Country music is harder than I thought.

I wouldn't have imagined. I've dabbled in country for a long time, since my uncle was a country player and he and I would jam, way back in the day. It took me a while to be willing to admit that I like country music, some of it, just like I like other forms of music. (In all honesty, though, I like less country music than, say, jazz or prog rock... but I'll also enjoy tons more country music than I will rap, for example, or most of the mechanized rubbish the music industry is putting out now.)

Anyway, I've played country for years, but always live, usually in jams. I've never written a country song that wasn't a scherzo, a joke on country music.

That's changed. A while back, I was driving home from work and lo! Like some of my best songs, an idea popped into my head, and I managed to get it written down. Like Athena, if you will, from Zeus' forehead, it came fully wrapped - music and all.

A country ballad. Slow, my-dog-died-and-my-woman-left-me sad. (Except in this ballad, my job left me and my woman died. Yes, I'm essentially a happy person.)

I finally got around to recording it, because I've been, you know, wanting to ever since I wrote it. It's been exceptionally difficult, even though the song isn't hard - mostly because I've chosen to do it the way I'm most proud of, by limiting it to a three-piece and recording each instrument in straight shots.

The problem is that it's a quiet song. Loud, busy songs are easier, because you can cover little glitches through noise, if you even notice them. If the guitar doesn't play the ninth, it's cool - because the bass is riffing there, or the drums are going off, or something. Quiet songs, however, demand that everything work out, because if you get it wrong, there's nothing else there to help. No overdubs (not in this one, at least), no secondary guitar to cover, no nothing - just wrong or missed notes.

That said, it's coming along well, I think. You should be able to hear it, if you're interested, in a few days... if I can ever get the guitar work done right, which means I have to go back over the bass. :)