Sneeze at the Sun

I wanted to get more serious about recording music, so I decided to do a little cover album of some of my favorite songs using my baritone ukulele exclusively.  The result is "Sneeze at the Sun," a humble little offering that taught me a lot.  Forewarning, my voice is very "eh," but I refuse to doctor it...sorry.

Music recording is fun.  All you need is a snowball and some audacity.



Schwarz zu Blau has been one of my favorite songs since my coworker Dirk introduced it to me in 2010 when I worked at BI.  Peter Fox and Seeed were some of his favorites, along with die Fantastischen Vier.  I've been rapping it (when I'm alone) since that summer--it seemed like something fun to set to ukulele.  It was also really helpful in expanding and developing my ability to converse in German.  I learn new things every time I pick up a new song.  The Berlin hiphop/reggae scene is strong.  Check out Marteria (YT) if you like Peter Fox.
[lyrics][youtube (Peter Fox)][my cover]

I Walked from The Age of Adz is from the point of view of a former lover--the things they want to say, but can't.  It might be from separation or from death.  Either way, it's beautiful and hauntingly poignant--easily my favorite song from the album.  I listened to it a lot in college.  This is my acoustic, and much faster version.  I'm still not sure what to think about the speed.  Some days I wish I had slowed it down, other days I like it zippy.  Whatevs.

I got a kind of ethereal voice effect by simply recording 4 tracks each for the right and left sides (I sang it 8 times--you have to be careful to sing it almost identically each time if possible).  I did this with all of the vocals on my album, but only this one has more than 1 vocal track for each side.  This technique also helped me overcome the difficulty in covering Sufjan, because his voice is wayyyyy better than mine--it enables you to kind of average out your voice over a few takes to make it sound better when they're combined (it's all my voice undoctored, but layered over top of other takes).
[lyrics][youtube (Sufjan Stevens)][my cover]

Hallelujah is one of the first songs I grew comfortable playing on my first uke and I love just playing and singing it whenever.  Cohen's original and Buckley's cover are my favorites.
[lyrics][youtube (Buckley)][youtube (Cohen)][my cover]

Free Fallin' by Petty brings me back to high school and Young Life and much of what is good from that time.  Free Fallin' reminds me of when I learned to love well from my friend Justin.  It brings back people and emotion and silliness--I still want to glide down over Mulholland.
[lyrics][youtube (Tom Petty)][my cover]

Mighty to Save is one of those songs that describes me at multiple points in my life--how I feel about myself and interact with others.  If I had a mission statement about how I viewed my life as a Christian, this could be it.
[lyrics][youtube (Hillsong UNITED)][my cover]

Black Sun was introduced to me recently by my friend Nate.  It struck me first because of the melancholy chords--I live off sad dark sounding songs--and stuck with me due to the way it describes the complexity and grey of our lives.  Life is paradox and Death Cab doesn't try to explain it; lack of explanation gives this track meaning and power to me--it's failure and hope.
[lyrics][youtube (DCFC official)][youtube (DCFC acoustic)][my cover]