Day 184!! "Mayonaise," by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Описание: Whew! Where to begin...

Alright, first and foremost: thank you so much to everyone for putting up with SIX MONTHS OF MUSIC! This all started back in April of this year. I was upset with myself for not playing my guitar enough. I only picked it up on Wednesdays and Sundays (for church) and was wondering how I could get myself to actually play more often. I came up with the idea of the #songaday challenge, and wondered how long I might be able to keep it up. I needed it to be truly challenging (or else why do it?) and I needed to be kept accountable from someone other than myself or those closest to me. That is how it turned into a six-month-long-on-the-internet challenge. I decided to wait until July 1st to start, that way it could finish on December 31st.

I was very nervous at first that I would not have enough songs to carry me through, so a few days before the start of this endeavor I began writing down a list of song titles, from a few disorganized song books and from memory. This soon became very tedious and cluttered, so I enlisted the help of good ole Microsoft Office and created an Excel spreadsheet to get myself organized. Two days before the start, I had just over TWO HUNDRED songs on my list! Sure, some of the songs were gonna be sketchy at best, but I at least felt confident that I had enough material.

A few weeks into the challenge, I even re-organized all of my song collection into neat binders with sheet protectors, making it super easy to add new songs to the collection, which I did. Big time. As of today, I have well over THREE HUNDRED songs on my list, and it is still growing as I learn new songs or remember old songs that I had long forgotten.

Now, about today's song...

You may have figured out along the way that I am a fan of The Smashing Pumpkins (see Days 1, 15, 83, 146, and 184) but this song has a special place in my heart. This song is dedicated to an old friend of mine who is no longer with us. He passed away a few years ago. Way back in the day, when I was even worse at guitar than I am now, this friend tried to teach me this song so that we could play the two-part-guitar intro together. I just couldn't get it and he was so frustrated with me.

As I began recording this song today, I tried to say a few words about how this song will always remind me of my good friend Gabriel Davis, but I just couldn't get through it. After saying a few words, I would get so choked up that I couldn't sing the song. So I decided that I would just record the song without saying anything, and write down all of my emotions in the video description. After several takes, a decent version of the song was captured, and I went to upload it. That is when my awesome computer (or my awesome computer skills) decided to permanently DELETE the file. It was gone forever...

I had no choice but to record the song again, and I felt that this time I had better at least say SOMETHING, lest it delete itself again...

So here it is, the end of an era, at least for me. This really has been challenging for me to set aside time every single day for six months to record and upload a song, but it was also very fun and rewarding. A big, big thank-you to my wife, Menda and daughter, Jasmine, for tip-toeing around the house while I was recording. I have learned tons of new songs along the way, met new people via the Internet, and read lots of wonderful comments and interesting song requests. So, from the bottom of my heart...

THANKS EVERYONE!! HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR! KEEP SINGING!! GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!