I'm not sure I should be showing this to y'all.

Ok, here's another song-in-the-making post.

[play!] June 19th, I write the verse melody, chorus, and get a basic idea of what the song's about. It's always better when I know quickly what I'm going to say in a song, sometime's I'll dither around with melodies and lyrics for months without having a clue as to where I'm going.

[play!] June 21st, I record a bit on the guitar. No major creative ideas here, but things are progressing with a firm chorus melody.

[play!] Moments later, I come up with the hook. And that's enough to get started recording.

[play!]The "studio" version, I giggled inappropriately a lot when recording it. Also wondered aloud if I had gone nuts. It's so far from done-ness you need a telescope, but I guess I've gotten into the web-ish mood of "publish now, fix later". Ukelele, guitar, bass, foot tapping/amplifier, broom, toy piano, whistling.

(update) June 28th: I may very well abort this one. Sometimes you just come to the point where nothing seems to be working right, and your options are either to force it towards an unhappy completion or just give.

My favorite part to this song is the first verse, which goes "in the gathering of night / with a quickening of breath you draw me tight / and soon nothing is allright / my head just goes out of order", but I find that I've been working that section to death in the recording: removing drums, trying different guitar parts, all sorts of stuff, and nothing is really giving it life - it all just sounds like I'm complaining on tape. Two lines come to mind:

"You had sex with a woman and now you're whining about it?
--kids in the hall

And Tom Waits, who says that if there's one line in a song you really love, take it out - you're trying to hang a song around that line, and it won't work. Which is a really scary thought, actually. Rewriting the best lines in there?

The other thing to think about here is that I've never really finished (recording, anyway) a song I didn't like. Which is interesting, the thought that something can come from your own head, be your little baby in the world, and you just don't like it all that much.