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strengths in your problematic issues

Download: My Sister's Getting Married

This song began with a weekend hanging out with my sister and then became more solidified through the phrase 'I don't have a sister to spare'. I realized in writing this song that this phrase has many interpretations and I don't mean all of them, but I suppose that is often the case. I don't want to dictate how people can interpret my music, but I also don't want anyone to have the wrong impression of how I feel about my sister.
The fact is, I do only have one sister and I do care tremendously about her. I always want the best for her and will do what I can to help this happen. As I ruminated before, there is something about being 'married off'. I plan to truncate that phrase to simply 'married' in my situation as I don't like the 'off' part.
I really just want to create something that shows people how it is that I interact with my sister; how much fun she is and how funny she is. How lucky I am to have such a cool sister. How dorky we both are.
There is something irreplaceable and unmistakably unique about a sibling relationship. We shared a childhood with each other in a way that is impossible to reproduce, and the commonality of these early years has a powerful effect on later year relationships. The experience of childhood usually seems perfectly normal until some perspective and gathering up of self-knowledge makes it seem totally screwed up all at the same time. My sister is my only sounding board for this spectrum.
In the end, I view this song as not really a tribute or some sort of clear statement, but more of a roundabout representation of my roaming feelings about my sister over the last little while. It makes sense to me, but you, my friends, are a different story. Let me know.

When did you record your sister?
Well, the date is in the song(!), but it was the most recent time I saw her - she was visiting my parents. I wanted to record her reading a few poems and answering some questions and then the session expanded into much more including, most significantly, some excerpts (with ocassional modifications) from a standard pre-marital questionnaire. I ended up liking most the material that was totally impromptu; the stuff that fell between what I officially asked her to do.

What's the story with those bells at the end?
Besides being out of tune, you mean? I got those bells in Kathmandu when I visited my sister there way back when she was in college. Therefore they remind me of her. Therefore I had to use them in this song. And they are very cool sonically.

What's up with the Heavy Duty power cell?!?!?
RHYTHM: It really has nothing at all to do with the Walgreen's battery that I was maligning for it's lack of performance. This little snippet was recorded at the same time as everything else and happened to lock in perfectly with the 120 bpm tempo of this song which is really quite remarkable considering it's not only how I said the words, but how my sister laughs after them. I tried countless other phrases, but none worked like this one. Also, it's kind of funny.

Is your sister's partner really lacking in personal hygiene?!
no! he is very clean.