Thursday September 20 2007
Helena Johanssen came over. The last song we wrote was kind of country, and I told her when we went up to the studio that I hadn’t been doing much country writing lately. I have this fantasy that the Silver Seas will sort of take off, in some limited sort of way, and this will prevent me from trying to get people (who I don’t really want to write with anyway) to write with me. Or get someone to return a phone call. This is a funny thing, because it’s weird when someone doesn’t call you back. I saw one person that I left a message for, saying “let’s finish this song we started…” and we sort of recognized each other, then made a mutual unspoken decision to avoid one another. But still, it hurts the ego a bit that someone doesn’t even think it’s worth the time to return the call. But the thing I have to remember is not to call people who are currently having hit songs on the charts. Those people are being called by writers every five minutes and they just feel…what’s the word? Besieged. They feel besieged. So, that makes me feel a little better, but the strange thing is that I don’t even want to write with them anyway! I just call them because I feel like I should! So maybe I am getting my Karmic comeuppance. At any rate. What can you do? There will always be people who wake up in the morning and say: “Today would be a better day if I didn’t have anything to do with Daniel Tashian today, either phone-wise or otherwise.” and once they have decided that, what can you do? So Helena had a good title, and I was thinking kind of Ron Sexsmith-ish as far as music, and we came up with a cool song called “It’s Time Again.” Then I went to meet Susan Nadler and Evelyn of George Jones’ label, to pitch them the idea of me producing George, and (another fantasy) getting him to sing “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day. I think he would sound great doing that. But they said he’s very set in his ways, and he wouldn’t work with me as a producer. He’s somewhat ornery, apparently, and not open to new ideas. Well, anyway I tried. But I went to Susan’s car after the meeting, and listened to some un-released George Jones recordings from 1995: Smokin! Man. He does a duet with Keith Richards on “Burn Your Playhouse Down” that is just incendiary! Long day, took it easy for a bit and watched the Pretenders on YouTube.