music

Q&A: What It Was Like to Write & Record 52 Songs in 52 Weeks

Kate Sloan

I’ve been having some convos with friends and family lately about the songwriting challenge I did this year, and have enjoyed explaining what made me want to do the challenge, what went into it, and what I took away from it. I found that lots of folks, especially other creatives, were interested in hearing about this – so I thought I’d write a blog post to wrap it all up!

 

Q. Wait. Did you really write and record 52 songs in 52 weeks?

A. Weirdly enough, I did.

 

Q. Why, though?

A. A fair question. A couple things happened within close proximity of each other last December: I wrapped up an educational program called “Meaningful Activity” that I’d been doing at my local chronic pain clinic, which had been leading me through a process of identifying my core values and the things that bring me the most joy, and figuring out how to do more of those things, more often, despite living with chronic pain and chronic fatigue. It came up over and over again in my worksheets and journal entries for that program that I missed music, cared about music, loved making music, and hadn’t been making nearly enough music. At the time that I did this program, I hadn’t written a song in nearly 4 years. In high school I used to crank out multiple songs a month sometimes. I realized I missed that and wanted to be doing significantly more of it.

The other thing that happened was that I spent a solid couple weeks living alone that month because my roommate had gone to stay with her family for the holidays, and I realized that a lot of my reticence to play music lately had been self-consciousness about being heard, but that I didn’t really need to worry about that because my sweet roommate had always expressed supportiveness about my music-making. So I started playing more songs, and even wrote a couple, and then thought, hey, wouldn’t I be happier if I was doing this every single week? So I assigned myself the challenge.

 

Q. Did you really think you’d be able to complete the challenge when you started it?

A. Honestly, no. I thought fatigue, pain, and/or apathy would get the better of me at some point and I’d call it quits. It felt equally possible that I would quit 7 months in or that I would quit after the first week. I think I just don’t believe in myself as much as I should, especially when it comes to professional goals.

 

Q. Where did you get ideas for your songs? Did it ever feel like you were running (or had run) out of ideas?

A. Coming up with conceptual/lyrical ideas is one of the hardest parts of the process for me, which is partly why I sometimes don’t even start with a conceptual/lyrical concept – I’ll start by improvising some lyrics and melodies over a chord progression and kind of just free-associate about what the music reminds me of. This approach can feel more like the song is revealing its theme to me, rather than me coming in with a predetermined theme of my own.

Aside from that – often I would see something in media that would inspire a song: “The Museum” was based on some lines lifted from an Oliver Sacks essay, “Love is Blind” is about the Netflix dating reality show of the same name, “Does He Know?” was inspired by a love triangle on the TV comedy Superstore, “Credit Card” was written soon after I watched The Tinder Swindler, “The Stage” was based on a scene from a documentary about the musical Spring Awakening, “Celia” was an ode to a character from the book The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, “Grandmaster” was a love song for a cult leader inspired by NXIVM’s Keith Raniere, and “Sisyphus” was about Nick Drake and some biographies I’d read of him.

Sometimes songs were inspired by conversations I’d had with people in my life: “Bi Enough” came out of a conversation with my therapist about bisexual impostor syndrome, “Doll” was based on a story a friend told me about his sex doll, and “Amicably” was about a friend’s relatively civil breakup.

Sometimes I would ask my Instagram or Twitter followers to submit a theme, quote, or idea to inspire a song; “Brave Little Girl” was one of those. Sometimes I would pull two tarot cards and ponder their meanings, separately or together, until a song idea appeared; “Mr. Mean” and “What If?” were some of these. Sometimes I would go to RandomWordGenerator.com and have it give me 3 random words to inspire a song; “Notice Me” and “Nobody Likes Me” were some of those. One time, a dream inspired a song; I wrote “Stay” after waking up from a terrible nightmare.

 

Q. What did you learn about songwriting from doing this challenge?

A. A WHOLE LOT. As with any artistic discipline, you definitely get to know your own creative process much more intimately when forced to spend time on it every week. I kept notes on what I learned/observed over the course of the year; here’s a few highlights:

  • I used to have a bad habit of recording and posting new songs immediately after writing them, rather than going through subsequent stages of editing and practicing the song to polish it up. You would think that having to crank out a song every week would’ve made this worse, but it actually made me better at letting songs breathe for a day or more after writing them, and practicing them enough that I could perform them well on camera, because I would always feel like, “Well, I have until Sunday to get this done. Might as well make it as good as I can within that timeframe.” By the end of the challenge, I would pretty much always listen to my initial demo a few times for 1-3 days after writing the song and make changes to anything that started to seem awkward or unpolished. I would also practice the song a lot more before recording it.
  • I quickly realized that it was CRUCIAL for me to have a reliable and searchable repository of ideas that I could pull from when I had writer’s block. I use the Notes app for conceptual ideas and lyrical fragments, and another app called Voice Record Pro to record and organize musical ideas, as well as demos to help me remember a song I’m writing/have already written. Realistically, I won’t always be able to immediately develop an idea that comes to me, because I have a job and stuff. So I had to get very disciplined about documenting even the tiniest snippets of ideas so that they’d be available when I needed them.
  • You’ll make some of your best art when it feels safe to make bad art. And because it was a weekly challenge, I knew that it was fine for some of the songs to be less good than I might otherwise prefer (though I think almost all of them are at least pretty good). Jonathan Mann, who has written a song every day for 14 years running, estimates that “70% are mediocre, 20% suck and 10% are awesome.” Sitting down with my list of 52 songs and ranking them, I did the math and found that I think 33% are great, 37% are good, 19% are mediocre and 11% are bad. I’m pretty happy with those numbers!
  • Whenever I felt stuck, I almost always found that switching things up helped inspire me. I’d play around on different instruments, try writing to loops in GarageBand, go to a different location to write, etc. It really helps.
  • Songwriting boosts my self-esteem! I admire great songwriters and their craft a lot, and it makes me feel so good about myself to write songs that I think are good. All the more reason to do it more often! I think this was also largely the reason I never really “half-assed” a song during this challenge – any time I considered taking the “easy way out” (like writing a song that was really simple, bad, or based on a song I’d written before), I knew I’d be disappointed with myself if I did that, so I didn’t.
  • Creativity requires rest. The resting phase is part of the creative process, not separate from it. After I write a song, I typically need to take at least a few days off from trying to write another one, or it just won’t work. I can use that time to “refill the well” by consuming media on a broad range of topics that might later inspire a song.

 

Q. What are your favorite songs from the challenge?

A. Sorry, they’re my babies; I refuse to pick just one. Instead, I will pick eight.

 

Q. But your whole thing is that you write about sex. What are the sexiest/kinkiest songs from the challenge?

A. If you want sexy and sex-adjacent, you want these:

 

Q. Are you going to keep writing and recording a song a week?

A. I actually have been. I don’t know how long I’ll continue it, but I felt a little sad that the challenge was ending and decided there was no reason I had to stop if I didn’t want to. You can always see the latest ones on my YouTube!

12 Days of Girly Juice 2022: 10 Perfect Songs

Kate Sloan

I love music, as you know if you read this blog regularly. The soundtrack of my year is almost as important to me as the events of that year; the two can even shape each other at times.

So, in no particular order, here are 10 songs that made me happy this year, or helped me revel in my sadness or rage or horniness. Good music has a way of making even the hardest feelings seem not only manageable but vital to the human experience, something that links us inextricably to other people, reminding us we are never alone even when we feel like we are.

(The best way to read this post is to click “play” on each song while you read about it, so you get a sense of the vibe.)

 

“2Drunk” by Nick Jonas (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“What would mama say?/ She’d say ‘Oh, you never know when to stop/ Like every day’s Friday night’/ I’m too drunk and I’m all in my feelings/ Oh well; now I’m high as the ceiling”

This song is the perfect musical embodiment of that moment when you realize you are, in fact, too drunk but in a way that feels like joyful surrender, like embracing the uncertainty of life, like letting the chips fall where they may.

There were many depressed days in January where this song was the only thing that could get me out of bed, so I played it on loop a lot. Nick Jonas has taken on this role in my life in several previous years too. There is something about his voice – smooth, warm, inviting – and his music – catchy, fun, effortless – that translates directly into dopamine for me. I don’t question it anymore; I just use his music as fuel, and love him for it.

One of the things I love most about this song is that it’s both happy and wistful, the way a drunken evening can feel when you’re drinking to distract yourself from heartbreak. (I even covered it as a slow waltz on the ukulele to emphasize its sadder qualities.) While I’ve quoted some lyrics above that I think are most emblematic of the song, I also want to shout out the poignant second verse, which goes, “Should I send that text? Maybe not/ But I miss that sex, quite a lot/ It’s five o’clock somewhere/ Maybe you’re somewhere/ Thinking ’bout me.” These lyrics are, as the kids are saying, a relatable mood.

 

“Daddy” by Brotherkenzie (buy on Bandcamp)

“Nobody calls me daddy, sadly/ And nobody sends me nudes anymore/ But I saw your ass last night when you hung up/ And I wondered what you did that for”

I screamed when I heard this song for the first time.

I’ve written before about the low-key sexuality that occasionally oozes from the music of Brotherkenzie, the solo project of my long-time guitarist crush Nathan Stocker. Not to psychoanalyze a total stranger, but I’ve often thought his most romantic and/or sexy songs seemed to point out his daddy-esque qualities: wanting to nurture, to take care of, to treasure and spoil his loves. So, when I first heard the opening lyrics of this song (quoted above), I screeched: my suspicions had been confirmed, and it felt good to know that my “daddy-dar” is still on point even though I haven’t had to sleuth out a new daddy for several years at this point.

As with all Brotherkenzie songs, there are some parts of this song that I find lyrically inscrutable, but at its core I think it’s a song about feeling romantically bored in singledom, wondering what’s next, and hoping for exciting adventures to arise and distract you from yourself. Again: a relatable fucking mood. And I still love Nathan’s voice, guitar playing, and songwriting in a way that feels visceral and inherent.

 

“Someone to Watch Over Me” by Sarah Vaughan (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“There’s a somebody I’m longing to see/ I hope that he turns out to be/ Someone who’ll watch over me/ I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood/ I know I could always be good/ To one who’ll watch over me”

I went through a phase this year where this song was basically all I wanted to listen to for a few weeks. It’s an especially gorgeous rendition of a favorite jazz standard of mine. Sarah Vaughan’s vocal control, power, and range were such that she could easily have focused her career on styles of music that many people consider technically “harder” than jazz, like opera or musical theatre – but instead she mostly focused on jazz, which can be every bit as complex and virtuosic as those other genres, and that prowess is on full display here. Her vibrato is masterful and emotive, her phrasing is exquisite, her range is unbelievable, and she brings warmth and wistfulness galore to the song. It’s a stunning recording.

I find it interesting to listen to these old love songs of yore (this one was composed by the Gershwin brothers in 1926, though this particular recording of it is from the late ’50s), because they lean so hard into old-fashioned gender norms that it almost seems kinky to a modern ear. A lot of the lyrics of this song sound to me more like a D/s relationship (in particular, a DD/lg relationship) than anything vanilla or conventional. I like that this style of helpless femininity is something many of us can deliberately opt into now, instead of being forced into that role by an oppressive society.

 

“I Want to Be Your Boyfriend” by Hot Freaks (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I wanna be your boyfriend/ I wanna go on walks with you/ I wanna have long talks with you/ You can be my girlfriend/ I’ll compliment you frequently/ I wanna treat you decently”

I stumbled across this song by total coincidence. Several years ago, a boy I was dating sent me the Ramones song “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” as a sweet way of communicating his intentions toward me. (We didn’t end up dating for very long but are still on good terms.) At some point this year I wanted to hear that song but couldn’t remember what band performs it, so I asked Siri to play “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” and she played me this strange, delightful track instead.

I love how this song buzzes with the energy of a new relationship, the perhaps-foolish optimism you feel at that time (“I’m not gonna make the same mistakes/ I’m not gonna run”), and the self-doubt that can also creep in when your emotions are heightened like that (“All the guys are crowded around/ They’re telling you the same things that I planned to say/ I thought I was unique/ Maybe I’m not that way”). It’s also just got one of the all-time most fun choruses to sing and dance along to, if you ask me.

 

“Rocket Science” by Vaultboy (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Baby, it isn’t rocket science/ Why are we complicating it?/ We’ve got a chemistry I’m liking/ And I’m feeling good ’bout giving in/ ‘Cause baby, it isn’t rocket science/ Even when it feels like it is/ I know your heart’s beating like mine is/ We don’t gotta hide it/ Baby, it’s not rocket science”

Vaultboy was one of my major musical discoveries this year; I sought out other people who’ve done songwriting challenges, as inspiration while doing my own, and stumbled across his “77-minute songwriting challenge” videos, which are incredible.

I was immediately enthralled by his ability to churn out hooky hits that get stuck in your head for days and punch you right in the heart. “Rocket Science” is one of his best, if you ask me: it’s romantic, fun, and (as with literally every Vaultboy song) criminally catchy.

The gorgeous second verse goes, “You’re telling me secrets nobody else knows/ ‘Cause I wanna know, I wanna know/ Where you might see yourself way down the road/ I wanna know, ’cause I wanna go,” and it feels like falling in love, and wanting more more more of the person you’re falling in love with. But the refrain of the song – “Baby, it’s not rocket science!” – resonates with me because I am so prone to overcomplicating love, psychoanalyzing myself and my partners to try to understand what’s happening, when instead I could (and should) just enjoy what’s happening while it’s happening. “Baby, it isn’t rocket science, even when it feels like it is.”

 

“About Damn Time” by Lizzo (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I’ve been so down and under pressure/ I’m way too fine to be this stressed, yeah/ I’m not the girl I was or used to be/ Bitch, I might be better”

I love to listen to Lizzo to on days when I feel gloomy and self-critical. So much of her music is about self-love, self-acceptance, and confidence; these things come through not only lyrically but sonically too (not to mention visually in her magnificent music videos). It’s super refreshing, in a world where so much of the capitalistic machine still works daily to make us feel bad about ourselves.

I love how this song points out not just Lizzo’s current confidence and happiness, but also the journey that got her there, and the fact that it’s not always easy or instant. As with so many great songs, I deeply related to this one, especially the idea of rising from the ashes of stress and trauma, transformed into a stronger, brighter and louder version of myself, one who can strap on her “Balenciussys” and strut out into a new adventure.

 

“Cbat” by Hudson Mohawke (buy/stream on Apple Music)

This instrumental track rose to fame this year when a guy on Reddit wrote a thread about how much he likes to fuck to this song, and how much his girlfriend does not like it. Luckily for us, he identified the song in the thread so readers could listen to it – which led to it going viral and being widely mocked and revered – and it’s cringe in a way that makes the girlfriend’s position understandable.

After a lush chordal intro that makes you think the song will actually be pretty, it breaks out into a distinctively grating melody played on a high-pitched electronic instrument of some kind, and sounds a bit like a ghost climaxing, or a creaky door that someone has autotuned.

But I’ve listened to Cbat several times at this point, and weirdly, it has grown on me. Its rhythm does indeed feel appropriately paced for sex, as the original thread-writer argued, and the story behind the song’s sudden viral popularity makes it all the more amusing to listen to. I’m not sure I’ll ever have sex to this song, because I’d probably be laughing too hard to focus if I did, but I’m glad it exists and that I got to hear about it.

 

“Anybody But You” by Malia Civetz (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I might invite you to my party/ So you can watch me dancing on somebody new/ You probably know who/ Come enjoy the view of me/ Happy with anybody but you”

Being petty after a breakup can feel like kind of a shameful thing, a conversation topic with girlfriends over martinis and fuel for pithy tweets but not something you’d proudly admit to. I love that this song makes post-breakup pettiness into something powerful, a way of reclaiming strength and agency after having it squashed out of you by a shitty partner. Golden-voiced Malia sings about inviting her ex to a party just so they can see how happy she is now, while also acknowledging that she’s not actually happy now, as evidenced by how hard she’s working to create that image.

“Anybody else will do/ Anybody but you/ I would rather spend the night with anybody in this room,” she sings, over a pop beat that makes you want to stand up, dance, and sing along. It’s a perfect post-breakup anthem and I love that it acknowledges the ways recovery from heartbreak can sometimes look like causing more heartbreak – it’s not nice, it’s not ethically good, certainly, but it’s messy and gratifying and real, and I love her for it.

 

“Pink Moon” by Nick Drake (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Saw it written and I saw it say/ Pink moon is on its way/ None of you stand so tall/ Pink moon is gonna get ye all”

Content note: Discussion of a possible suicide in this one.

So much has been written about this song, and the album of the same name. There’s even an entire book about it, which I read this year. Famously, the album Pink Moon (of which this song is the first track) was the last album ever completed by English singer-songwriter Nick Drake before he died of an antidepressant overdose (accidental or on purpose, we don’t know) at the age of 26. He’d previously recorded a couple of albums which hadn’t sold well at all, on which his intricate fingerpicked guitar parts and ethereal melodies had been backed up by strings, guitars, drums, and various other accompaniments. He evidently wanted to try something different on his third album, and recorded it in its entirety in late-night studio sessions on two consecutive days, just him and his guitar. This title track is the only one on which any other instruments appear at all – Nick added a sweet, spare piano overdub, and that’s all.

While there are hints, in Nick’s earlier records, of romance, optimism, and joy, this last one was recorded after severe depression got its claws into him, and it shows. The album is full of bleak themes like despair, regret, rejection, and isolation – which aligns exactly with what Nick was going through at the time, a gradual-and-then-all-at-once descent into a depression so profound that he could barely speak. Friends and colleagues have suggested that at this time in his life, listening to his songs was likely the only way you could experience Nick’s inner workings: he was monosyllabic or silent most of the time and looked catatonic with bone-heavy depression. But he was still playing guitar like a virtuoso, albeit with fingernails grown long and dirty from depressive neglect.

The song “Pink Moon” alludes mysteriously to the imminent arrival of the pink moon, which no one can run from or escape; his lyrics never make it clear whether the moon symbolizes something we should dread and fear, or something we should rejoice and wait for, vibrating with excitement. Many commentators have argued that the “pink moon” represents Nick’s depression or his ultimate demise. I don’t know the answers to these interpretive questions, and I don’t think anyone ever will, now that Nick’s been gone for nearly fifty years; all I know is that this song is so hauntingly beautiful that it transports you to an alternate reality for a couple short minutes, and that listening to a lot of Nick Drake this year made me feel less alone.

 

“Boys” by Hippo Campus (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Take off my shirt at your girlfriend’s party/ What’s it to ya?/ Nobody cares about your music/ They see right through ya/ Kissing boys, missing work/ Got hungover from your words/ Same New York, it’s the worst/ All these nights are a blur”

Jake Luppen, the lead singer of my favorite band Hippo Campus, publicly came out as queer late last year, and has spoken about how “Boys” is a song about (among other things) his queer awakening. It captures so well the flavor of excitement you feel when you’re figuring yourself out in real-time at a messy drunken party in your early twenties. To me it sounds like dancing in clubs, my sweaty body so close to some other girl’s glitter-streaked body, and learning to tolerate or satiate the intense tension between our shimmering shapes.

So much of feeling sexy is about feeling comfortable with who you are, and this song feels like the encapsulation of a moment when you get a glimpse of the “you” you want to be. Maybe it’s in a conversation with a stranger who knows nothing about your career or your past (“Nobody cares about your music/ they see right through ya“) and who therefore can serve as a blank canvas onto which you project the version of yourself you hope to become. And you see that projection, stark and inevitable, and want to dive into it the way you’d want to dive into a lake in a Bob Ross painting.

 

What songs did you love most this year?

Why I Love the Ukulele

Kate Sloan

Ukulele, small and fierceful
Ukulele, brave and peaceful
You can play the ukulele too –
It is painfully simple
-Amanda Palmer, “Ukulele Anthem“

I’ve been writing songs since before I knew how to play any instruments; it’s baked into me how yeast is baked into bread. But instruments are a big part of how you bring music into the world, and convey to listeners the way you’re hearing your songs inside your head, and so I always wanted to learn to play an instrument, long before I ever did.

A year or more into piano lessons (which I enjoyed, though I begrudged having to practice my Bach and Chopin), I started listening obsessively to indie folk artists on a website called PureVolume (it was sort of like the MySpace of the music industry at the time) and, in particular, found myself drawn to songs written on acoustic guitars. I had an old violin, inherited from a relative and missing a string, and I would sit in front of the family computer plucking out simple chords on this creaky old instrument and sing over them into a USB microphone. Once, my dad walked by while I was doing this, and he remarked aloud, “We gotta get this girl a guitar.”

Playing my first guitar, circa 2008

He did, and it’s still one of the most meaningful acts of love I can recall in my life. He took me to Long & McQuade, arguably the best music shop in Toronto, and I told the salesman I wanted an acoustic guitar. (Electric guitars weren’t really on my radar; the artists I cared about then were all writing on acoustics.) The salesman asked me if I wanted a steel-stringed guitar or a nylon-stringed one, and I didn’t know, so he grabbed one of each. “Nylon-stringed guitars are usually used for classical music,” he explained, playing a bit of fingerpicked flamenco on the one he’d chosen, “whereas steel-stringed guitars are used in folk music.” He played a few bars of music that sounded like folk-rock to me – like the music I’d been listening to on PureVolume – and I said, “That one, please.” My fate was sealed.

I loved my guitar, and took lessons for a few years from a chill-as-hell Irish hipster named Eoghan (pronounced like “Owen”) who was getting a degree in jazz guitar. One December, my mom sent along a box of cookies for me to give him as a Christmas gift, and he was so surprised and flustered by this that he gave me a huge book of jazz standards he happened to have in his guitar case that day. I treasured that book, and still have it.

No matter how many guitar lessons I took, though, it just never felt as natural to me as singing or playing the piano. My fingers weren’t strong enough to play barre chords, or nimble enough to swap quickly between different chords. True, I could have (and should have) practiced more than I did, but it felt like I was hitting an insurmountable wall, limited by my level of physical ability.

My guitar teacher worked out of a music school on top of a music store, and so I would walk through their rows of instruments every time I went to a lesson. And sometime around age 16, I began to notice the ukuleles hanging adorably in a back corner. One fateful day in 2008, I took a couple friends with me to the shop and picked out a bright green Beaver Creek ukulele, paid approximately $40 for it, and walked out holding my musical future in my hands.

It was just so clear to me, so quickly, that I was meant to play the ukulele. I fell in love with it the way I fall in love with human beings: quickly, obsessively, and all-consumingly.

See what happens when you muzzle a person’s creativity
And do not let them sing and scream
And nowadays, it’s worse, ’cause kids have automatic handguns
It takes about an hour to teach someone to play the ukulele
About the same to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb
You do the math!
-Amanda Palmer, “Ukulele Anthem“

If you’re not familiar, the ukulele differs from the guitar in a few key ways. It’s smaller, and tuned higher; it’s cheaper, and has a thinner but more playful sound. And, crucially, it has only four strings instead of six, so chord shapes are simpler, requiring less nimbleness and coordination of the player’s fingers. Its strings tend to be made of nylon or similar materials, so it doesn’t require as much strength as pressing down on steel guitar strings, which can bite into your fingertips like knives if you haven’t formed callouses there yet.

I wasn’t diagnosed with fibromyalgia yet at that time, and who knows when I actually developed that illness – but the struggles which led me to prefer ukulele over guitar have only deepened over the years, in large part due to my fibro. My hands are weaker than I’d prefer, and often sore. I’m clumsy and prone to dropping things, stumbling, hitting wrong notes on the fretboard. I’m frequently frustrated by an inability to translate the songs I hear in my head into an audible, tangible result that I can share with others. The ukulele, therefore, is perfect for me.

With the barrier of insufficient hand strength removed from the equation, I’ve gotten much better at ukulele than I ever got at guitar, even though I took guitar lessons for years and am mostly self-taught on the ukulele. I can play complicated chord changes from jazz or musical theatre, and never (okay, almost never) get so frustrated that I want to throw my instrument across the room. I can strum chords or finger-pick, write songs or learn other people’s songs. It feels easy and natural to me in a way that guitar never did.

There’s a term I love, “access intimacy,” which I learned from some kink workshop at a conference long ago. (I can’t recall who introduced me to this concept, or I would credit them.) It refers to the intimacy you can have with people who recognize and meet your access needs – whether those needs are related to physical disabilities, such as requiring ramps and access to handicapped bathrooms, or mental-emotional issues, such as needing to avoid certain PTSD triggers or needing a slow approach to task-switching due to ADHD.

I genuinely feel that I have “access intimacy” with the ukulele. It meets me where I’m at. It enables me to make music, write music, and feel like I’m a part of the music-making community, even though virtuosic guitar-playing is beyond my grasp.

The cheapness and accessibility of ukuleles is also highly democratizing. As singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer points out in her “Ukulele Anthem,” beginner ukuleles are usually pretty affordable (you can find ’em for $20-50, although I’d recommend spending at least $40 if you want a decent-sounding uke), and the chords are simple enough that you can pick up many of them in just an hour or two of practicing, especially if you have some music knowledge under your belt already. I love knowing that even if I suddenly needed to spend a lot of time away from home – as Amanda Palmer did when she got stuck in New Zealand toward the beginning of the pandemic – I could walk to a local music shop and be reunited with my favorite instrument for less money than a meal at a mid-tier restaurant. It makes me feel safe and secure, knowing I can take my music with me anywhere I go. One of the deepest and truest ways I know my spouse really loves me is that they keep a ukulele in the corner of their living room, even though they don’t play any instruments, simply because they know I’m calmer and happier when there’s a ukulele nearby that I can pick up whenever the whim strikes.

Nowadays, even as I’m mired in seasonal depression and fibro pain and general 21st-century millennial malaise, I keep a soprano ukulele on my bed so it’s always there when I feel like reaching for it. Not next to my bed, not near my bed, but on my bed. It’s small enough that I can do that. And many days, having it there is the difference between feeling sad and listless, and playing songs until I find my smile again.

I’ve taught ukulele lessons, I’ve bought ukuleles for friends, I’ve evangelized about ukuleles to all who would listen – and the reason for all this is simple. The ukulele has changed my life, made it brighter and bolder and easier and more fun. It has made music feel delightful instead of soul-sucking and painful. Every time I hold this little instrument in my arms, I feel grateful to be able to pluck its four strings.

So play your favorite Beatles’ song
And make the subway fall in love
They’re only $19.95; that isn’t lots of money
Play until the sun comes up
And play until your fingers suffer
Play LCD Soundsystem songs on your ukulele
Quit the bitching on your blog
And stop pretending art is hard
Just limit yourself to three chords
And do not practice daily
You’ll minimize some stranger’s sadness
With a piece of wood and plastic
Holy fuck, it’s so fantastic, playing ukulele!
-Amanda Palmer, “Ukulele Anthem“

All the Hardware & Software I Use for Blogging, Journalism, Podcasting & Music

Kate Sloan

I get questions sometimes about the equipment I use to do the various things I do, so I thought I’d compile it all in one big master post!

 

General hardware

  • My computer is a 2022 M2 MacBook Air. I added more storage space and RAM than the base model offers, so it can keep up with the most taxing tasks I do (usually video or audio editing).
  • When I’m at my desk, my MacBook is hooked up to my 24-inch ViewSonic monitor, which I got because it’s one of the only ones that can connect to a MacBook and charge it at the same time, through just one cable.
  • When at my desk, I switch back and forth between an Apple Magic Keyboard (a gift from my spouse) and a pink and white typewriter-style KnewKey keyboard. The Apple one is quiet and minimalist, and thus good for everyday work, but sometimes I need the dopamine-boosting clicky-keys sound of the KnewKey to get me through difficult tasks.
  • I use an Apple Magic Trackpad (also a gift from my spouse). Have never really been able to go back to using a mouse after getting used to a trackpad.
  • I mostly use my iPad mini 5 for leisure activities (Netflix, Instapaper, etc.) but it’s also what I work on when my chronic pain is flaring up too badly for me to sit at a desk, or when I want to work in a location where bringing a laptop would be inconvenient.
  • My phone is an iPhone 12 Pro. It has a great camera; I take most of my photos and videos on it.
  • For Zoom calls and such, I have a Logitech C920S webcam affixed to my monitor.
  • When I read, either for pleasure or for research, I’m usually doing it on my Kindle Paperwhite. I love that it’s waterproof, because I read in the bath a fair bit, and I also love its highlighting and note-taking features.
  • I have a HomePod mini next to my bed which I use to control music and lighting with my voice, among other things. it’s especially convenient on days when chronic pain and fatigue are making it difficult for me to do things myself.

 

Podcasting & music equipment

 

Analog hardware

 

Software

  • This blog runs on WordPress.
  • I do most of my other writing in Google Docs.
  • I keep track of my income and business expenses in Google Sheets.
  • The Notes app that comes built-in on Apple devices is my best friend, and I use it for the bulk of my digital note-taking and for keeping track of my life overall. It’s where I make my daily to-do list as well.
  • I used Scrivener to write both of my books. It’s the best software for longform projects that I’m aware of.
  • For podcasting, I record in Audacity and edit in Adobe Audition. No particular reason for these choices other than that I know them well/have been using them for a long time (they taught us Audition in journalism school and I used Audacity for my first podcast, when I was 12).
  • Depending on who I’m talking to, I usually do online video or audio calls with either Zoom or FaceTime.
  • When interviewing people on Zoom or similar, either for a podcast or for an article, I record audio with Piezo.
  • When interviewing someone over the phone, I use TapeACall Pro. It’s a bit convoluted and unreliable, though, so I’d like to find a better solution someday.
  • For making rough demo recordings while writing songs, I use Voice Record Pro. This is also how I capture any random melodic ideas that come to me while I’m out and about.
  • During the songwriting process, I often use the Rhymezone, Dictionary.com and Ukulele Tuner apps.
  • I use Descript for automated interview transcriptions when I can’t be bothered (or don’t have time) to transcribe them myself. It is a weirdly complicated and difficult-to-understand app but I know how to do the basic things I need to do in it, so it’s fine.
  • I save and read articles in Instapaper. I save and read book highlights in Readwise.
  • The Dildorks is hosted on Simplecast.
  • I record and produce music in GarageBand and then edit videos in iMovie.
  • I listen to tunes on Apple Music all day long.

“A Song A Week” Challenge: Monthly Recap 5 of 12

Kate Sloan

Song 19/52: “Thirty”

Lyrics:

Blow out the candles, I’m 30 today
Sing me that dissonant song
People keep asking me, “Are you okay?”
And I laugh and I half-play along

Recently, while I was combing my hair
I spotted a grey on the right
Could be a sign that I’m aging
Could be a trick of the light

It’s just a date on the calendar
I’m shuttled along like a passenger
And I’d like to speak to the manager
How am I 30?
How am I 30?

A woman can fade like a desolate flower
That’s how it seems when we’re sad
Losing our beauty is losing our power
And every last charm that we had

Everyone seems to be asking me
“When are you starting a family?”
But who knows what’s left in my ovaries?
How am I 30?
How am I 30?

Don’t wanna grow up
Makes me wanna throw up
I’m still 16 in my head
Make the clock stop
Let me take a year off
Guess I’m grateful I’m not dead
Though some days I’d like that instead

I doubt I’ll be dying disastrously
But there’s always the fear of catastrophe
Even with decades ahead of me
How am I 30?

All I can do is appreciate
My face and my age and my body weight
I guess I’ve got plenty to celebrate
Now that I’m 30
Now that I’m 30

 

Songwriting diary:

I’d been vaguely aware that I wanted to write a song about turning 30 – largely inspired by Bo Burnham’s brilliant song on the same subject – but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted it to say. After I finished writing most of my song “Dreamgirl” in mid-April, I continued messing around on the little keyboard I’d written it on, and improvised a little section (“It’s just a date on the calendar/ I’m shuttled along like a passenger/ And I’d like to speak to the manager/ How am I 30?”) that reminded me rhythmically of “Another Hundred People” from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company. I liked the nervous, syncopated feeling that it had, but still wasn’t sure what I thought the song should say – in part because I wasn’t having any particularly strong feelings about turning 30 – so I set it aside for a few weeks.

In early May I wrote some verses and a bridge about turning 30 but they were in a minor key and seemed like a weird fit with the major-key section I’d already written. I tried it on my keyboard and then on my baritone ukulele and it sounded sort of odd both ways. But then I decided to do a multi-instrumental arrangement for it in Garageband and it immediately made way more sense to me – the transitions between sections felt more purposeful, and had the sense of disorientation that aging can instill.

I did some minor lyric editing after the initial writing session. My spouse suggested using the word “catastrophe” in the verse about death, in lieu of “mortality,” and I’m glad I made that change because it works much better.

Song 20/52: “Credit Card”

Lyrics:

Got my new passport
And a burner phone I picked up at the airport
Got my next mark:
She’s a widow in a condo next to Central Park

I know where she’s goin’
And I follow her there without her even knowin’
Woo her at a bar
And play a character I carry in my repertoire

Chorus:
And I say “Hey, little honey, could you pick up the tab?
And when we’re heading home, would you pay for the cab?”
It’s oh so easy that it gets me hard
When you say yes and let me decimate your credit card

Yes, I’m a trickster
When she seems suspicious, I just stop and kiss her
That’s how it goes:
If you keep a lady happy then the money flows

(repeat chorus)

Would I do it to the queen? Yeah, you betcha!
To the stars on silver screens? Of course I would!
They can say they’d never fall for it
They can hide their cash and stall a bit
Still, I’d walk away with all of it

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

In February my spouse and I watched the documentary The Tinder Swindler together. I found it fascinating, not only because I like con-artist stories but also because, at times, I have dealt with anxiety-based delusions that my partner might actually just be pretending to like me in order to con me somehow. (You can hear that full story in this episode of the Bawdy Storytelling podcast if you’re interested.) I wanted to write a song from the perspective of a charismatic con man – equal parts Tinder Swindler, Harold Hill and Jordan Belfort – who uses his savviness and charm to get women to give him money.

I wrote the whole lyric one night. It was an odd case, as far as my usual songwriting process goes, because I didn’t start with any chords and wasn’t even playing an instrument; I just heard how I wanted the song to sound in my head, and then had to figure it out on piano. This was even trickier than I thought it would be because I heard the song distinctly as being in a bluesy/jazzy style, which is not a style I have a lot of experience playing in. (I think the last song I wrote in this style was a terrible one called “Ogle Me” when I was like 15.)

I ended up scrapping most of what I’d written, though. The verses were boring and the bridge was too redeeming – it showed the character’s human fallibility and vulnerability (“sometimes I feel a twinge of conscience/ but maybe it just means I don’t know what I want yet/ I’ll go online and click on ‘add to cart’/ and fill the empty pit inside my heart”) and I just didn’t think that was the right vibe for the song. But I really liked the chorus (“I say, hey, little honey, could you pick up the tab…”) and found that it would get stuck in my head a lot while I went about my day, which made me want to take another crack at the song. This has been a common thing lately: only deciding to continue with a song because it proves its catchiness to me.

Once again my spouse made a small-but-important contribution to my lyrics this week: originally the line in the chorus was “it’s oh so easy, gets me oh so hard” and then “it’s oh so easy and it gets me hard” and my spouse suggested that it should be “it’s oh so easy that it gets me hard.” It’s funny how sometimes you need an outside observer to tell you what the missing puzzle piece is, because you can’t see it yourself when you’ve been staring at the puzzle up-close for so long.

Song 21/52: “Bodily Autonomy”

Lyrics:

Have you heard the news today?
They’re trying to take our rights away
They think they know us, think they own us
And it’s not okay

You’d think that we could all agree
On bodily autonomy
They’d rather praise the olden days
And the economy

Chorus:
But I own my body, and it’s mine alone
And you own your body – every nerve, every bone
They don’t own our bodies; they just think they do
But thinking doesn’t make it true

I’m worried ’bout my oldest friends
Most of whom are queer and trans
And all the pride they’ve had to hide
It’s like it never ends

If someone wants a surgery
Or to end a pregnancy
It shouldn’t matter who gets mad
Or says they disagree

(repeat chorus)

If we never owned our bodies, do we own anything?
If they control our bodies, don’t they own everything?
How can they patrol our bodies? Their own bible says be kind
If they control our bodies, next they’re coming for our minds

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

I wrote this song in a way that was totally backwards compared to how I normally write songs. I was feeling deeply uninspired trying to improvise on my ukulele and piano like I normally might, so I fired up Garageband on my iPad and plugged in my Novation Launchkey midi keyboard. I had a vague idea that I wanted to write something in a waltz time signature with jazzy-sounding chords, so I tapped out a simple drum beat and laid down the first chord progression that popped into my head. Then I looped the 8 bars I’d recorded and tried improvising vocally over them for a while.

There were a bunch of different potential topics and ideas on my mind for the lyrics, one of which was the recent news that the U.S. Supreme Court plans on stripping its citizens of the right to safe abortions. I improvised the lines “Have you heard the news today?/ They’re trying to take our rights away” and it immediately felt well-suited to the melancholy vibe that the chords had, so I continued writing from there.

The lyrics went through many rewrites, most notably the second verse, which I knew had to be about trans issues. Initially it was totally different (“Some people need a medicine/ An androgen or estrogen/ To smile and thrive and stay alive/ And feel born again”) but I decided it was too medically focused and I moreso wanted to emphasize the feelings involved in being denied bodily autonomy.

The bridge took a lot of attempts to get right, too. Initially it was way more angry (“Give us a democracy instead of a theocracy/ Stop insisting blood and bone should ever be a battle zone/ Check your bible and you’ll find that your own savior says be kind/ All the founding fathers died and why should corpses be our guide?”) but the vibes were off. I usually just feel sad and despairing when I think about basic human rights being taken away; anger is a rarer response from me in that situation, so I didn’t really think I could “sell” it when I performed it, plus I knew people would be pissed about me referring to the founding fathers as corpses even though a bunch of them owned slaves and were demonstrably fallible. So I wrote a softer, more plaintive bridge that fit the mood of the rest of the song better.

Song 22/52: “The Stage”

Lyrics:

We come to this hallowed place not to kneel or repent
We come to this magical place ’cause we know what it’s meant
We’re saying goodbye to our co-star, our friend and our leader
Tomorrow’s the last day he’ll ever perform in this theatre

Our backpacks are packed up with pillows and candles and wine
We’ll stay overnight; it’s a secret, but it’ll be fine
We hide in a corner, so quiet, for almost 2 hours
We hide while the janitor mops and then shuts off the power

And then we float onto the stage, like it’s our home (’cause it’s our home)
And we say a little prayer and read a poem
We’ve said it again and again to each other
That I’m like his sister and he’s like my brother
But 8 shows a week, we pretend to be lovers

It’s acting, I know, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real
And audience members will never know quite how that feels
The touching and kissing and that’s all before intermission
Rehearsals where you never moved til you had my permission

I know when we opened, we never thought we’d run for years
So we savored each moment, each curtain call given through tears
Family isn’t just chromosomes, blood and trauma
Our family shared a marquee and some backstage drama

And we sit up on the stage, like it’s our home (’cause it’s our home)
And we linger in the love of those we’ve known
We’ve said it again and again to each other
At Saturday matinees all through the summer
I cry like I’m losing my soulmate, my lover

See the thing is: I’ve loved you for a long, long time
And not just ’cause it’s in our lines
We’ve stared into each other’s eyes
For hours on end – lord knows I’ve tried
To keep my art and life apart
But that is not what’s in my heart
The critics said I seemed genuine
They didn’t know how much trouble I’m in

Now you hold me on the stage; it feels like home (’cause you’re my home)
And I think of who we were, and how we’ve grown
We’ve said it again and again to each other
When you say “I love you,” I still feel a flutter
The last time you kiss me, I’ll long for another

 

Songwriting diary:

My spouse and I watched a documentary together, Those You’ve Known, which is about the Broadway musical Spring Awakening and a recent reunion/anniversary concert that the original cast did. There was a touching story in the doc about the three leads of the show sneakily staying overnight in the theatre (which I’m sure would’ve been an insurance nightmare for the production company) and sharing wine on a candlelit stage, to say goodbye to a cast member who was leaving. It really stuck with me, as did Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff’s relationship, which seems to have been more than a friendship but not quite a sexual or romantic connection.

I’ve been doing a thing lately where, when I can’t sleep, I try to write a complete set of lyrics for a potential song. I either use a random word generator to give me a starting point, or I use a concept I’ve been wanting to write a song about. One night before bed, I typed up some lyrics on my phone that told the beginning of this story: sneaking into the theatre, hiding in a corner, etc. I didn’t get very far with it, just a couple stanzas.

When I looked at it again the following morning and started trying to put it to music, the chorus-y section (“And then we float onto the stage…“) came to me naturally while I was improvising. But I didn’t start conceptualizing the song as a romantic story until the bridge kinda popped into my head (“See, the thing is, I’ve loved you for a long long time, and not just ’cause it’s in our lines…”). I thought that would ultimately be more compelling than a song about friends hanging out platonically in a theatre after hours, but maybe that’s just because I’m more comfortable writing romantic stuff.