Hello everyone and welcome to another new edition of the Laptop Sessions with Jim Fusco! I’m excited to bring you this new acoustic cover song music video tonight from a band I absolutely loved growing up.
You see, in my early years, CDs were just becoming popular. My father, being the music fan he is, was constantly buying music on CDs so he could have a pristine digital copy. Fortunately for me, I got to hear many “Best Of” albums when he got them. So, even though he probably had a couple Guess Who vinyl LPs, listening to these old hits on CD was like hearing them again for the first time. So, as a kid, I was really into bands like the Monkees, the Moody Blues, and The Guess Who- and my love for them lives on today!
I’ve wanted to play the Guess Who song “Laughing” for quite a while now. But, I could never really figure out the intricate opening section. The “chords” are actually just augmented versions of one chord (based around an “A” chord). So even though they all sound like different chords, it’s just a matter of moving one finger up or down one fret! That’s pretty easy to play, but not so easy to figure out. Songs like this, to me, raise a flag. Songs that have these funny, intricate chord progressions (like making interesting variations on one chord) are almost always done like this: the guitar part came first and the rest of the song came later. That is, Burton Cummings of the Guess Who was probably sitting down with his guitar, playing that opening section. From there, he added those variations and all of a sudden, a song came to him! That’s in contrast to the other form of songwriting (which I’ve been doing, but takes much longer to compile a full list of songs) where a tune pops into your head. Then, you head on over to your guitar or piano to figure out the chords that go to it.
Either way of writing a song is fine by me (though my brother Mike is very much a purist for the “pop into your head” method), and I think songs like “Laughing” prove that fooling around with a couple of chords on the guitar can result in a big hit song.
The vocals are also great on “Laughing”. That goes for both the soulful lead and the good backing vocals. This song is pretty dynamic, too- it has three distinct tempos. Plus, I think it’s the only song I’ve ever heard with in-tune laughing!
So, Christmastime is upon us. Personally, I had an incredibly busy Thanksgiving weekend. Between our two Thanksgiving get-togethers, the Jets game/TNA Wrestling night, midnight shopping at the outlets and other stores, another family get-together and sleepover Friday, a party and bar-hopping for my brother in law’s birthday on Saturday, I was POOPED by Sunday! We finally got to put all the Christmas stuff up in the house and I must say, it looks pretty great. I’m so excited for this Christmas- it promises to be (gift-wise, at least) one of the best yet. I’m holding out hope for getting a couple of different gifts. I’ll be posting on December 16th and the 30th, so I’ll be able to share the rundown of all my Christmas presents then!
I hope you enjoy tonight’s music video post of “Laughing” by the Guess Who. If you know it, then you know it’s a classic tune. If you don’t know it yet, then I think you’ll really dig it! Have fun shopping and I’d love to hear from everyone how their Christmas season is going so far! See you in a couple weeks for an all-new acoustic cover song music video!