Good Morning Sunshine (2020 Version)

Back story: After doing the RPM Challenge and FAWM and 50/90 and National Solo Album Month and the occasional reddit song a week or unsubmitted songfight over and over again for years and years, the one internet challenge writing/recording project I was missing was an album in a day. I remedied that on October 10, 2019. I expected all of the music to be awful, and for the most part it was. The exception being the first song from that day, which was a plodding little rocker with a faux artsy intro that for some reason I’ll never understand came out pretty good. No one was more surprised than I, trust me.

So here’s a little more thorough, careful recording of that song. I may have overdone it a bit. There are a few changes. The original had a synth sound droning at the beginning. I changed that to a B3 organ because I am a lifelong sucker for B3s. I also added an organ part that carries through the whole song. I liked the little interplay between the guitar and the bass where it is supposed to feel like the guitar starts a phrase and the bass finishes it. It just felt a little weak on the bass end so I added the organ on top to fill it out.

The vocals were originally one voice all the way though. It was on two tracks as the chorus and the verse kinda step on each other’s toes (I like doing that). On this recording I double tracked the verse (all but the last one) and added harmony to the choruses. Two part harmony on the first chorus, three parts on the end chorus. The one un-doubled verse had a harmony part but during the mix I decided I didn’t like it and chucked it. For some reason I like having that last verse before the three part chorus being just one voice. Maybe I’m just trying to justify losing the harmony part.

In the end I was left with two tracks of keyboard, six tracks of rhythm guitar, four tracks of lead guitar, and five tracks of vocals. Oh yeah, and one stereo track of drums and one track of bass. This mix is busy to say the least. I hope it sounds good. I have a headache right now so it might sound terrible. We’ll find out when I listen back to this tomorrow.

Guitars…. so many guitars. The rhythm tracks are all a Gibson SG into a Klon KTR into an ABY splitter into both a Vox AC15 and a Fender Bassbreaker 15. The lead at the beginning is the SG into a Wren and Cuff Tri Pi ’70, the Klon KTR again, a Wampler Faux Tape Echo v2, and then the same two amps. In this case the Vox had the spring reverb cranked, and a little touch of tremolo. The leads on the main song were the SG into a Dunlop Crybaby Wah (the Joe Bonamassa signature model), the Klon KTR again, a Malaise Forever Black Lives Matter, and the Faux Tape Echo and the two amps again. Yikes!

The lyrics were about the sunrise, which happened shortly after I started working on the song. I write about sunrises a lot. Not as often as I write about hurricanes, but a lot.

Good morning sunshine
coming out to meet you
good morning day light
I was up before you, nice of you to show

Wrapped in the darkness
as I lay here waiting
smothering night time
as I lay here breathless, nice of you to show

Like any day
wasting away
Like any night
crippling fright

Be over soon
get through the gloom
when will it end
when will it end

Welcome the daylight
push away the darkness
welcome the morning
keep the fears away, time for you to go

Welcome the sunlight
coming to the rescue
welcome the day time
bringing me to safety, until the darkness comes