7s7d: D1
“Pepe’s Song”
Prompt: we don’t need words to communicate
Submission of Member: Aaron A
Another 7 Songs in 7 Days - DAY ONE down!
In the event you haven’t experienced a 7 Songs in 7 Days before: once each year since 2017 I’ve put what we do here at The Vault (a brand new original song delivered monthly which includes a prompt sourced from a Vault member) on hyperspeed, and I churn out a new song every day for a whole week, with the sprint culminating in an online broadcast where I debut all the songs live in a row exclusively for Vault Members. That was crazy enough to do several years in a row, but then in 2021 I lost my actual mind and thought a great way to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the first “7 Songs in 7 Days” would be to try writing 30 Songs in 30 days, one for each day of September. I will likely never do that again, but I am really happy to have done it, since a decent amount of good-to-excellent-works were produced during that sprint.
To make the whole event even more unwieldy for me, I decided to build out and finally launch this newest iteration (The Vault) of what was, for the 6 years prior, my Patreon membership program. This was a huge undertaking and I am STILL working on getting everything set up how I want it to be for you, but providing an improved experience for you was so important to me that I didn’t want to keep putting it off. So! Bits here and there of The Vault are a tad still under construction…
Like last year, this year’s 7 songs will be on the quiet side - while I have it in place to serve as an annual pledge drive, it often springs up on me and I haven’t given myself enough bandwidth and time to set up the appropriate promo. Especially with the name change so recent it just had to be so this year.
As always, THANK YOU for your help in continuing and for contributing to this huge force/institution/inspiration/outlet for my art. When I really consider who I am as an artist and what I do as a songwriter, The Vault is really the heart of it all. The little space where we can really connect. The little space where I can be completely vulnerable and share, and a space that is safe and where I know I will be heard. The encouragement to keep going, keep trying. The support to experiment and spend time writing. THANK YOU. I don't think I would still be writing and performing if it weren't for this space and everyone who takes part in making it what it is.
Here's my first offering for this year - featuring a prompt from Aaron. I’ve been heavily influenced by a very specific latin-music-explosion-in-the-usa era of the mid 60s lately (the burst of Bossa nova upon the US, of course, but more so for me right now would be the influence of Herb Alpert around this time, West Side Story, plus the latin-influenced records crooners from the current and previous decade were putting out, like Doris Day’s 1965 “Latin is for Lovers” which has been on heavy rotation for me lately).
So this is my weird interpretation of that era of US latin music, plus a little bit of Harry Belafonte, plus a little bit of Raffi, probably 🤣
Since I have written a couple songs inspired by my eldest border collie, Bessie, and one inspired by my younger collie, Elvis, it seemed appropriate to pen one for our most recent addition, our dachshund-mix rescue, Pepe. I wanted to have a cutesy song for him, the chorus of which a child could possibly sing along to, not so much for an actual child to sing it but because a human-childlike temper is the best way I could describe Pepe’s personality. He’s feisty and vocal and full of energy. Since he was rehomed from a Mexican family, already named Pepe, and came to us, a multicultural latin couple (my husband is Mexican and I have Puerto Rican ancestry), I just thought it would be funny to try something COMPLETELY outside of my comfort zone feel wise and give it a latin-y vibe. It was so out of my comfort zone that I had to multi-track it because I am not used to these rhythms, but needed to get something turned in!
Lyric-wise, it might be helpful for context: “wow-wow” is how Spanish speaking children refer to dogs… like how a kid might call a sheep a “baa-baa” or a cow a “moo.” When Eduardo shared this with me several years ago I really loved that, so I say it all the time. Thought it was fitting to use “wow-wow-wow-wow” as Pepe’s exclamation throughout the song as his “bow-wow” barking.
If I didn’t have a gig tonight it would have been fun to mess around with overdubs on this demo, like shaker and/or bass at least, just for a giggle. Alas, this will have to do. Onward!
I will for sure need some more prompts in the bucket for our little lotto this week, so, please, don't be shy and throw some into the pile!
Submit a prompt I can include into a song this week (or another time) by clicking here.
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