Watson Moon

we got two new songs!! they are “love song for a liquor cabinet” and “you're frightened of growing old.” 

now i have a challenge for you. listen to these songs before you read this...

done???

ok now answer this riddle: what is different about these 2 compared to all my other catalogue? i'm very interested to know if you can tell they were recorded very long ago. i was just a kid of 18. i was new to songwriting.

but would you have known?? to me they feel not so distant from my modern output as one would think. so they are. two new ancient songs reborn for the modern world. some of my first passable songs. i was working at mcdonalds living at my mum's house. i think you can hear the mcdonalds influence in the tunes. i was fresh out of high school, all friends gone away to college. i stowed myself away in my mother's basement and recorded my first real album.

i've updated just a few elements for this release. i've layered the vocals with modern ones. but i only had the masters. no individual instrument tracks. so i could not have altered the mix much even if i wanted. so the songs are mostly the same. could you tell???

send ur answers to watsonmoonbooking@gmail.com

My friend Dan Pritchard said to me “I love the new album, not many people make Concept Albums anymore.”

I said “huh.” Although I'd thought of the themes and wanted some to consistently appear, I didn't intend to make a concept album. Listening back I already see changes I'd make. I think it would have been wise to have Concrete & Cobblestones and track 2, in place of I Left Home. (But there are many changes that could have been made. I do like the album as it is.)

Maybe the concept album idea arises because I purposely made the intro song as an “opening the book” song. It says “Ok, these songs are just tall tales accumulated thru my life, now have a seat and listen.” So begins the album.

But anyway, the themes. What are the themes of this album?

Well I'll list what I think they are then I'll consult a profressional.

I'd say

1. Childhood Abuse
2. Escapism
3. Disillusionment about the modern world
4. Searching for transcendence/God in this nightmare 21st century
5. Maybe… crime??? Lots of seedy characters that appear

These pop up a bunch… but there is no real narrative. The narrative is that these are all vignettes / recollections by the narrator (the character Watson Moon)

The Oracle notes the reccurance of HELL, saying:

Hell isn't elsewhere

One phrase keeps resurfacing:

• "I was in hell."
• "I am in hell now."
• "I was back in hell."
• "Now I'm in hell when I planned for heaven's door."

Hell isn't presented as punishment after death. It's everyday existence:

• work,
• boredom,
• addiction,
• modern America,
• loneliness,
• failed relationships.

The songs suggest heaven is imagined constantly but rarely reached.

"I think of heaven / I think of heaven / I think of you."

There is longing for transcendence, but earthly life repeatedly drags Watson downward.

It also brings up MOTHER a lot. I guess I do bring her up.

"I call my mother on the way and tell her what I've done." That's talking about the guy who killed Gabi Petito

Anyway I feel like I'm just glazing myself writing about my own lyrics in this way. If you have any specific questions ask me!! 

UPDATE: THE SONG AREN'T ACTUALLY COMING OUT TIL FRIDAY THE 19th!! So bookmark this away and save til then.

The songs we have this week (You're Frightened Of Growing Old and Love song for a Liquor Cabinet) were written and recorded a very long time ago. Here is the story.

I wrote these songs while working at a McDonald's, living at my mom's house. I'd just dropped out of college after freshman year. The reasons are a bit hazy now. I'd made a few friends, but I didn't feel it was the right place for me. Something was just pulling me away. I can't say if it was a good or evil force but I surrendered to it.

My mom had bought a new house and there was a basement. I took refuge in a little room that would later become  wine cellar. I 'd been making music starting maybe 8th grade. Watsonish music. Primitive Watson. And after 4-5 years of much fun, now faced with no real prospects, I decided what better time to make an album.

Or did I decide that? In those days it was just go go go. I was a manic creative, it came effortless (not trying to glaze myself because it does NOT come that easily today). So I don't remember what the “goal” of this album was, but I started making music in that basement. I even remember getting the McDonald's “you're hired” call between guitar takes in that basement.

I think I wrote most of them in my room, on acoustic. Then I would bring them down to the basement and doll them up. I programmed drum parts for all the tracks I remember that. Exporting some solo drums and then recording in Audacity!! Yes these two songs were done in Audacity. And I had a crazy pedalboard back then so we were recording chaotic sounds straight from the Spider 2 into my SM57 (by that time I'd finally gotten an interface instead of direct to USB mics). O gosh the memories the simplicity. We didn't know how good we had it.

The reason I bring these two back now is because I don't really have a song ready 100% for my usual monthly drop. I've always liked these 2 songs. I like a lot of them on that album. I think 18 was when I started writing songs I actually was proud of. You be the judge!!! That ain't to say I definitely wouldn't have done a lot different now. But that's the beauty of it. 

Anyway they sounding very thin at first. And I was just mixing in lame headphones so you know how the bass can get BIG. I only had the masters So I cleaned them up and recorded some layers vocals on top of what was already there. Added a master reverb subtly to tie it together in a room and make it not so brittle. But pretty much just that. 

Much changed for me after I angrily quit the McDonald's call over being super sick and all that's another story. Anyway enjoy the songs if you want I thought it was a fun story.

well i made it. i lay away many nights comtemplating this album.

i wanted to give a voice to the kids who were terrorized by their parents. 

we all know how we can retreat into our own imaginations and build SHIELDS. and we can weave tall tales. walk around the playground at recess. who knows what the other kids are doing we are CONSTRUCTING.

and this album is an ode to that. i think of each song as a child's fantasy. there are bad things in their lives and these are the worlds they build. til it's light out at the end and their mother tucks them into bed.

but then the EPILOUGE and they're a teen, deep in the nightlife… perhaps a prelude to the next album. or a prelude to SEE YOU OUT THERE or GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL… nightlife albums. maybe the albums go in circles. i will be more clear and answer more grounded questions about this album later. tonight, as i release it, i'm caught in a pink wind. you know you've been there!

hope you all enjoy the STORIES!!

watson

so let me think for a second…

we have a new watson album coming. i have several ideas but need to write them out to draw them together into a coherent way. (well eventually hopefully eventually coherent.) here i will lay out some of my ideas.

double album. tall tales. starts with INTRO TO TALL TALES aka Gwendolyn as it's called now. But it sets up the stage so the songs can be viewed as vignettes. fairy tales or memories or just imagination wandering. then we go into I LEFT HOME WHEN I WAS YOUNG. cuz that's where the story really starts. watson moon leaving the house. he's wandering the city. then we go into SADIE. he meets the girl. i think this is a good sequence. honestly There's Something Wrong in the Neighborhood could be earlier but I have it here. Maybe I want to push it out further as it seems like a strange backtrack. This character is exploring the city with Sadie and then… how to keep it neon?

Options 4 Track 4: 

-Watson Moon (the song). This is interesting as it keeps the mysterious neon city vibe. The problem is it's a bit WEIRD. i guess i shouldn't really worry about that but I want to keep the listener hooked. but i think its a good idea to keep the energy up.

-Concrete and Cobblestone. Another childhood song. Interesting there are a lot of childhood songs in this batch. Maybe that could be a detour/hallucination midway thru the album. 

(Childhood songs:

concrete, there's something wrong in the neighborhood, 1999??, kids they never stick together (teens, ending the dream))

-Dinner With The Family. nah i don't like it there.

-1999

-O Vegas. continues city theme HARD

-Miracle Drug (too similar to Sadie)

I lean towards the song Watson Moon.

In that narrative Watson is out on the town and he is getting burned by this woman in a shithole country. and he's mad and cynical by the end of this song. “im learning something new” . here i feel we can calm it down and get more reflective. so “u were my only friend?” no not that one. what about heaven.  or when it started. heaven is cool cuz it pitches up at start while the previous song pitches down. but its a pretty dramatic vibe shift. what about sick joke? o yeah i love that change to sick joke. so now he's reminiscing and hes bummed. maybe this should be two albums. that might make more sense. gheez i just can't decide between sick joke or Heaven after watson moon. i had a previous tracklist i wonder if heaven was important for that 1. yeah it had i left home > sadie so this is just a variation of that. it had heaven after sadie. so that is energy fading and this 1 is energy maintained. idk heaven is nice cuz it actually has more energy in the second half than sick joke.

so after heaven… “there's something wrong in the neighborhood?” yeah it works pretty good. so this is now the childhood reflection arch. bring back my other choices from before. concrete and cobblestones?? or heaven into miracle drug? how about heaven into cowards way out? we want this to be a wacky psychedelic album. but i don't think this works. nah nah. we can go from neighborhood to what i had before which was cowards way out. ah i don't know. maybe it should just be two albums. then i gotta format the second one. but yea this album gonna come out. i was thinking TALL TALES for the titles or a new title PARADISE LOST. what u think?

ok i got shy with the blog and thought no one was reading.

then i got a bit psyched out thinking the stakes were high and EVERYONE was reading!! what if i write trash!?

but anyway just thought i'd write a bit about the songs that have come out recently because that is an easy topic.

DINNER WITH THE FAMILY

this song i wrote in a month-long period where i was trying to be like bob dylan. y'kno like really lyric focused and abstract. not even needed choruses, just long winding lyrics. i think this is the only song from that era to ever see release. and even with this one i added that little chorus section in the middle to make it not so one note. and well… i like this song. i like how it gets LOUD like it has a DROP like a 90's rock song. that's watson doing ROCK instead of dreamy dreamy blissful tunes. and i like the lyrics i read them as Trouble in the suburbs. i should have called the damn song TROUBLE IN THE SUBURBS. dinner with the family kinda captures that though. anyway i like the song.

i'm working on putting all these songs together into an ALBUM called TALL TALES with one or two additions to the singles already released. that will make them more organized to listen to and show the narrative clearer. because there is a narrative that runs thru these songs i think… an ARCH? i'm not sure exactly what it is but its Music it ain't a damn news article. i ain't phil ochs! ha jk that was an invalid criticism of him i think.

KIDS THEY NEVER STICK TOGETHER

my student said this was incorrect but i believe kinda strongly it is. how many friends do you still see from when you were a KID? i bet not many. anyway that's what this song is about. there's also apart where i'm climbing mount everest or something… cuz i've MOVED on with my life. i'm like chris mccandles in alaska and his grade school friends probably never thought about him until they discovered that horrible scene. maybe if they'd stuck together it all wouldn't have happened!! but what use is it thinking about “WHAT IF” because we all know things are sort of locked in. things play out in tragic and bizarre ways. and somehow they were all written that way. long long before any of us were born. so it is a sad fact after all. kids they never stick together. 

got some hilarious splice sounds on this song like the girl going “do do do do” laughing my ass off on the phloor when i stuck that in there. i like it though but SPLICE? ay don't worry i very rarely use it. and at least it ain't this new AI thing. can you imagine? 

honestly i think the AI music is getting good enough now to appeal to people. but i think people don't just listen to music for the music they want to know there was thought and pain and preference that went into their music not just some blind output. so i believe we will embrace the HUMANNESS of our music more as this AI shit takes off. maybe it'll help up tease out what exactly that “humanness” is. i mean, we always thought it was music itself. the very soundwaves?? but anyone saying that AI songs all sound like TRASH is diluted. i mean some of these songs are quite fire as much as i hate to admit it. and i've dedicated my whole life to music. but maybe i still have shite taste. my fav band is the beatles you let me know. and i like the velvet underground, elliott smith, conor oberst, silver jews, neutral milk hotel y'know all the usuals a guy like me would like. and MAN THIS AI can do Neutral Milk HOTEL!!! can you believe that?? go check it out if you don't believe me.

but yea just gotta release a few more songs before i compiled them into a 4th watson moon album. TALL TALES its called. and it has an intro song. should i call it tall tales? “intro to tall tales?” nah tall tales is mine. Tall Tales by Watson Moon? or Watson Moon's Tall Tales. probably the second. Gonna get some good artwork for it. I just feel like a lot of these singles fall thru the cracks and don't get any listens. stuff like Sadie or this Concrete And Cobblestone or this new one about the Dinner. 90% of my listeners are just streaming Turn Away and Modern World. I think if we put all these tunes together in a beautiful flow that tells a story, maybe more people will listen and understand. Gotta figure out the album art too. That's a big one.

We have another new song in the top 5 on Spotify!! Heaven. I like that one. I got lost, out of my mind in the field. Out where a secret's concealed. It's funny cuz it's kinda like my take on more generic folk. Just musically. I think lyrically I'm proud of it but musically it's got the pedal steel and the acoustics. But immediately it got put on that Burp January New Indie playlist. didn't even submit anywhere. i guess people just like what they're familiar with. Gotta remember that. Sometimes I think a song or musical idea will be too obvious and cliche and someone else will think it's like way out there. Even other musicians. Very strange.

Sitting at like 5.5k monthly listeners on spotify. plz God i pray u help me into the algorhym. i'm really trying to go to the moon with this one!! i wonder if i studied brian wilson's harmonies more… what do the people RLY want??? it's so hard to tell. every once in awhile my tastes line up with theirs. That's fine. As long as its every couple months and we can promote those… that's swell. 

Going to Vegas on Friday!! With Alyssa and her bro Josh. It's gonna be amazing!! Me and my friends. Poker though. Serious stuff. No drinking no partying. We are trying to win big. We have been practicing (not nearly enough). But anyway wish us luck.  maybe i'll get another “O vegas” out of it hehehe (that's an old watson song)

I'll try to write more. My dear fans I love you!!! And hello Julie I hope u enjoyed this entry!!

<3

watson

i realized i spoke at length about When It Started but didn't explain why I decided to cover PRoyal Tea…

Of course I've been a Nirvana fan all my life. That's def why I picked up the guitar in the first place. Snuck my dad's CD's from the cabinet before he was all moved out. Got In Utero felt edgy. The inside sleeve of Nevermind had Kurt with his MIDDLE FINGER UP??? I was hooked even before Mom told me about his death. 

Those were the passionate years but Nirvana has also aged EXTREMELY WELL. I am continually blown away from the rawness and expression in In Utero even though I've heard all those songs a million times. There's  nothing like it, really to my mind. Ofc there are a lot of bands that SOUND like Nirvana. But they aren't Nirvana cuz Nirvana had a MAGIC. Like the f*ckin beatles man!

Anyway it was 3AM. Just the other night I was tossing and turning thinking about godknowswhat. I sang the lyric “I'm so tireddd I can't sleeeeepppp” and I said “you know what, i really understand that song right about now, let's play it.”

So silence as a mouse I pulled up my acoustic and started singing a little version of it.

Then I said “f*rick it we ain't sleeping anyway, I'm gonna go record this rn.”

So its whispery vocals. Can't wake up the roommates. And that's the whole story. I really like how it sounds. I think it's VIBEY. What do YOU THINK?

Tell me plz. Hopefully the Submithub Playlisters like it. At least some of them will have Heard it before…

WATSON

flies are crawling across my desk

lots of flies here in summertime

withering summertime

not the full blooming july but september

did drums today for a batch of new songs

the best of which is called I GOT LOST

and it talks about getting lost in a field

 i also put the finishing touches on

ANIMAL YOU'RE AN ANIMAL!!!

which is this other new song i got going with a big smashing pumpkins fuzz section in the middle

it's a bit schizo and all over the place so idk it might not be a release priority even if i like it

it takes like attention lol so i think people may not pay attention

i prefer to release the more immediate ones is that crazy??

have i sacrificed my artist integrity?

perfect BOOM it's gone

now i'm FREE

anyway alyssa in SD today for a very strange costume party

she is dressed as a butler i believe

what's the next watson release?? o yea! it's one where alyssa introduces it

it's got her voice at the top then some lyrics bout Sharks

i AM THE NEXT ELLIOT SMITH (lol)

jk elliot never wrote bout no sharks

but its coming out… gee i dont know when… few weeks?

it'll be fun but i don't think it'll help too much

aint rly a tiktok song… more of a Shark one.

so yea i still put out the weird ones. 

Got yugioh on gameboy from Alyssa for the bday

32 and i finally got YuGiOh!!

My whole life waiting.

anyway i will prob do a lot more work on music today as alyssa is out til late.

so wish me luck.

but that's my update

remember when it started??! i sure don’t. but i guess i did when i wrote this song many years ago. it was a foggy autumn in bellingham wa and we had BIG plans for forever. then all the sudden it was a blazing summer in a haunted house. frat boys clamoring and me writing about a lost love.

I’m kidding when I say I don’t remember. I love NOT remembering…. I love toiling in the present moment or even projections of the FUTURE… but the past is a grotesque animal. but for you the fan I can elaborate.

The year was 2012. I’d dropped out of college and was working at McDonalds. Living at my mom’s house in Issaquah Wa. In college I’d felt the same way I’d felt in high school; directionless, and I was feeling a bit guilty about wasting my grandparents money when I wasn’t even sure I wanted a degree. So McDonald’s it was. For about a year I laid patties on the grill. One night I got home to an empty house and poured myself some of my mother’s scotch. I was desperately sad. I was a passionate loner. I mean, I had passion. I had a passion that was searching desperately for something to absorb into. This aimless passion was causing me a good deal of pain. I believe that morning on the way to work I’d made a pledge to let go of my dream of ever getting a girlfriend. Earnestly, to God, I’d said “Ok. It’s not going to happen.”

Whisky in hand I logged on Skype. Who knows why? Instantly I was being messaged by a girl I’d met last year in college. We’ll call her Tiffany. Tiffany had also dropped out. She hadn’t even made it thru the year. Her restlessness had sent her to some sort of study abroad program in Costa Rica. But now it was Autumn. Sophomore year had begun, and she was back in college.

We began talking and things spiraled insanely out of control. Within the first few days she was begging me come visit. 2 hours up the I5 from Issaquah to Bellingham. “WELL I GOTTA GIVE TWO WEEKS NOTICE TO TAKE A DAY OFF FROM MCDONALDS” I said.

But somehow I did get a day off and I made the trip. What happened when I first got up there? I rack my brain to remember. I think I ate dinner with her and her roommates. They’d all moved into 614 E Myrtle St, a blue house with a red door. A truly iconic location.

(i've inserted a picture of the property here but the internet has failed to allow it jsut f*ckin google it!!!)

I was very shy but happy to be there. Tiffany didn’t care much about going to class. We slept late and went to Harris Ave Cafe (since burned down in a fire) in the sleepy afternoon.

I visited once a week or so, and I was on a cloud. Eventually I ragequit McDonalds after they tried to force me to come to work with the flu. And, having begun to form a band on my frequent trips to Bellingham, I resolved to move back. So ended the McDonalds era. But it was only really when we lived so far that the lavender haze was so thick.

A year later we were broken up. I’d spent the summer in Los Angeles taking anthropology classes. I returned to Bellingham and rented a house with a few music scene boys. 1234 Ellis. The Jacuzzi House. I was sick with what would later be diagnosed as chronic Lyme disease. I laid in bed and wrote. This must have been 2014. “Remember when it started?” I waxed poetically, weeping and groaning. The whole thing had come and gone like some delerious dream. I recorded some sentimental songs.

I rerecorded this one here in the year of our Lord 2025 cuz I always thought it was a good song. It captured the feeling. All of that for a song. Bellingham in 2012 was a wonderful place to be. (Orange County 2025 is a wonderful place to be).

I wonder what it’s like now.

Anyway that is the story behind the new Watson Moon song WHEN IT STARTED. Next I will tell the story of how I wrote Pennyroyal Tea! Rofl jk that ain’t me and you KNOW THAT. (but we did do a cover)

-watson

i’m going to try to make some music like elliot smith.

what strikes me about elliot’s music (esp figure 8 my fav) is how Perfect it. It ain’t “slacker” rock like my beloved built to spill or modest mouse w the “1st take best take philosophies” In Elliot’s music everything is perfectly placed , perfectly in sync. It isn’t sloppy. it’s the opposite of sloppy. and i’ve been chasing sloppy cuz i think it’s real and human. but i also want to make a beautiful, Musicial masterpiece. Not like a masterpiece of emotion of expression but like a masterpiece of chord progressions and beautiful melodies. i’m trying to say these are two different things. you get pure cathartic release like nirvana and yes they have great melodies but the real magic in it is something else. the character of kurt’s voice. but elliot just Constructed these gorgeous songs/mini symphonies. they were masterful you know? they evolved and morphed over their courses like classical music. so yes that is what i really try to do next with watson. and i’ve already started writing a few tunes in his style. just his style of chord progression. 8 bar loop with augmented lol it’s more than that of course. not exactly technically sure what i’m copying of his. i need to study more cuz elliot is def someone who you can tell STUDIED the craft just in his song structures and arrangements and chord changes. anyway this is what to expect from watson in the next few months.

o speaking of New music, tonight we also have a song coming out called “elliot” about elliot. funny it was written maybe a year ago, this obsession has been evolving. i tried to do it in his style but it isn’t complicated enough to rly be truly elliot esque. hopefully you like it tho. i’m in the parking lot of albertsons just got a celcius soda gotta get some food before work.

peace/love/respect watson