Hey folks, first off Merry Christmas to you all! Big hugs and all that It’s actually Christmas day as I write this but I realised 2008 was drawing to an end and I wanted to post another track before that happened. It was last Christmas I started this blog in the hope of posting a new song every couple of weeks, I also hoped it would spur me to do more music and make time for it in general but to be honest I’ve fallen a little short. I’ve managed to post about an average of one track a month which isn’t too bad and I’m still hopelessly in love with music no matter what else I might do, writing, podcasting, programming or picking my nose. It dominates my thoughts.

Neil Young back in the 60's

So here it is, my final track of the year for you. It’s actually a little live acoustic cover of “Rocking In A Free World” by Neil Young. I’ve mentioned my love of Neil Young on this blog before but this song has always stuck out to me, the lyrics are amazing I think, political and hard hitting in some parts but ultimately uplifting. “Just one more kid that’ll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool!” is a refrain that always lodged itself in my brain. To be honest with you this isn’t a polished recording, it’s just a live jam thrown together off the cuff with one mic and my trusty acoustic guitar. I recorded it one day when I set up to record a session of demos for new songs I had, I think this came out by accident just as a warm up. I certainly never intended to release it but as I listen back now through those recordings again, this is the track I always come back to. It has something, I dunno what, I don’t even know if it’s good. It is what it is.

You can hear as I sing it I can’t help doing a bit of a Neil Young impression with the accent and all, this wasn’t deliberate but it kind of works. I also love the live version of the song Pearl Jam always do, another one of my favourite bands. So at times you can hear I’m veering unconsciously between Neil Young and Eddie Vedder impressions in the same verse I even saw Neil Young play this at Reading Festival back in 95 with Pearl Jam as his backing band, Eddie wasn’t with them that day but man it still rocked. The ultimate performance of that tune for me I’d have to say. This is just my little attempt at that, I hope you enjoy it.

Have a great holiday season and I wish you all the best for 2009 as well, I’ll be back with more music, more stupid master plans I’ll only get halfway through and plenty of other stuff. So I’ll see you on the other side. Take care of yourselves now.

All the best

Dan

 

 Sonic Real Estate - Rocking In A Free World (acoustic jam) [2:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download