Sister Songs (Writing Two Songs Back-to-Back)

0:00 Music Appreciation. What's good, everybody, it's Scoobert Doobert here.I'm about to go on a little vacation, because I just finished upmost of my next record, which is going to be the first of a probably four-part seriesfor this thing called Mobius, and I want to talk about another benefit of pace,

0:35 and that's about writing what I call like sister songs, and like naturally you gothrough these like sprints, and then at the end of the sprint you're pretty tired,because you've basically been pushing into that red line, and that's that's where I am right now.That's why I'm going to the mountains, because I kind of believe that there's no.

0:53 The only honest vacation is one where either like leave the country or go into the middleof the wilderness. Everything else doesn't really feel like a vacation, because you're still soconnected, still checking my phone, still answering emails, and Instagrams, and whatever.

1:07 This kind of stuff, it's like you're out there, that's it, you're in the moment,

1:11 and that's kind of what I need after these long sprints, but I want to explain another reasonwhy I do these sprints. It's not just because it's like making more music is better, because yes,it is, but it's not, that's only part of the point.

1:27 It's somewhat apocryphal, but this idea ofwhere there's ever-changing organisms, where I don't know how many months or whatever it is, but every cell in your body ends up dying, and is reborn as another cell, and basically theconcept of you're constantly growing, and the idea that you are just this linear, permanent

1:50 being is kind of flawed, because even just the cells in my finger are different than they were,not too long ago, and it's not just from being a kid to an adult thing, it's you're constantlyin this change, and I swear that our brains are like that, and our emotions are like that,

2:07 just who we are as people. A lot of it stays the same, but a lot of it's influx.

2:11 I would say most of it's influx. That's part of what makes it so weird to look back on oldvideos and memories or songs, and be like, wow, that was me.

2:21 I wrote that, and so that's sometimeswhat makes it feel cringey, for me at least, and that's what this concept of mobius strip kind ofis becoming for me, is it's this looking back to look forward kind of thing, you know, listening to the first things that I recorded because a friend was having her wedding, and she was hanging out

2:42 with one of my other friends from high school, and they're like, oh yeah, that song you used to playin high school, send it over, and I listened to it, and I was cringing the whole time, like, oh my god,that's what I used to sound like. That's what I used to make. I used to have no pocket, no feel.

2:55 It's just a cringey teenager, but it's like running away from that. I don't think is something youshould do forever. It's like looping back on it. That's what mobius is becoming is this idea ofreconnecting with what I once was to find what I will be, and stopping running away from someof the things that I did when I was younger, you know, like cheesy chord progressions or whatever.

3:22 It's like this is the time to start playing cheesy chord progressions again. This is the time to likebreak free of the things that I was trying to avoid of what I used to be. But I say all of that toone, explain what the problem is to say why I'm going to take a little vacation. I'll keep thepod going now, because I'll have a few in the can.

3:45 But the idea of like going quickly is to capture those little moments in time when your brain isn't a certain way, and that's maybe one ofmy regrets about how I used to write in record is it was so focused on like editing and making itits best version that I think I lost some of the core of what it was.

4:08 With music in general, it's never going to be perfect because perfect doesn't really exist. And so really the goal isto capture the idea.

4:18 And it's frustrating especially when I was young because I didn't have thefacility, the ability, the ears even to like make the idea real, but do your best and there's a charm in that too. But by doing it all quickly, you can capture that moment, that idea, you canfreeze that because you don't give your brain enough time to change.

4:42 You don't give your soul enough time to grow. You're doing it in that space. And that's why I think it's actually reallypowerful to record as you write whenever you can, because then it's like that's the truest littleversion of that idea, the nuance, everything in there.

5:01 There's one other benefit that sometimes people discover your music like two or three years after it already came out. And that's aninteresting challenge for songwriters to be like, yeah, but that was me then, I'm me now.

5:19 And then people want you to start churning out stuff that sounded like that because they justdiscovered it. And to them, it's like, yeah, why don't you just do that? But you're you.

5:30 It's like,yeah, but you know, got married or went to college or moved to a new city or you know, like the worldchanges the pandemic, you know, there's all these things that like throw these major curve balls and how many of you listening are exactly the same person that you were before the pandemic.

5:48 You know, like compound that with every little thing in your life, especially when you're likeyoung, I feel like there's so much like change. I still feel that too. Or it's just like, I don'tknow, people say when you get older, time slows or time goes faster because you know, in part,I think I don't really buy that it's a smaller percentage of your life or whatever.

6:10 I actually really what I think it is is that you start to get in patterns and you expect more out of every day. Sothen things start to blur together. But when you're younger, there's not as much of that.

6:21 Stuff's always changing. You're getting laid off, you're going to a new job, you're getting a newdegree, you're moving to a new city, you're meeting new people, you're dating new people, all thesethings. Just new, new, new, new, new. And so the days feel longer.

6:36 And you're changing more rapidly.So like, by working quickly, you can capture more of that time period so that if three years from now people find out liking that version of yourself from that time period, you've got other stufffrom right then. It's going to be a different flavor.

6:53 But it's like, if you can knock out a record or two a year, if you know, if people like that, they're going to like the other sister songs.

7:02 And it's funny, like even just listening to some of my records, like this moonlight beach one,

7:07 it started with feel so good. That was the first tune that I made for the record and then it endedwith low tide. And it's like, you can tell, it's a different musician. I mix differently fromthere to there. It's evolved. Same thing with listening to can't imagine feeling better toI'm an idiot. Very different songwriter. But it's like, it was a matter of six months.

7:34 If that between those two songs. And so it's like, look how powerful that is. So that's part of the reasonwhy I've been sprinting so hard for this first edition of Mobius. I wanted to capture it right nowthis feeling and that re acquaintance. So I'm excited for you guys to hear that. The first tune justcame out. It's called Stories.

7:54 And this is also the first record that I went into knowing I was going to be showing my face. So I think there's like a psychological element of wanting to show moreof myself and in order to show more of myself. I want to get more vulnerable and look at myselfas a as a continuum rather than just a moment or like a linear thing like I was saying.

8:15 So all that said, that's a wavy, windy preamble to this new album cycle. An explanation of why

8:26 writing quickly and in batches is both commercially and artistically viable and interesting.

8:35 And also an allowance to change. You're going to change and I think your music should change.I'm trying to do it. Obviously, you don't want to change so drastically. You lose all the peoplethat are on the right with you. But that's also not usually how change works just in life. I'm justtrying to reflect myself now in the music. What I listen to, what I want to be, what I'm thinking about.

8:59 And that's where Stories comes out. You know, I'm writing stories in my head. If I canabout the self doubt and the meandering nature of just this kind of monologue. This is what it'slike to be in my head for a little bit. These are the things I think about. And I appreciate youlistening to this podcast. I'm excited to share so these guests that we have coming up.

9:22 I've got some songwriters that we're going to talk to and that's going to be really, really cool to getinside songwriters heads because it's different. There's a different sense of sometimes of like, I don'tknow, hurt or baggage or something, I think, with songwriters.

9:41 So I'm excited to dig into that the source of that side of popular music in addition to, you know, side people and recording people andall that good stuff. So if you've enjoyed this pod, I would invite you to please subscribe andrate it five stars. Share it with your friends. All that good stuff helps get the word out.If you want to hear my music, you can check it out at scoobertdoobert.pizza.

10:05 That's my website or just search it on Spotify scoobertdoobert. And you'll be able to hear stories. So I recommendchecking that out.

10:16 And I'm excited to take you on this ride of a multi album effort, which actuallystarted with the last record, to dig deeper into what makes my music, my music versus somebody else's music. It's all in that mobius strip of self. I'll talk to you guys next week. See you.