yearlongday

sometimes i want to let people know who or what influences my music. other times, i hesitate because naming those influences might narrow the perception readers and listeners have of me. if i were to list all of the experiences that have influenced my songwriting, woud that give you a better understanding and appreciation of my music, or would it just make me appear more artistically informed?

i’ve also kept my list of influences short because the music i have made over the past four years relates most to those names. but what if yearlongday was around, say, eight years ago? who was inspiring me then, and what would my list have looked like?

[dream sequence...]

in 1999, i was finishing my painting thesis in art school; writing music, yes, but more as a recreational pastime then as a serious pursuit. the walls of my studio were white; the odors were linseed oil and turpentine; and the sounds included a borrowed copy of black sabbath’s paranoid filling the commercial gaps between country music on the radio. while the paintings i made then were very successful, the songs i wrote don’t have much in common with “electric funeral” or “friends in low places“. do they? [try comparing either of these songs to "nobody hurt" or "my formula"]

after graduation, i took summer courses in pedagogy, exploring the possibility of a teaching career. commuting to the university might have been a lot less interesting without mix tapes [old-school to the bitter end, i guess] that included: adrian belew, belle and sebastian, the flaming lips, pizzicato five, the innocence mission, jeremy enigk, cornelius, utah phillips & ani difranco, bjork, smashing pumpkins, april march, the cure, and the list goes on, and on, and on. this presents further confusion about influences… who wasn’t an influence in some way?

returning to the present, there are artists and experiences that continue to inspire me, but i find no urgency or need to name all of them. besides, i’d rather be enlightened by who or what you hear in the music, and that’s an invitation for your comments.

… jonathan t marlowe