Hive Music Festival Week 52 - Round 1 (RoryKL | Jolene)

Although I can’t claim to know anything about Ray LaMontagne or any of the specific details surrounding his music, I did find myself deeply identifying with this song, from some distant place in my past.

I sang along with the song in my car for a day (on the way to and from work) before recording it today, and recall seeing from a bird’s eye perspective the poor mangled body of my own young self in so many beat up and self-destroyed situations, fueled by my own sense of God only knows what. Although I did find myself washed over with previously unintegrated emotions during the singing along phase, fortunately I was able to make it through this one without any major upset.

As I practice this song going forward, I will be marking up the print to show things like walk-downs instead of odd chord changes and clarification of timing in places where the chords are played for shorter/different measures. This will improve with time, but it’s a new song I’m learning and I’m excited to get it out there. For anyone who knows guitar, watch the part where it goes from G to Em - it’s funny to me because you can see the transition occur gradually. The first time I come to that part I just go to a D chord in between and get a little gummed up with the timing. The second time, I do the D with an F# bass note and it clicks after I play that one, because from there out I got to simply walking down to the Em…probably almost imperceptible for some, but for others it will be strikingly obvious if you look for it - I love showcasing learning moments, and this was a neat one because a lot of times they don’t happen so distinctly or cleanly in front of the camera :)