The Cam Kennedy Band
You Tube Video Song Recordings (2012-2016)
I was driven to put this CD together by the interest of my lovely wife, so here it is. It is the songs that I have made youtube videos for and spans from 2012 to 2016, except “Ellen Francis” written in the mid 90’s. I used little multitracking or studio tricks on most of the songs to catch the vibe instead.
I write about escape a lot, but as I change, I see that I have to connect with people here to communicate. My older songs tend to be really hard to relate to because the themes are so broad and abstract that it’s hard to pin them down. I always tried to sing about freedom, but no one can relate to that, because freedom can be anything. You have to sing about the bondage first so that you can travel together in time with the listener, and have the shared experience. A spiritual teacher once told a friend of mine that he should sing about how shitty this place is instead of the angels. Strangely counterintuitive, but I get it now.
I’m always joking that I’m one of the least talented musicians I know. It’s actually true in the sense that I can’t “hear” complex harmonies, or jazz. I just like the art form of putting concepts to vibrations. I don’t compose easily. I write because I think it’s important in this life to close the gap between yourself, and your authentic self, and original songwriting is such a good mirror. It has really helped me break down my aloofness.
My natural tendency is to dump out a song like a turd, but they have to be nurtured, reviewed, practised, edited, critiqued, arranged. My lack of discipline is a flaw confronted in this process. Mastery is no simple task. I get so lost in the process of making music sometimes, I have to be careful. A hyperexcited physical state leads to a really bad crash.
Music is a vehicle. It’s such a communal thing to do. No one goes to a concert to disagree, to vent, to see someone lose, or to see someone get injured. We do it to share memories, to make new ones together, to harmonise, to find release, and to travel in time. I hope this compilation of thoughts reaches you in some way, and touches off that abstract moment when we realize that we are all the same.
You can purchase this CD and other music at https://thecameronkennedyband.bandcamp.com/
Crash
This song was a song written with the Quantum Band by John Oldham, and at the time I thought that it was a really powerful, intimate song. This recording is on one microphone and on a fingerpicked guitar, amplifying the intimacy of the lyric.
Hallelujah
I recorded this song with the two girls around our kitchen table with one microphone. It is a famous Leonard Cohen song given a really sweet and innocent interpretation. Caily had been attracted to the song for some reason at the Academy, and I wanted to record it when I heard her sing it.
The Machine
I recorded this with the help of Bastian Berende’s harmonica, which is beautiful. This was during my entitlement phase, and so, it kind of teachy.
Butterflies
This is an open tuning slide guitar song written about the time of the elections here in the US. It is performed on a 3/4 size practise guitar, pots and pans, and a bed pounded with a drumstick replacing the kick drum. It has timing problems. At one point I hit my headphones with the drumstick. I tried to fix it, but the roland died completely.
Ellen Francis
This is a song that wrote for Ellie to get her to go out with me. It worked! I sang it to her at the schoolhouse one night. I was so nervous. When I first heard that she was coming up to stay, I had an instant mental picture of her in my head, like I already knew her. My friend Eric let me record the song on his 4 track recorder using a drum machine. I put this to a video to remind Ellie of how awesome she will always be, when she is feeling down. It’s very old, but it never fit on any other recordings that we made, being so personal. It fits right in with these songs though.
Glass Breaking
This is me trying to play piano, and sound like Coldplay. This piano was close to death, and every once in awhile, it just played random keys, really loud. It also had a speaker that came on and off. This was another post ostracism song. Walking in the woods was a real solace for me.The glass breaking is symbolic of shattering concepts and broken hearts. I remember feeling really sad when I wrote it, and my hand really hurt after I recorded it because it was bent in a way that guitarists don’t do. Living in a house with illness and mental health distemper makes you feel trapped and hopeless sometimes, but love is an amazing thing. We stayed in town an extra year to help make the change and despite the hardship, have never regretted it.
Kianne
Emily, Caily and I recorded this song in the Dells about our cat, filming a youtube video that has gone on to be quite famous, (200 views!) Of particular note is the scene where they sing into hairbrushes.
Song for Eleanor’s Brother
I learned that Eleanor Roosevelt’s Father was the bright shining light of the family before substance abuse and mental illness claimed his life. He fretted and drank himself to death. This is written from her point of view. Its in 6/8 time, as I was experimenting with Irish music.
Waves
This is the first song written after my musical rebirth, (Thankyou Sue) I may try to add words to it soon. This was recorded at home with one condenser mic on the soundhole panned to one side and the soundhole pickup with a foot tapping mic on the other side. It has mistakes, but a good vibe. I wrote it as my free form piece designed for performance improvisation. I call it waves because all of a sudden, music was coming to me in waves.
Summertime
This song speaks of freedom and beauty, but it is a fantasy in time. You only sing about summertime in the winter. To paint something light, you need the darkness to see it. I recorded all the tracks for this song, and filmed the video’s of the exact tracks, and synched them all to the video, so what you see is what you hear.
I was reeling myself. I wanted the song to be spare so that you could fill the space with experience.
Noosa
This is an instrumental written for my 12 string guitar tuned to an open D major. I have recently been a fan of an Australian musician called John Butler, and this was my attempt to write like him. It has a light vibe, as I was thinking about my time at Noosa beach s a young man. My friends from college used to gather there and have a great time.
The Giraffe Song
I spent a few years trying to mold Emily into a guitar player and have her carry the family mantle. I resigned from my mission when I realized that she cared more about the color of the guitar strap than the guitar. (Purple) We wrote this song together just for fun when she was admiring one of her heroes, Zach Braff….
Placeholder
This was recorded on my roland 16 track machine that dates to the late 90’s I think. We used it to record the mojo band and others at the academy. It’s about being overwhelmed with the world, and trying to find peace inside myself instead. I had been reading some research that shows that you can rebrand the emotional content of memories using an exercise that engages the part of your brain associated with processes that your brain uses to create a sense of peace and wellbeing. It is based on Buddhist meditation research. Apparently, advanced practitioners are the happiest people on the planet, scientifically speaking.
Emily’s Morning Song
This was a song written on a particularly bleak Wisconsin dark winter morning. I always woke up with Emily, to get her off to school. She said that I looked pretty rough, and that I should write a song to cheer myself up. It was about Emily and a friend of ours called Ricard who is the best waiter ever invented. We don’t know sometimes how much we mean to others.
Song for Brum
I have been trying to make my mostly abstract songs more relatable, and so I wrote a song about my childhood pet, a black Labrador called Brum. I can still smell the dirt in the backyard. It felt very fertile and lush, as we had our own compost heap. I challenged myself to record, film, edit and publish in one day. It took me two. I sometimes take my guitar to work when I take the kids to karate from school, and write songs when I am waiting. This is one of them.
Cameron Kennedy Musician 