of songs that aren’t really Christmas songs, but I’ll always consider them to be: “Another Morning” from the Moody Blues (off of Days of Future Passed, which is about “a child’s world”, which my father thought reminded him of Christmas), “Eyes of a Child” by the Moody Blues (off of To Our Children’s Children’s Children, which my father took to mean like the birth of a child, like Jesus), “Christmas” by the Who (which is only loosely based on the holiday of Christmas), and “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison (which is a song praising God, but says nothing about the holiday).  Again, they’ll always be Christmas songs to me.

I’m glad I got to know this song- it’s a good tune.  The early Bee Gees were really good and I enjoy many of their early hits.  They’re a band that really re-invented themselves in the seventies.  It’s almost like two completely different bands.  Plus, you know I love a group of brothers that write their own songs and sing in harmony, so it’s a perfect fit!

I never really understood the words to this song, but now I know why- it’s because I still had the kid’s understanding of the lyrics that I thought I “learned” when I was little.  I mean, I learned the words maybe 20 years ago, but my vocabulary then was not what it is now.  So, the line, “put the soft pillow on my head” always came out as “but there’s something upon my head”.  No wonder it never made any sense to me.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my first LSHD video and hope you’ll come back next week for another (and a REAL) Christmas classic!  Welcome to the new era of the Laptop Sessions.

Related posts:

1. “Blue Christmas” (Elvis Presley acoustic Christmas cover song) – The Laptop Sessions
2. “On Christmas Day” (Brian Wilson Christmas Cover Song) – The Laptop Sessions
3. “Elderberry Wine” by Elton John (Acoustic Rock Cover Song) – The Laptop Sessions