Paris Street

parisstreet.bandcamp.com

[parisstreet]

Some Words On 'A Hazy Wedding'

I don't remember writing the lyrics. If this year goes as planned, you'll get used to reading that sentence.

These forgotten words were written in a notebook during the first half of 2004. By summer, I was on the road for the rest of the year, and the notebook stayed behind. When I got back to Nashville, it was a new year, and I had started writing my nonsense into a new notebook.

In 2015, I boxed up my notebooks and put them in a storage unit, also in Nashville. Ten years later, at the very tail-end of 2025, and after spending an ungodly amount to Fedex them to my apartment in Sacramento, I opened the box and started making my way through those notebooks.

Here's why these particular lyrics stood out, and why I chose it to be the first new Paris Street song in over 2 years:

The words were finished. 4 stanzas, a completed vignette, no need to add anything else. As best as I could remember (which wasn't much - see the first paragraph), I never came up with music for these words. That part would be easy, especially since 'easy' was what I was going for - quick, catchy, in and out, goodbye. Even though my primary guitar is completely busted (a prolapsed output jack, only 4 strings due to 2 of them popping while I was out of town for the holidays), it didn't take long to come up with an arrangement. Then I went back on the road and left the guitar behind, which is why this song is guitar-free.

I'm completely flummoxed as to what led me to write these words in the first place. Again, this was Nashville in 2004. There are no wildfires in Nashville. I had no experience with wildfires until I moved to California in 2017. Also - and perhaps more importantly - I've never been married. Who or what inspired this? I have no idea.

One of the earliest songs I ever wrote - probably in 2000 or 2001 - was called 'Veronica Lake'. It's not a bad song, but was outdated pretty quickly, as the first verse is about coming home from a record store with a new CD and excitingly putting it into the player (the second verse talks about stars of the silver screen, which is where Ms. Lake comes in - in case you can't tell, the lyrics scream 'first-time songwriter'). Until a couple weeks ago, I had no idea that I referenced her in another song. And when I saw the name Alan Ladd in the lyrics, I had to google to see who that was.

Savor your memory, folks.

----------

This less-than-90-second song was recorded over the course of one week in Sacramento, Monrovia, Chula Vista, and Phoenix. Finishing touches were made in St George, Utah. I am releasing it today while in a hotel in Cedar City, Utah. My life is weird.

You can listen to the song either by scrolling down to the previous post or going over to Bandcamp. As of now, I intend to keep Bandcamp as its only home.

Special thanks must be extended to my good friend, James Ivey, for giving me a much-needed kick in the pants to get this whole project started again. I'm not sure how long that kick in the pants will last, but - for the first time in a while - I'm optimistic.

Enjoy.

[parisstreet]

let's start it all back up again

new song - ' a hazy wedding' - finally

enjoy

[parisstreet]

eleven pop songs #74 (December 2023)

Listen to eleven pop songs #74 (December 2023) by eleven pop songs on hearthis.at | Indie, Jangle, Shoegaze, C86, Post-r

Our song 'Topgolf Bullshit' is featured on this lovely podcast by Eleven Pop Songs. They banter about the song after it plays, but I don't speak German, so I've no clue what they're saying. Hopefully it's positive. Anyway, go give it a listen!

[parisstreet]

Some Words On 'The Fade'

The Fade was conceived at the start of 2019. It should have been released by the end of that year. But, you know, shit happened, and then more shit happened, and then I reluctantly set it aside to focus on other projects. Then more shit happened.

Four of the songs were demoed and had completed lyrics by March of 2019. Later that month, I went to Memphis to record guitars and vocals with Jack and Neely, 2 of the 3 original Paris Streeters from the band's early years in Nashville.

The parts we were recording were for the You (Too) EP. Since they are both amazingly talented people, it didn't take too long. With some extra time available, I brought out 2 of the 4 new songs. Neely - only needing to hear the song a couple times, and having no clue what the hell the lyrics were about - recorded the backing vocals for 'I Promised Her A Tower' in 2 takes. Jack improvised a couple guitar lines for the song, then did 2 improvised takes on 'The Fade'.

Jack's parts didn't make the final version of either song. Instead, they inspired new songs, mainly because I liked them so much that I didn't want them to get lost in the clutter of all the other crap I toss into a mix. So the guitars from 'I Promised Her A Tower' became the guitars for 'In The City, In The Rain' (which is a cover of a song by The 6ths, and whose title is also a lyric at the end of 'Tower' - this all makes sense, right?). And the guitars from 'The Fade' turned into the guitars for the 'The Fade (Out)', which became the 5th song for the EP, and the closing number that it had previously lacked.

In October of 2019, I came back to Memphis, with the goal being to spend an afternoon recording once again with Jack and Neely, adding more guitar and vocals to the other songs on the EP. But things ended up being cancelled due to illness. It was a bummer, but not a huge blow - I knew I could just come back in a couple months.

You know where this is heading. But we're not there just yet.

In November of 2019, I went to work in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands for 4 months. On my way there, I realized that my creative tank was pretty much empty. I had The Fade - about 60% complete at the time - and not much else. That would have been a good catalyst for wrapping up that other 40% while in the Caribbean.

Instead, I set things aside - it couldn't fully get to 100% without Jack and Neely's parts anyways - and focused on writing completely new songs from scratch, one every day. This spawned the Encanto album, the Encantoo EP, and the Three Saints EP. The Fade itself started to fade from view.

But that was okay, I thought. It was nearing March of 2020 at this point. I decided that - upon returning to the mainland - I would get in touch with Jack and Neely, and plan the next trip to Memphis.

I returned Stateside on March 10. Tom Hanks announced he got COVID the next day. I've yet to make it back to Memphis.

For better or worse, my creative tank was overflowing as the world fell apart. I spent the first months of the pandemic on the 15th Street project, then just kept on writing and recording, releasing 7 different EP's since 2021 (plus 2 albums by my JUBANO! side-project). The Fade was on my mind for a lot of this time, taking up space on my ever-expanding to-do list, but kept being pushed aside for other projects.

But here it is, finally. And there's two main reasons for that.

I accepted the fact that Jack and Neely's only contributions would be those 2 songs we worked on in March of 2019. It'd be a solo thing for the rest of the songs, which also meant I no longer had any justification for putting things off.

My creative tank was (and is) once-again empty. After I Want To Write A Song About That came out in July, I didn't really have much else to focus on. There were only 5 songs left on the to-do list. So I hope you like this one, because it might be a while til the next one.

This was supposed to be my first Sacramento album, the first release entirely inspired by events that took place after I moved to the City Of Trees (even though the first song is set in San Francisco and the third in Scottsdale). Because of all the delays, that distinction ended up going to the hazy, torpid Mostly. This release slipped so far down my list of priorities that I essentially re-wrote the title track for a different release ('What Everyone Wants' from the Sparks EP), and reused one of the lyrics (describing sex as 'an easy kindness') on another one. Both were done because I wasn't completely sure if and when this release would ever come out.

In other words, the things that inspired these songs - a rainy walk around San Francisco, an existential crisis as a partner slept peacefully next to me, a hug in Arizona that couldn't have felt more final, and a lovely night of bar-hopping in my neighborhood - are so far removed from my current life that I sometimes feel like someone else is singing them, describing someone else's life. And maybe that's why I love these songs so much. In this current age, I can write and record a song, then release it within a couple weeks, then never pay attention to it ever again. But I've been singing along (and blissing out to the concluding instrumental) to these songs for over 4 years now. I sing the chorus to 'Topgolf Bullshit' in my car as if I'm singing along to 'Old Town Road' or 'Bad Guy' or anything else that came out in 2019 (I tried to use popular examples there - both are good songs but, in reality, my 2019 singalongs would be tunes by tindersticks, The Divine Comedy, and Lambchop that came out that year).

All I'm trying to say is I think these songs are pretty good. If you give them a chance, a couple might be even better than that (seriously, 'Topgolf Bullshit' is catchy as fuck). In a perfect world, you would have heard them 4 years ago. But, whatever, you can hear them now, finally, and that's all that matters.

Enjoy.

[parisstreet]

The Fade

Enjoy.

[parisstreet]

Topgolf Bullshit

A song I've adored since writing it 4 years ago

Finally out of my head and into your ears

From the EP, The Fade, which will be out 17 November

Enjoy.

[parisstreet]

I Promised Her A Tower

From the EP, The Fade, out everywhere 17 November.

Enjoy.

[parisstreet]

The Fade by Paris Street

5 simple pop songs that somehow took 4 years to record

17 November 2023

More later

[parisstreet]

Some Words On 'I Want To Write A Song About That'

This began in an elevator, amid a sublimely Adrian Lyne-ish moment rare in my personal history.

It continued at a seldom-visited British pub in my neighborhood, when I came across disparate lines in a notebook, written years apart, and realized they could fit together to form one narrative.

It then paused to head 5000 miles away, and re-emerged during a walk in Madrid that reminded me of a similar walk in Barcelona a year earlier.

It resumed domestic activities at a way-too-often-visited bar in my neighborhood, where a good conversation started to get better, but proved no match for the waves of needy, Friday night obnoxiousness that spared no corner of the place.

Finally, it concluded in a noisy hotel room in northern Nevada, only because I wasn’t quite ready to say that it actually ended quietly, in my Sacramento apartment, over email.

There are certain moments – almost all of them good – in which I lose focus, sometimes for just a half-second, other times for much longer, long enough to ruin the moment. In any case, regardless of length, it is generally better to not lose focus at all, to enjoy the moment as it’s occurring and wait until it’s good and gone to think about anything else.

The catalyst of this loss of focus is a simple thought, one that I never imagined would still be popping up in my head after all these years.

It shouldn't be too difficult to suss out the eight words that comprise that thought, so I'll end things here.

Enjoy.

[parisstreet]

Roxy Goodbye

The closing track from the new EP, I Want To Write A Song About That. Streaming everywhere 28 July.

Enjoy.

[parisstreet]

I Want To Write A Song About That

A new EP, out 28 July.

Listen to the opening track over on Bandcamp, or watch the lyric video for it on YouTube (or, like, scroll down to yesterday's post).

[parisstreet]

A Parking Garage Next To City Hall

Enjoy.

[parisstreet]

How To Write A Song Called 'A Flash Within A Flash'

The newest Paris Street EP, Brief Feelings, is out now. As I've occasionally done with Paris Street releases, I'm going to spend this week rambling a bit about each song on the EP. Enjoy!

The song: A Flash Within A Flash

Original song title: ‘Surely To Love’. This is the second time I’ve tried to write a song with that title. The first attempt turned into a song – released for a tiny while last December – called ‘Cuban Bones’. I currently have a third song – one that is teetering very close to the Delete pile – with that title. Have no clue why I’m so hung up on it, or what’s making it so difficult to finally complete.

When was it written? The original notebook scribblings were in May of 2021. Things got fleshed out and structured in September of that year.

Where was it recorded? A demo was recorded – mostly free of any ornate touches – in Sacramento around September of 2021. From that point on, I knew it would be the final song on this EP. The song then stalled out for a long time – mainly because I was afraid to mess it up – until I finally re-recorded it in November and December of 2022, also in Sacramento.

The instruments: Classical guitar, LMMS.

There is a song by The Divine Comedy called ‘Other People’. It starts off as nothing but a voice memo, but then swells and swells with orchestral lushness, then ends abruptly after barely 90 seconds. That’s kinda the vibe I was aiming for with this one.

What’s it about? A relationship that burned hot for a couple days. It ‘briefly felt’ like something different, something that would last. And then it ended.

Anything else to say about this song? But it didn’t really end. Again, something felt different, felt like something worth fighting for. And so a fight was had, to overcome the ‘over’ of it all, to take the ‘brief’ out of the brief feeling, and to once-more find that something that would last.

And it did last. Not forever, but long enough to make all those scribblings about ‘over’ feel a little silly. It lasted and became nothing more than a normal relationship, with all its attendant ups and downs. And like a lot of normal relationships, it ended eventually. And unlike a lot of normal relationships, there was no acrimony, just a weird little harmony and memories that both parties could look back on fondly.

Which would all make for a really boring song, so I’m very glad I scribbled all that nonsense about things being over too quickly.

Brief Feelings can be found on Bandcamp, Spotify, Amazon Music, and all other streamers of note.

[parisstreet]

How To Write A Song Called 'Square One'

The newest Paris Street EP, Brief Feelings, is out now. As I've occasionally done with Paris Street releases, I'm going to spend this week rambling a bit about each song on the EP. Enjoy!

The song: Square One

Original song title: ‘Poems 2’. Somewhere in a notebook that is at least 10 years old, I wrote one line at the top of a page: “I’m making poems out of lovers.” The line always stuck with me as something to build a song around. When I finally sat down to work on the idea, I almost-immediately failed miserably, so I scoured a different notebook for something else to write about.

I have no song called ‘Poems’ or ‘Poems 1’, so have no clue how this ended up as ‘Poems 2’.

When was it written? Around October of 2021. I don’t think I actually finished the lyrics until December of that year.

Where was it recorded? It was mostly recorded in a hotel room in Corona, California during a week in December 2021 in which this stupid(ly awesome) song became all I could think about. I assembled a mostly-complete demo, then scrapped it entirely because – in my head – the song started switching to a different key, which led to new melodies that didn’t work in the original key. The scrapped version still exists in my hard drive – it’s different enough from the final version that, with a few tweaks, I can probably use it as the basis for a new song. Never delete anything, folks.

The instruments: Electric guitar, LMMS, various Spitfire Audio plugins via Reaper. Those Spitfire Audio plugins are fantastic and I really should use them more.

What’s it about? There’s a fellow at the bar by my apartment who had a crush on another bar patron. At the time, he had just turned 50. She was 27. I was friends with both. To the best of my knowledge, she had zero interest in him beyond saying a polite ‘hello’ whenever their paths crossed.

One Friday night, all three of us were at the bar. He was sitting towards the front. She was at the back. I exchanged pleasantries with both of them, then took my seat and did my weirdo-sitting-alone-and-zoning-out-while-watching-Sportscenter thing.

A short while into that, I watched her begin a conversation with another guy. A little while later, she and this other guy left the bar together, heading out through the back door. I saw them leave, then went back to zoning out on my barstool.

Hours later, with last call looming, I looked over and saw our 50-year old protagonist talking to a friend, looking really down. In one of the more pathetic little whimpers I’ve ever heard a 50-year old man say in regards to a girl almost half his age who never expressed any interest in him, he told his friend, “She left with another guy.”

That formed the basis for this song. Someone heading to a bar, with irrational hopes of ending up with the person they’re crushing on, then immediately having those hopes dashed, then trying to figure out what to do next.

The moral of this story is to crush on someone your own damn age, dude.

Anything else to say about this song? Nope!

Brief Feelings can be found on Bandcamp, Spotify, Amazon Music, and all other streamers of note.

[parisstreet]

How To Write A Song Called 'Purple Coke Straw'

The newest Paris Street EP, Brief Feelings, is out now. As I've occasionally done with Paris Street releases, I'm going to spend this week rambling a bit about each song on the EP. Enjoy!

The song: Purple Coke Straw

When was it written? Around September of 2021.

Where was it recorded? The music was originally recorded in Sacramento. I finished the lyrics a short while later in a hotel room in Simi Valley, then recorded the vocals there in one take (possibly my finest vocal delivery ever is when I say ‘don’t ask’ in the second verse). About a year later, I finished up the instrumentation back in Sacramento.

The instruments: Mostly LMMS, with a touch of percussive egg and what I like to call the Gord Downie Memorial 4-Color Pen, which looks like this:

It makes a nice percussive sound when tapping the top part against my leg.

The bass line was originally composed on the ukulele bass before I transposed it onto LMMS. I also recorded a rhythm part on acoustic guitar and recorded multiple melodies on guitar before ditching all of it for the sake of a mellower, unfussy vibe.

What’s it about? Well, I found a purple coke straw on my bathroom floor one morning, behind the toilet. I knew who it belonged to, but felt it would make a better song if I wrote it from the perspective of someone who was completely clueless as to how it got there.

Upon discovery, I placed the straw in a cabinet above the toilet, next to my shaving gear. It is from that location where it became the cover star for this EP. At last check, it’s no longer there – have no clue where it ended up.

Anything else to say about this song? The ‘internet installer with the repressed Russian past’ was a young lady who came to my apartment on behalf of AT&T to restart an internet connection that her company had mucked up. When I noticed her Russian last name, she told me she was born there and spent her first couple years in Moscow. We then talked extensively about Russian poetry and literature, exchanging thoughts on different authors that either she hadn’t heard about (Andrey Platonov) or I hadn’t heard about (Mikhail Bulgakov). It was great, and she said she’d keep in touch so we could talk more about it.

For the next week, she would text me almost every day to tell me about different deals I could qualify for if I switched my cell service to AT&T. By the end of the week, I had blocked her number.  

Brief Feelings can be found on Bandcamp, Spotify, Amazon Music, and all other streamers of note.

[parisstreet]

How To Write A Song Called 'Wax Fruit'

The newest Paris Street EP, Brief Feelings, is out now. As I've occasionally done with Paris Street releases, I'm going to spend this week rambling a bit about each song on the EP. Enjoy!

The song: Wax Fruit

Original song title: ‘The Warehouse Rave Song’. In the early stages of recording this version, it was changed to ‘Ravers’, then to ‘Wax Fruit’.

When was it written? Fuck, man, this thing’s been laying around since 2007.

Where was it recorded? I have an acoustic demo of the original version of this song that is dated January 16, 2008. That was recorded in Nashville, and was actually released as part of the Paris Street Podcast, which I swear to God was a real thing that pre-dates almost all other podcasts (not to brag). I did 13 episodes, presenting new songs and alternate versions of old songs throughout. Is there any evidence at all that this actually existed? Nope. The podcast network disappeared ages ago. Plus, I have a tendency for nuking projects off the internet once I’m tired of them (ask me about The Opening Acts).

Anyway, this song has been laying around for a while, existing in a state of ‘just not good enough’ (musically – I’ve always like the lyrics). That finally changed last year when I rediscovered a short instrumental idea that had been buried in my hard drive since 2019. It was saved under the name ‘Bad Dumb Shit’.

But bad dumb shit turned to good smart shit when I realized that the words to ‘The Warehouse Rave Song’ fit into the music for ‘Bad Dumb Shit’. From there things fell quickly into pla—ha ha, no, this might have been the most agonizing recording process I’ve ever gone through. Love the end result, though.

To answer the question, all this agonizing recording took place in Sacramento.

The instruments: All LMMS for this one.

What’s it about? This is essentially a song about feeling old – about reaching a point where you realize you’re only going to certain social functions because it seems like it’s what you’re supposed to do, even though it’s no longer what you want to do. It’s not really based on any real-life moment – I think I just wanted to use ‘irascible’ in a lyric – although I did go to a party around the time of writing this song that did feature many white kids dancing poorly, ‘the way upper class kids do’.

It amuses me that I wrote a song about feeling old when I was barely 30, with so much more oldness still to come. I’m 46 now, and despite the occasional lower back flare-up, have yet to really feel that oldness (the secret is not having kids - you'll die alone, but your joints will all work and your skin will look amazing).

Anything else to say about this song? I filmed a video for this song but have had way too much going on in my life – good and bad – to find time to edit it. Maybe next week.

Brief Feelings can be found on Bandcamp, Spotify, Amazon Music, and all other streamers of note.

[parisstreet]

How To Write A Song Called 'Mary Ann'

The newest Paris Street EP, Brief Feelings, is out now. As I've occasionally done with Paris Street releases, I'm going to spend this week rambling a bit about each song on the EP. Enjoy!

The song: Mary Ann

Original song title: ‘Julie Anne’.  That was the actual name of the person who inspired the song. I have a friend with that same name, though, hence the slight change.

When was it written? July of 2018. Under its original title, the song was composed as a true chamber pop song – imagine an overly-ornate room with a guy in a powdered wig twinkling on a harpsichord as a half-dozen half-bored guests look on (something like that). It never got beyond an unfinished demo, mainly because too much harpsichord gets grating after a while. I was also working on ‘Sorry, Annie’ at the time, which has a similar vibe but adds some weird noises and feedback to keep things interesting.

The whole thing was restructured in January of 2021 to fit a pattern I was fiddling around with on the ukulele bass. Things progressed quickly after that.

Where was it recorded? At my pad in Sacramento, also in January of 2021. This was while I was assembling the songs that would form the Mostly EP. ‘Mary Ann’ was intended to be the opening track for that release, but – after having a depressive episode – I deemed it too fun for the EP, and went with a more bummed-out opener (and an all-time bummer of a closing song) instead.

The instruments: Ukulele bass, classical guitar, LMMS.

What’s it about? Pretty self-explanatory if you follow along with the lyrics. I walked into a bar one evening and saw a group of drunken folks at one end having a seemingly-jolly time. My friend Keith was part of the group, so I went over and sat by him. Things progressed from there, almost exactly as described in the song.

Anything else to say about this song? She was an anti-Semite!! Just before she fell, she looked over at Keith (a Jewish man) and myself (not Jewish, but I’ve somehow looked like a kindly Jewish grandpa since I was 17), and said, “I would never date a Jew.” Then plop she went on the floor of the bar.

You might notice a lack of sympathy on the narrator’s behalf after Mary Ann takes her tumble – her sister is the one that comes over to help her up. That’s because your narrator (i.e. me) found it funny and thought she deserved a good coccyx-bruising.

I really tried to squeeze that detail into the song, but there’s only so much space in a song that doesn’t even reach 90 seconds. The part at the end about being ‘weirdly smitten’ was written purely in service of a concluding rhyme. In actuality, I’m very glad our paths have never crossed again.

Brief Feelings can be found on Bandcamp, Spotify, Amazon Music, and all other streamers of note.