happy tunesday! un-grand canyon (the marc whinston project)

 

Continuing with the tracks from my album, Track number two is "Un-Grand Canyon," written by Christina Zuber Crocker and me.

For reference, I wrote about the album as a whole here and about track 1 here.

"Un-Grand Canyon" is unique among the songs on the album in two different, but related, ways. The first is that it represents the first time that I wrote a melody for someone else's lyrics. Back when I was in high school, and starting to write songs, I was really only writing lyrics. On the few occasions that a melody got attached to my lyrics, it was because I brought them to a friend and asked for a melody. So, as a personal matter, there was pride in finding myself on the other side. The other is that it's the only song on the album which wasn't really my concept. While I, as the composer of the melody, share the songwriting credit, the fact is that this is Christina's baby. The other songs that include co-writers were my babies. I had the ideas and wrote them mostly by myself. My co-authors contributed words or music, and are therefore credited. But, again, this track is really Christina's song. My only contribution to the lyrics was as an editor. As I discuss below, Christina wrote a poem, and I did some editing to try to shoehorn her words into a song-like format. I note that this is the only track on which the credits list my co-author first -- again, because this one is really my-co-author's conception.

So how did it all come about? Early on in the process of  assembling recordings for the album, Christina asked me if I'd be interested in setting any of her poems to music. I said I'd try, but made no promises. Christina shared two lyrics with me, this being one of them. Christina's poems are very different than my songs, which in and of itself increases the variety on the album. "Un-Grand Canyon" is kind of an elegy for New York City, Christina's observations on a city which may have passed its peak. The other lyric she gave me, which I did not work with yet*, is about riding the subway. It's not quite as negative, but there's still a bit of a jaded tone to it.

Christina's lyrics are dense with clever cultural references:

Midnight Cowboy's been fired.
Tiffany's breakfast seems tired.
Woody's been shamed.
Hamilton's no Mame.

This is stuff I could not not have written -- I wish I could have, but that's just not a style that I can do. But I could edit it. Above, I mentioned that Christina gave me poems. I wanted to edit this down into a song without changing the tone -- and I think I succeeded if I do say so myself. Of course, maybe I didn't do as good a job as I think; if you write out the lyrics, you'll see that the scansion is wildly inconsistent. The fact that this worked as well as it did -- and I have heard from a few people that this is the best track on the record** -- is a testament to the skills of Toby Wilson (who arranged and played on the track) and Eytan Mirsky (who generously provided the lead vocal). FWIW, you can hear (and purchase) Eytan's music from (among other places) Bandcamp.

I was still working on this late last summer when most (all? I'm not sure) of the rest of the album had been recorded. Christina and I liked the arrangement that Toby came up with (actually, the second or third, but who's counting), but didn't think his vocal did the song justice. We wanted a singer who sounded like a New Yorker and who could capture the world-weariness necessary for this song. Eytan Mirsky*** agreed to give it a go, and the result was pure magic. As I noted above, this must have been a real challenge because of the odd scansion. I was a bit nervous about how it would come out, but I am really pleased with the results.

"Un-Grand Canyon"
Song by: Christina Zuber Crocker and Marc Whinston

Lead vocal by Eytan Mirsky

All instruments and backing vocals by Toby Wilson

Arranged and Produced by Toby Wilson for Tobias Wilson Music, Ltd.

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*maybe next album?

** I don't think it is (sorry, Christina), but I'm biased.
***A little bit of background is in order. Eytan is a New York-based singer-songwriter who has achieved some measure of success writing songs for several indie films such as Happiness, American Splendor, and The Tao of Steve. I've been something of a fan since I first heard his music in the 1990's -- I just love "I Just Wanna Be Your Steve McQueen." I ran into him on the subway about 2½ years ago. My son, Ethan, was embarrassed when we were waiting for a train and I suddenly approached what looked like a random stranger and said "Excuse me sir, are you Eytan Mirsky?" I think Eytan got a kick out of being recognized. We've been friends since.