NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  As we wind down on “love month,” I thought I’d share one of my favorite albums  filled with love songs, Paper Route ’s sophomore record The Peace of Wild Things . I’ve written about many of the tracks before, but here I’d like to give a home for future posts as well as give a brief reflection on each song. As I’ve discussed, The Peace of Wild Things takes its name from a poem by poet, farmer, and conservationist Wendell Barry whose themes discuss the importance of people returning to nature and reducing reliance on the industrialized world. However, Barry’s more radical themes do not seem to impact the record.  The songs that I’ve written about before will have a link.  1. “ Love Letters ” starts the record with the imagery of Adam waiting for Eve in the Garden of Eden. The song isn’t quite a straight-forward love song, with singer JT Daly claiming, “This time I’m different.” The rhythmic drums also distract listeners from thinking in terms of genre—is it rock or is it pop?  2. “ Tw

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

In April 2012, five months before they released their second album,  The Peace of Wild Things ,  Paper Route  performed a concert in an art studio, which was filmed and aired as the third episode of Brigham Young University Television's music show,  Audio Files .  The show only lasted for two seasons, but the first episode featured then up-and-coming band  Imagine Dragons .  Paper Route performed songs from their first album  Absence ,  but also indulged listeners' expectation by performing several songs from their upcoming album and shared stories about the songs and the recording process. WE WELCOME YOU THIS EVENING.   The entire performance used to be up on the show's now defunct website, but now we can only watch " Wish " and " Tamed ," on YouTube, the latter being a short eerie duet with singer-songwriter  Cacie Dalager , lead singer of the indie band  Now, Now , and harpist  Timbre . I don't remember all of the songs Paper Route performed on th

Beginning with a youthful momentum, transitioning from the piano-based pop-punk band Something Corporate to the alternative sounds of Jack's Mannequin , Andrew McMahon had a very busy 2005. Jack's Mannequin released their debut record Everything in Transit in August and the band was set to debut strong. Several of the songs from the album were featured in the WB hit show One Tree Hill , ensuring a built in fanbase.  IT'S GOOD TO BE ALIVE. But Andrew McMahon started feeling extremely tired at the time of launching Jack's Mannequin, more so than he had been as a touring musician with his previous ban. And it turned out that his  wan complexion wasn't from exhaustion. McMahon was forced to cancel Jack Mannequin's fall tour dates following their August release of Everything in Transit because McMahon had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. But thanks to the singer's sister Kate, Andrew was able to receive stem cell treatment and was cured of his

  “In the Bleak Midwinter” is another Christmas Hymn that I like particularly because of how infrequently we hear it. The lyrics were penned by Victorian poet Christina Rossetti and published with the title “A Christmas Carol'' in the January 1872 issue of Scribner Monthly and later compiled with other poems in Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems . IF I WERE A WISEMAN, I WOULD DO MY PART. Christina Rossetti was a devout Catholic living in Protestant England. "In the Bleak Midwinter" shows Rossetti's style of vivid description of scene and sentimental religious feelings. In fact, the lyrics of "In the Bleak Midwinter" touch on a more personal note than other impersonal Christmas hymns as the speaker in the hymn, and us when we sing the hymn, makes a commitment to give the babe in straw her heart. The poem was later set to music and there are two popular versions. Harold Drake composed music for the hymn to be sung by a choir, as did Gu

  Today our representative song is Wham!' s " Last Christmas ." Maybe it's overplayed, but it's a synth-pop classic. It's the kind of song that gets stuck in your head for days, and it's okay because it's Christmastime. It's one of the signature songs of Wham!  and one of the most played songs of Christmas. It's been covered by many artists from Jimmy Eat World to Carly Rae Jepsen to Hawk Nelson and each cover has its merit. But today, my Christmas mix begins with the original. Enjoy the mix! 1. "Last Christmas" by Wham! 2. " (Christmas) Baby, Please Come Home " by Anberlin 3. " Wish " by Paper Route  (The band has a bigger Christmas catalogue, just not on Spotify). 4. " Amy, I " by Jack's Mannequin   5. "The Winter Song" by Eisley 6. "Happy Christmas" (War Is Over) by Sent by Ravens 7. " O Holy Night " by Stacie Orrico 8. " I Celebrate the Day " by Relient K

  J.T. Daly , lead singer of  Paper Route , has stayed busy in the music business during Paper Route and after the band ended. In addition to releasing solo records and several side projects, he has composed for an ESPN film, produced several alternative musicians including K.Flay and Pvris , remixed Anberlin , Judah the Lion , MuteMath ,  and Switchfoot , and worked in visual arts, making band merchandise, phone cases, and even directing music videos for other bands. Of course, Daly isn’t the only creative force in Paper Route. Along with Chad Howat and for their third and on their final record,  Real Emotion , with Nick Aranda , Paper Route is a seriously creative band. YOU PROMISED ME THAT EVERYTHING IS FAIR IF IT'S LOVE AND WAR.    Like yesterday’s song, the imagery in “ Chariots ” brings my mind to old movies like  Spartacus   or  Ben-Hur .  On other songs on  Real Emotion  there seems to be a classic film theme, notably in the song “ Zhivago ” and its intro “ Lara .” “Chari

Listening to  Paper Route  makes me wonder, what if  Coldplay , after recording  X & Y   had continued making electronic music and honed in on their lyrics.  Paper Route has a solid pop-rock band, on par with any of their contemporaries (i.e.  OneRepublic , Coldplay), but their somewhat eccentric fidelity to their craft, recording their albums themselves in old Tennessee mansions to let the natural acoustics reverberate on the record, had cemented them as an indie rock band. " Balconies " was kind of Paper Route's first and last hit. The band's music had been featured in movies and television shows, but "Balconies" got them a late-night performance slot on  Seth Meyers . As one of the most obvious hits from their third album,  Real Emotion ,  the song was released to radio but didn't do too well on the charts. After touring to support the album, the band went on "an indefinite hiatus." However, as the band has had long gaps between albums,

When a teenager grows up in New Zealand experiencing American culture through Hip Hop music videos, that teenager might have a distorted view of how Americans live. Lorde 's breakthrough single " Royals " got some backlash for "overgeneralizing American culture" and misunderstanding Hip Hop. Others have said that Lorde’s take on pop with the  emerging sad girl pop sub-genre helped to usher in a slowness revolution that we can still hear today in the likes of Billie Eilish . WE'RE DRIVING CADILLACS IN OUR DREAMS. While   Lorde's original version of  "Royals" beats most covers, the version I'm choosing for my playlist comes from the Punk Goes Pop series, performed by the band Youth in Revolt . The New Jersey based pop punk band adds an extra layer of grit to Lorde's song with heavy guitars and bass. Although the screaming at the end is gratuitous, I think that Youth in Revolt's version suffices to cover both the earworm and the need

In  Season One of  The Big Bang Theory ,  Leonard is moping after his love interest, Penny, starts seeing another man. He comes into the apartment singing Augustana 's  " Boston ,"  quite horribly. "Boston" is Augustana's biggest hit. It placed on the Billboard Hot 100 , it was a Top 40 hit, and a top 10 Adult (light rock) hit. The band formed at Greenville University , a conservative Christian college where Jars of Clay formed before them and Paper Route after them. While  the two other bands were comfortable with the Christian circuit, Augustana's lead singer, Dan Layus , talks about breaking free from the strict rules of Christian college and choosing not to be a Christian band.  BOSTON, WHERE NO ONE KNOWS MY NAME . "Boston" is not only a breakup  with a lover, but a place too. If you've never moved to a city where no one knows you, it's freeing. You possess the ability to rebuild your reputation and become whomever you want to be

  It's officially spooky season, so I decided to make a playlist celebrating the spookier songs I've blogged about or artists that had a spooky song. The 31 tracks that I included perhaps won't make you writhe in horror, but they have a loose connection to Halloween. Maybe there's a lyrics or a creepy video, or maybe it was just a song that I listened to a lot in October. I will post the Spotify playlist below and links to the posts and the tracks so that you can read the spooky stories behind the tracks.  1.       " Ghost " by Yellow Ostrich 2. " Closer " by Kings of Leon 3. " Unholy " by Sam Smith ft. Kim Petras 4. " I'm Pretty Sure I'm Out of Luck and Have No Friends " by Underoath 5. " Two Graves " by Anberlin 6. " Moonlit " by Falling Up 7. " Panic Switch " by Silversun Pickups 8. " Killer " by Chvrches   9. " Midnight City " by M83 10 " Edge of Seventeen "