Hello and welcome everyone to the first new edition of the Laptop Sessions in FIVE YEARS! I almost don’t even remember what life was like back then. Two kids, a different job, a new house, and a Master’s degree all occurring in that time will do that. I’ve also been part of a band, WCJM free internet radio is back and operating again (woo hoo!) and I’ve now created my third “studio” here in the house. This one is slightly more compact than the others but I certainly was able to hook everything up the right way and now I’ve realized my dream of being able to flip a power switch and then sit down to record whatever I want immediately- drums, vocals, guitars, etc. It has allowed me to record three songs in a very short amount of time. And that’s good because I only have a very short amount of free time!

So, when I released my first new song in five years (noticing a trend?) I released a slower, more introspective song. Not exactly a big bang for a “comeback” record. It’s like if Elvis’ big comeback record after he got back from the army was “In the Ghetto”…

Well, I’m always one to double-down on a stupid idea, so I give you my first Laptop Session acoustic cover song music video in half a decade: a Wiggles song! Yes, those Wiggles. My son loved watching and listening to their music and we like so many of their songs. Their original songs aren’t really “kids” songs. You know how kids songs go- they’re overly simplistic. But the Wiggles were born out of a rock band called the Cockroaches (yup) and much like cockroaches, the Wiggles will never die. They live on to this day with a group of 75% new members (the OG, Anthony, still remains) and are still very entertaining. Yes, I’ve seen them in concert…twice…out of state…

This song is from the video “Big Red Car”, which has some good tunes on it. This particular song is the one Jonny and I loved the most from this video. It’s such a sweet song. But it’s a real song- not just a children’s song. Very few children’s songs have an A flat minor chord in them. The original Wiggles recording was sung by raspy-voiced Captain Feathersword, but I cleaned things up a little. The original recording was by the Cockroaches with slightly different words. But it’s essentially the same song, which is so cool to me- these guys realized that any songs could be children’s songs with some tweaks. And that’s why the Wiggles music is so good to me.

This video goes back to the roots of the Laptop Sessions and our ideal of “putting an end to bad YouTube cover songs”. Well, we certainly never achieved that goal, but this video takes a song that would’ve been written-off as a kids song and turns it into a “real” song. The idea of this music blog was never to take “perfect” recordings and make them better- when people do that (including us), it’s almost always worse. So, I want to get back to doing that again. Like, taking a song from the 80’s that people don’t like because of the fake instruments and production style. It’s still a good song- it just needs the acoustic treatment!

Of course, I will do the exact opposite of that for my next video, as it’s an absolutely perfect song and recording…but I had to do a cover of it for many reasons, which I’ll share then! It’s great to be back- not committing to a schedule at this point, so we’ll just see you next time!