HEAVEN DOESN'T SEND ITS BEST
released JANUARY 9, 2018
ALBUM 12, RELEASE 32
12 albums in, I finally decided to try to make something with a little more intent. My original plan was to spend 5 weeks (my winter break that year) recording the album. I made it 3 weeks. There were a few days at the end of 2017 and start of 2018 where I didn't record anything because I had my wisdom teeth removed, and it turns out that being in immense pain doesn't make it easy to write songs. Nonetheless, I still think I did mostly achieve what I'd set out to do. "The Girl In The Waiting Room" was about someone else who was in the waiting room before I lost a few teeth. We didn't talk or anything, but her face and hair were chained to my memory for days. I couldn't stop thinking about what she looked like. It was weird. "Snowing Eyes" was recycled from a pre-HW song where all the chords were major 9th chords. That's a really fun chord shape. "Weather or Not" might still be one of my sunniest songs, and not just because the words are about the things in our sky treated like a family. Maybe in 11 months when I've listened to all my other stuff, I'll think differently about this, but it's pleasant in a way I don't usually try to be. Could be my favorite song on the album that I haven't ever tried to re-record. "Falling Angel" has an organ instead of a 2nd guitar. It sounds a little sinister as a result. I think the first 2 chords are the same first 2 chords of a song I wrote later that year called "Camera" but I don't think that was intentional. "Moonlight" should be great but I truly mixed the vocals too low. That bugged me when I put the album out. It's a good tune but it needed a little more time in the oven. Considering I just talked about more recent versions of these songs, I'm not going to talk much more about the real stars of the album: "Happy Ending" and "Her Flaming Absence". They're a little slower and less refined on here, but even from these scrappier takes, I knew they were hits. It's nice when your judgment is correct. I'm usually very critical of my pre-2020 work, but I'm generally pretty happy with this one. I made 14 more albums in 2018 and most of them aren't anywhere near this good. We'll see exactly how wide the gap is over the course of the year.