JJ's Keyboard Songs

A mix of original and cover songs featuring keyboards, piano, and more. Instruments, vocals, lyrics by JJ. Headphones-worthy.

Here’s a bunch of tunes I wrote or covered, various genres, all to some degree with keyboards, piano, or whatever I got my grubby mitts on. I am NO keyboardist, but have always enjoyed adding keys and experimenting with sounds of all sorts on my recordings, so this is hopefully a varied summary of my songwriting, as well as fodder for potential TATANKA selections.

One track is obviously inspired by the great Philip Glass, whose work drew me away from traditional western linear composition into modalism, cyclical, organic really. Meditative, putting it mildly. So many tracks are just that – music in concentric circles, or so I planned.

Lyrically, I have a habit of writing the music first, tracking everything, then listening to the playback and mouthing a test vocal track of random syllables into an eventual melody. I walk away. Listen on headphones. Keep humming, whistling, anything to unlock the melody that’s just sitting there, elsewhere, ready for the taking. Eventually I sit down and flesh out lyrics, a story ideally, but sometimes the aleatory aspect fits, so many vocal tracks are that first test run. No need to change them on some songs. Less is more. Don’t believe me? Check out Cocteau Twins and listen closely to early R.E.M. and Michael Stipe’s vocal Dadaism.

Amusing Anecdote

I have played keyboards as part of multiple bands, and once played keys live with a Grateful Dead cover band in a Chicagoland biker bar. Classic rock. Major, minor, 7th stuff. Relatively easy and fun to step back and just accent what the others were doing musically, until a drunk lady “asked” the lead singer if we knew “Dead Flowers” from The Rolling Stones.

Nope.

Apparently that was unacceptable as her better half soon approached us, mid-song, demanding that we play his sweet lady’s request then and there. Needless to say, that set ended abruptly. As we took a strategic break, the singer told us the guy threatened to kill us all if we didn’t come back and play her request.

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JJ's Keyboard Songs — Level-Headed Fan – Actual Photo – No, that’s not true. But for a second you believed it. Admit it. Anyway, that’s a fair illustration of the mayhem.

Joliet, Illinois is a great town. A wonderful place to raise a family.

Years before the Internet and mobile devices, we frantically picked each other’s brains, chose a totally random key, started hyper-jamming, and quickly realized the damn song was easy: just a Southern-fried Blues tune. Classic I, IV, V. So, we hastily concocted a ballpark chord progression, mustered up enough plausible lyrics, and went back on stage to just completely bullshit our way through our “SURPRISE!!!” request-met song.

All five of us were literally screaming the chorus into the mics, just frozen where we stood, in mortal fear. The crowd was thankfully greater than three sheets to the wind and less than wise to our subterfuge. Suddenly we were part of the good ol’ gang, sans the jumping in part. We were somehow heroes, no longer targets of murderous plotting and likely plans of dismemberment options du jour.

Music is dangerous. Stick to jousting.

We got out of there alive, but during that horrific break, we seriously considered, and even voted, on just ditching all of our gear and running out the back door. One does not normally equate keyboards with near-death experiences, but there you go.

Downloads

Tracks (1 hour 58 minutes 19 seconds)

ALL GREAT SPIRITS…
01:47 BACCHUS*
05:17 CARPE DIEM
10:11 DEAR LINDA
16:02 FRANKIE’S SONG
- That was actually my co-dependent Tomcat, Franklin Delano Wilson, howling at me to put out the butt and get back in the house, a nightly ritual, so I had to record him and make it into a song. Weeks later he went on his nocturnal sojourn in search of less-than-discretionary females and never returned. Months later a buddy and I took a late night walk in the neighborhood and we noticed in a window who appeared to be Frankie. It was not an easy decision, but he looked good. Nice and fat. Happy, we inferred, so we kept on walking. Before you judge, know that I am adopted, and glad I was after meeting my birth-mother once. Once was enough. I kept on walking.
20:41 GMAJ 90BPM 05_15
- AI-augmented from my Stems
- Multiple variations/generations, each based on the previous and progressively dissonant, then I simply reversed the sequence back toward consonance, et voila. ABCDEFEDCBA, for the kids in the know.
25:57 GOD
29:27 GO FIGURE
32:44 GREEN, PURPLE AND GREY
- Color has always been a theme. One of the last things I do is title a song. When it doesn’t just come to me, I listen with closed eyes and let my mind wander. Usually colors take over et voila!
34:51 HOLLAND
- That’s me on my brother’s drum kit
- Want a belly laugh? Ask me how I sub-mixed the drums. Double dog dare ya!
38:58 IN COLD BLOOD*
43:10 INTO THE RED
48:38 LINCOLN HIGHWAY
- An actual drive from Plainfield to downtown Joliet, Illinois, on Route 30, aka Lincoln Highway
53:51 LOVE
1:00:05 M.A.T.C.Y.L.M.I.T.E?
1:02:27 NEW LOUNGE
1:05:49 NOT COOL, DUDE
- Harpsichord courtesy of Joliet Junior College’s unlocked band room
- This is one track from the soundtrack of a libretto I wrote for Creative Writing, a play, Dada: The Opera of the Absurd. The class took parts, read it, and I played each song in order. It was pretty cool.
1:06:21 PIED PIPER
1:08:25 PULSATING BLUE WALNUT
- Again, visualization. This time a pulsating blue walnut manifested.
1:10:49 PURPLE LIGHT ***
1:14:16 EMERALD ***
1:16:08 MELT WITH YOU (Modern English) ***
1:21:25 SUZY’S HAIR
- Yes, I Was HEAVILY Into Philip Glass At The Time
1:26:29 THE BEATNIK SONG**
- Just as Britpop was kicking in, I woke one morning with the melody in my head, jumped on the organ, then Kenny Al helped me record it. It came in second in a songwriting competition in college, another cool artistic moment.
- Live version
1:29:50 TRIBE, PART 1*
- Yep, five parts total and nope, I won’t bore you, but suffice it to say each is an adaptation of its previous part. I pull that stunt a lot.
1:34:10 MARIGOLD MARY aka UNCREATIVE WRITING
- Live version
1:38:43 UNTITLED I
- I would often find myself playing the very old and very out of tune player piano at my folks’ basement. Like an out of tune guitar, some of us find beauty in the “flaws.” These are a few moments I recorded and/or fleshed out into quasi-songs. They’re all just BMs but at the time, I enjoyed the routine, and now am glad I got them on tape.
1:41:07 UNTITLED II
1:42:08 UNTITLED III
1:44:05 UNTITLED IV
1:44:42 WELL-ADJUSTED CITIZEN
1:46:45 DUSKDREAM
1:48:54 WINNIE-THE-POOH
1:51:14 YOUR SOUL’ S TO SEA
1:54:09 YOU SHOULD BE MY LOVER
- Live version
  - That’s the maestro, Kenny Al on keyboards; I’m on guitar.
  - “We are SLUGGO!“