Check out my 2023 Tiny Desk Contest Video
The story about the song and the video
Just like the groundhog the time has come for me to create a new video submission for the annual Tiny Desk Contest hosted by NPR Music. The winning performance gets to do their very own Tiny Desk Concert where many greats have performed an acoustic show before - behind a desk. I’m not in it to win it but to take part in the process of writing new music and creating new video content.
The song that I selected is a new tune I recently wrote called “Goes Without Saying” which was inspired by a Substack audio post from
on that he calls Chit-Chat where he gives his subscribers a short audio post from his phone while he is out doing his thing as a music legend and performing luminary.He was explaining during the post how his plane while flying from New York to Chicago was struck by lightning and literally saw the lights flash before his eyes. I liked how he explained he was relatively calm during the experience.
I had already worked up a new melody for a song when I listened to the post and started writing up a lyrics that shared similar experiences but with the character actually meeting his doom and feeling calm because he had a way of connecting with his loved ones through music.
Photo by Gary Calicott Photography
Oddly it made sense to me that someone could communicate with another who is beyond the living with music. I continued on with another scenario of a person falling asleep driving down his “street of dreams'“ who also ends up in a deadly consequence.
I’ve always thought that it doesn’t matter where you put the bridge and I put that theory into practice by putting as the first section of the song. It would probably be better to add a second bridge for live performance to help bring in more length and possibilities - but for now the song is perfect for this submission.
After converting my office into a studio I performed the song while my son was getting his in-home medical treatment for Pans/Pandas. Once finished I worked on mixing and mastering the sound. At first, I thought the simple black background with a candle was a good visual mood for the song but it needed a little more zing. So, I added animated on-line art with the help of some old video editing skills.
I’ve found that going through this process helps create new material while motivating me to create new content for showcasing to potential new fans.