Track Listing:
1. But Not Today
2. Little One
3. I Only Miss You
4. Eichelbergertown (Christmas Village)
5. Other Kinds of Nog
6. Every Year
7. Stay Young
8. Come Caroling
9. The Last of the Fire
Songs by David Bussick, © 2016 Whichpond Music (ASCAP)
Listen:
Notes:
What was I going to do with them? It was a question I had to put out of my head or else I would never finish, maybe never even get started. Just write the songs, everything that came after could be dealt with later. I haven’t been around academia in many years but the stifling practicality of music school had stuck with me, keeping me in a low-risk/low-reward rut I had to break out of.
I only had two rules when I started: no Santa Claus and no “Jingle Bells” tag at the end of the songs. When I finished I had a set of songs touching on familiar themes (childhood, family, the passage of time, loves lost and found) but populated by a group of endearing misfits: a pessimist who doesn’t want Christmas to end, an idealist suffering from seasonal affective disorder who only gets by in the service of others, an old man who longs to live in his Christmas village, a down-on-their-luck couple who sees the holiday as a fresh start…
The songs finished, I was back to where I started: what to do with them? With no singers beating on my front door my only choice was to scrape together some equipment and record them myself. I believe in the songs and writing them was a good experience but each successive step took me further out of my comfort zone and deeper in over my head. So now I’m left with a feeling of uneasy relief. Does any of this work? Will it connect with anyone? Will anybody want to listen to or perform it? What’s any of this mean anyway? On all counts my answer is the same: I have no idea. It’s all very horrifying. Merry Christmas!