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No Single This Wkd: Here's Why & What's in the Works
Sat., Sep. 4. 2021 3:01pm EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Unfortunately, we won't be releasing a new single this weekend. Jimmy "Vegas" Tanner, who engineers all of our recordings, has been taking a much-needed vacation at the beach with his wife, Eve.
Of course, that doesn't mean he isn't thinking about music. On Tuesday morning, Jimmy posted a photo of himself at the beach reading a book I lent him over a year ago, The Yacht Rock Book: The Oral History of the Soft, Smooth Sounds of the 70s and 80s by Greg Prato. He tagged me and commented, "Finally got to it!! Thanks!"
We had tried to get both songs for our next single recorded last week before he left (usually, we record one song per week), but we were only able to get the first one done. Jimmy was willing to record me on two different days, but I couldn't get the lyrics for the second parody just the way I wanted them in time. They were close to being finished, but I knew they could be better.
That happened another time recently with the lyrics to "Something of Value," but at that time, we were one song ahead of schedule, so it didn't affect our release date. In both cases, I'm glad we waited, because the lyrics improved dramatically with an extra week's worth of work. And I've been tweaking and polishing those lines every day.
I'm reminded of a story I've heard before that I just read again this week. When Bruce Springsteen was working on his classic album Born to Run, he was under pressure from his manager to get it done and set a release date. Springsteen replied, "Hey, man, the release date is just one day. The record is forever."
For the record, the song that just took me an extra week is based on Hebrews 4:12, John 1:1, and 2 Peter 3:2-18. The one song we did get recorded last week turned out great, though. Wayne has already sent us multiple mixes, and I'm quite happy with the results. It's based on Psalm 19, especially verse 14, and it's one of our rare "vertical" songs, sung directly to God.
I'm supposed to record the second song this coming Wednesday, and we'll plan to release a new single next weekend, Lord willing. Rich Mannion is already working on the music for the song after that (it's all keyboards, no other instruments), and I've already started on the lyrics. That one's about Galatians 5:13-15.
Both of the songs on the next single are from the mid-80's (like our other recent singles), and once they're finished, we'll have enough songs for another CD of material from that era to match our recent CD, Get Rich Quick. I hope we can have that one out in the first half of October. We already know the title, too.
All 12 songs on that CD will have something in common that can be said of no previous ApX CD. We didn't start with that intention, but once we got to a certain point, we had to seal the deal. I'll leave you to ponder what it is. And we haven't forgotten about the songs from earlier this year that weren't on Get Rich Quick. We plan to put those on a third CD in time for Christmas, Lord willing.
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