NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

" You Are My Sunshine " is a popular folk song copyrighted and recorded by American singer-songwriter Jimmie Davis in 1939, though its authorship is disputed. Davis later became the governor of Louisiana, and "You Are My Sunshine" became the state's official song. Davis's recorded versions are not the definitive version of the song, though. M any artists have covered the song, such as Johnny Cash , Christina Perri , and  Zach Bryan . Each time the song is covered, the artist brings an emotional layer to the beautiful song. Cash anthologizes the song in the American songbook and Perri emphasizes the lullaby-like qualities of the song.  THE OTHER NIGHT DEAR, AS I LAY SLEEPING. “You Are My Sunshine” is a   cradle song many mothers sing to their children. It’s a bright love song with a twinge of melancholy that grows upon examination. It’s a song full of longing and desire with the full knowledge that the sun may be covered by the clouds. The speaker hopes that

As an assiduous student in music, Aaron Marsh of Copeland , attended Harrison School of the Arts , studying trombone and music theory. By the end of the mid-‘00s, Marsh had used Copeland as a vehicle of multi-instrumental compositions, even going so far to work with an orchestra reinterpreting some of their most beloved songs on 2022’s Revolving Doors . The band gave a one-night-only concert  with the orchestra at The Caverns , a concert hall in a cave with opening act Jenny Dee . Between Dee’s and Copeland’s set, the house music played ‘90s rock— Counting Crows and Gin Blossoms , as I recall—as Copeland and the orchestra set up. Marsh has talked about Gin Blossoms influencing his music, especially when Copeland was a more straightforward rock band, but to hear the connection on the night of Copeland’s full transformation into an art rock band reminded about how important early musical influences are on a band’s career.    YOU CAN TRUST ME NOT TO THINK. Being a few years younger than

It was a rainy summer break during my Freshman year of college. I was still driving my '91 Toyota Corolla, and that was the summer that I binged the first three  Copeland  albums. It started with 2003's  Beneath Medicine Tree ,  the indie/rock concept album about love and loss. About a month later I bought, 2005's  In Motion ,  which was a little more musically diverse. The next year's  Eat, Sleep, Repeat ,  was closer to musical theater than rock. Each Copeland album had its own unique mood. Today's song, " Coffee ," comes from  Beneath Medicine Tree,  which is the most immature of the Copeland albums. Lyricist and singer  Aaron Marsh  was fine-tuning his craft at writing sappy love songs, and this album's lyrics tended to be a little too over the top. The song " Coffee " appears as track 9, with a story as cliche as they get--two small-town kids falling in love while talking all night at the diner. The brief brush drum solo toward the end s

On the  first season of the  Labeled Podcast ,  Aaron Marsh  talked about his writing process for  Copeland 's debut album,  Beneath Medicine Tree . In early 2019, he returned to the podcast to talk about the band’s latest album,  Blushing . If most listeners casually picked up the two records, forgivably, they'd assume they were listening to different bands.  Beneath  is a guitar-driven product of late '90s/early '00s emo rock. The album has mostly an optimistic tone.  Blushing  is a dark electronic-influenced album with darker lyrics. Marsh told  Labeled  host  Matt Carter  that rather than writing lyrics that are easily pinned to real people, like his ex-girlfriend Paula (in the song " When Paula Sparks ") he doesn't "want to write songs about [his] private life." He says, instead, "I want to write poetic songs about my private life." The band's fourth album,  You Are My Sunshine ,  does just that. Listeners don't know the

The Vanguard Room is a recording studio in Lakeland, Florida, run by Aaron Marsh , best known for his work with Copeland . Besides recording Copeland, Marsh has recorded and produced artists such as Anberlin , This Wild Life , Anchor & Braille , The Myriad , and many others. In 2019, The Vanguard Room released the album, A Lakeland Christmas, Vol. 1 , a project funded by Kickstarter . The ten-track record features local artists from Lakeland covering Christmas tunes. None of the artists featured have a large streaming following, but the Aaron-Marsh-produced record is beautiful nonetheless. Today, we'll look at the John Denver song " Christmas for Cowboys " performed by Dan Sharrett of nora's breakfast club , originally from Denver's Rocky Mountain Christmas album. BACK IN THE CITY, THEY’VE GOT DIFFERENT WAYS--FOOTBALL, EGGNOG, AND CHRISTMAS PARADES. Starting in about October, I started listening to Spotify’s country playlists. It’s a genre that I have to b

  It was a rainy summer break during my Freshman year of college. I was still driving my '91 Toyota Corolla, and that was the summer that I binged the first three  Copeland  albums. It started with 2003's  Beneath Medicine Tree ,  the indie/rock concept album about love and loss. About a month later I bought, 2005's  In Motion ,  which was a little more musically diverse. The next year's  Eat, Sleep, Repeat ,  was closer to musical theater than rock. Each Copeland album had its own unique mood. Today's song, " Coffee ," comes from  Beneath Medicine Tree,  which is the most immature of the Copeland albums. Lyricist and singer  Aaron Marsh  was fine-tuning his craft at writing sappy love songs, and this album's lyrics tended to be a little too over the top. The song " Coffee " appears as track 9, with a story as cliche as they get--two small-town kids falling in love while talking all night at the diner. The brief brush drum solo toward the end

  I'm working on a new system for my blog so that I stop saying the same thing over and over again. I don't always have time to research an album cycle or the artist around the time of the album cycle, but I have written considerably about certain albums and artists. I want to provide links to those posts in album posts, like today's. I haven't written a lot about the tracks on Anberlin 's seminal record Cities , but it still is one of my favorite albums. In the future, this post can be a jumping-off point for other tracks on the record. I could write books on each track and my experiences with them, but today you'll just get a few sentences about each. Enjoy the album as it turns sixteen today. 1. ( Début ). For about a minute and a half, Anberlin introduces us to a dark world in an instrumental composed of city sound effects and noisy guitars. The song reminds me of Jerry Martin 's Sim City 4 soundtrack. (Début) leads into " Godspeed ." 2. "

A few Saturday afternoons circa 2015-17, I went  down a rabbit-hole, looking for the best   Paper Route ,   Anberlin , and   Copeland   covers on YouTube. This was long after finding artists like   Tyler Ward   who covered pop music. I wondered if anyone had recorded high quality covers of my favorite bands. It turns out that there were   a few . These artists weren't on the level of popularity of   Kurt Hugo Schneider   or   Boyce Avenue . I had hoped to created a cover playlist of a Copeland album, but there weren't enough high-quality covers on YouTube at the time. Charles Angell's   YouTube account   has 7 videos, 77 subscribers, and the singer hasn't posted anything in 3 years. From a quick Facebook search, it turns out that Angell is still active as a musician, with a new haircut and some designer rims, now under the moniker of   Snarly  (link to his social media presence).  YOU'RE STILL A BREEZE UPON MY SKIN.   Of the Copeland covers, Charles Angell's ver