A Creative Hack for Songwriters

A Lullaby for Johnny Ballgame

Listen to this week’s new song in the player above and watch the video below to learn about the creative hack that I’ve shared for songwriters. Video transcription is below.

Hey, everybody!

Tuesday morning. Good morning. How are you doing? Just me and Teenie. This is singing cowboy Faux Jean. Checking in. You're checking out the, “From the Mixed Up Files of Mr. Matthew T. Schindler.” Today, we're going to keep it real short. The kids are home from school. Which means, they are in bed right now, and I don't want to wake them up.

So I'm going to talk a little quieter today. But I just, you know, my kids are, really helpful because, I learned a lot about the internet from them. The internet came about when I was, I don't know, 25 years old or so. I remember a guy pulled me aside, he said, hey, this is gonna change everything.

And, and he showed me this picture on the screen, and there were a bunch of little gophers on there because, University of Minnesota, it kind of started as a gopher thing, and I just. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. And we had quick mail. We had email. I worked at the Minnesota Center for Arts education back then, which is, I think it's called the Perpich School of the Arts.

Now. And, the internet was new, everything was new. And I kind of figured, you know, with the internet, things were going to be, different. I sensed that early and, and they certainly have become that. I remember in 2001, I said to my bandmates, I said, I don't think people are going to buy CDs anymore.

And, I certainly never started buying CDs. I started buying vinyl when I was a kid. And, and my little baby, I started buying vinyl when I was a little kid, you know, I wasn't there like, oh, you got to go buy all that stuff on CD. You got buy a CD player and all this jazz . . . Okay?

You got to go, bye Teenie. So I never bought a CD player. So after a while, just like people would just give them to you. But I never bought a CD player. I bought a CD burner when those became available, and I thought that was the answer. But in 2001, I was like, well, I just don't think people are going to buy CDs anymore.

My band mates were like, yeah, you're crazy. And maybe I was crazy, but, I think people are not buying a lot of CDs these days. They're still out there. But, Yeah. So anyway, but my kids, they, they like the internet and they're watching a lot of YouTube and stuff like that, and they, you know, so, you know, do Roblox and play video games.

I played video games, too. I had an Atari 5200 when I was a kid, but that was pretty cutting edge stuff. Pole position. So I understand that urge to just sit around and and shoot at at lights and stuff. I get it. But I don't do that as much myself anymore. But sometimes if I want to hang out with the kids, sometimes you just gotta play those things.

But one thing my kids are into, or my daughter especially, she's she's just like, oh, there's there's these hacks that have you heard about this hack? You can hack, and it's, you know, just like a shortcut or a different way of doing things. And so today's video, I'm just talking about a creative hack. And for songwriters, like, when I was, starting out and learning how to write songs by myself, and I would just use my, four track, cassette recorder, and I would, sit in my practice space or in my apartment, and this would be before the internet, really.

So I but I would sit there and I, my creative hack, you know, you might be thinking, this song's not that good, or this is not perfect, or nobody's ever going to hear this song, or why am I doing this?

And so my creative hack and what I'm sharing with you today would be that I would pretend that God was real, and God was sitting outside the door, and that God wanted to dance.

That was my hack. That was my creative hack. God is sitting outside in the hallway. God is not judging you.

God just wants to dance.

Okay, so that was my creative hack. This might work for you. Don't think about other people. Don't think about how it's going to be received. I just think I gotta make something that's going to make God dance or something that's going to please him.

Aesthetically, or her, I don't when I think of God, I just think technically I think more of like a force to create, like, somehow we got here, there's some sort of force and we're here. So the force to create that was always kind of like, my God. But like I said, for this creative hack, I would think, you know, like if you think about last week, song edition, everybody dies.

You know, somebody was had to be out in the hallway and they hear me just going, everybody dead, everybody dead. And I think that guy was crazy. But you can't think about what a person is thinking about. You think about God. Think about this force to create and making that guy want to dance. So anyways, today, strangely enough, the song that I'm adding, to the “Mixed up files of Mr. Matthew T. Schindler,” volume ten over on Bandcamp today.

The version that I'm putting up there, the song is called “A Lullaby for Johnny Ballgame.” And the creative hack that I use for this one and things that a thing that's happening a lot nowadays, there's a lot of music out there is to help people get to sleep. Now that you hear about these guys making music with AI and, creating 10,000 songs and creating 10,000 bots and making $10 million from all that jazz, well, this song is, you know, I could.

Sure, I could make 100 songs to help me fall asleep, but I made this one. Probably. I'm going to say I made this one, and I can't remember exactly. I'm going to say. I'm going to say I made this one about 2004. So, but this one definitely, when I was, you know, auditioning songs like, what am I going to add today?

I fell asleep to this song, and I'm like, wait a minute, that's a good that's a hack. This is one of those songs where I was trying to make God, help rather than make God dance. I wanted him to fall asleep. So now if you put this song on repeat, or you can, you might just have a good night's sleep.

And I think good night's sleep is one of the greatest gifts in the world. When you wake up from a good night's sleep, the world is a better place. It really is. You wake up from a good dream, you wake up energized and. And just everything is better. So that is my creative hack. Pretend that God is outside your door and he wants to dance.

Or you want to help him get to sleep or something. But don't worry about what the internets going to say. Don't worry about your roommate's going to say, although you can piss off your roommate if you're sitting there yelling, everybody dies over and over again, I will tell you that, but that's the creative hack for songwriters today.

And, so I hope that you take this, this lesson to heart and that it works for you. So I'm posting this on Substack, that which is fauxjean.substack.com. And if you want to go listen to the song or download the album or just listen to it so you can help fall asleep, you could go to Fauxjean.Bandcamp.com, and that's how we're going to do that.

So I thank you for your attention as always. It is amazing to me that you all, take, take a moment away from your day to, to listen to this crazy cowboy talking about music and creative hack. So I appreciate it.

I remain your humble servant.

OX&C,

Faux Jean

— Out.

Have a good day.