Thanksgiving Love — Lostinthewoodz

Here’s a song we started approximately 5 years ago (wow wtf) that I finally got around to finishing now. I’m actually surprised it took that long.

Here’s the before (very first bounce of the song that I still have on my computer)

and after

(Made the album art myself)

This song started with the question “why aren’t there any Thanksgiving Carols?” How is it possible we have such a deep, rich tradition of singing certain songs during Christmas time but so few songs like that exist for Thanksgiving? After thinking about this for a few hours my brother and I decided to mess around and try to make a Thanksgiving song.

If I remember correctly he did the sound design for the horn sample that plays in the intro while I dictated the melody of the sample. He also contributes vocals to this song as the rapper of the first verse while I do the other vocal parts.

I had an overall good time working on this song. Even though certain parts of the song are nonsense and jokey I did try to pay due respect to the process of making the song.

Hella vocal takes and vocal comping which were a pain for sure but overall worth it to me. Adding all the layored harmonies and doubles brings a certain energy to the song that didn’t exist with the first few drafts.

This marks a pretty important occasion for me as the first time I’m releasing music to my general public (instead of the normal rotation of friends I ask to critique my songs). I’m pretty happy with the way things turned out.

It took me too long to finish any tracks at all because I was too much of a perfectionist.

I think there are certain songs that warrant the perfectionism. Songs of great design that—if executed with near perfection—can really pay off artistically. But not that many. Certainly not so many that I can justify 5 years going by before finishing this song.

I think I’m going to approach music with a hybrid strategy going forward.

There will be a couple songs I hold very near to my heart that I’ll take my sweet time with. Other songs I’ll rush to get through—with the main objective of just finishing and improving as a song producer.

I’m also kind of unsure of how to release or market a song. For this one I just posted on Instagram/Facebook and to a Facebook group of artists that I’m a part of. Well… it’s a learning process.