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January 04, 2005
Brand New Year
So, in the first hour of the first day of the brand new year, 2005, The DMs song "Brand New Year" was debuted, so to speak, at the wedding of our biggest fans, over actual speakers and heard by the actual ears of actual listeners.I... missed the whole thing, and Vince kicked me out of the band. But then he let me back in.
He had to let me back in because I diagnosed his clear hyperactivity disorder as being exacerbated by Hip Hop music. If you could only have seen his popping and locking. At one point, another guest walked up to an inebriated Vince Chao, mid-Robot, and it was like a scene out of the worst 80s movie you ever saw.
Vince Chao: [just about to do The Worm]
Other guy: "Hey, maaaaan! Are you break dancing?!"
VC: "Hell yeah, maaaan!"
OG: "All RIGHT!"
Oh, my God, it was so beautiful. It's even funnier when you find out the other guy was also Asian American and the next song that played was The Humpty Dance. The story works on so many levels.
I must say, playing Brand New Year for Pam and Stee, for whom and about whom the song was written, was a weird and wonderful moment. One has to hand it to Vince for his endless balancing and mixing, bouncing and leveling, because the end result was pretty impressive. Every time I listen to it and realize we recorded it over a few hours in a bedroom, it makes me pretty happy.
I've never written lyrics about other people, before. I mean, we have a few songs that are about fictional subjects - "Half-Empty Bottles" comes to mind - so this was a really fun, enjoyable process for me, lyrically. Vince and Jesse extended themselves to make the melody much less country-fried, and I really think it turned out well. It's a lovely song and catchy and in it I am well pleased. I know Vince, Chris, Jesse and AB feel the same.
(Y'all should have heard AB wheeling and dealing with one of the groomsmen at the wedding. When I walked up after the song had already played to the gathered, drunken crowd, she was standing there shooting the breeze with this guy while he asked how long we had "been on tour" and for the name of our "album." With aplomb, AB responded "Oh, they HAVE an album, it's just not ready yet." And he was saying "I'd buy it, if it was" and she was all "I KNOW YOU WOULD" and did not even have to threaten him.)
So, here, in honor of the P and Stee, I'll at least give you the lyrics. Normally, I wouldn't, but the song has already been recorded and, frankly, these lyrics are COPYRIGHTED within an INCH of their LIFE, so don't even be trying anything, Internet.
Brand New Year
A thousand words/
have been written on my heart/
of old acquaintance, long forgotten/
And you came along/
just like you'd been there from the start/
and you told me to turn the page/
So, now you're here/
just like I'd put you down in paragraphs myself/
It's all too clear/
you've been on every page in every book upon my shelf/
A thousand miles/
plus about four hundred twenty/
and I arrived, full of words/
I knew it all/
until you showed me there was plenty/
more than I could ever learn
And now we're here/
and as the fireworks explode in a blaze of glory/
it's a brand new year/
and I realize, my darling, you're my story/
Bridge: Auld Lang Syne
And now we're here/
and as the fireworks explode in a blaze of glory/
it's a brand new year/
and I realize, my darling, you're my story/
Congratulations, again, you guys. We wish you the very best in all the world.
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Posted by The DMs at 04:24 PM
