Johannes Schult

The challenge of the third round of SpinTunes #10 was to write a song with long run-on sentences. It took me a while to get a vague idea what the challenge was about. Loooong sentences are rather common in German, but there was no way I could communicate a German song to the (mostly English-speaking) SpinTunes audience and, in particular, the judges. I was stumped. But hey, what if I sang about German(y)? Could this be a topic worth rambling about? I wasn’t sure. I still don’t know. My only alternative idea was a detailed description of the pain of getting a part of your body pierced (while trying to impress your latest flame that talked you into it). I didn’t want to focus on pain and negative emotions (even in a comical way), so I began writing about my home country. Writing a song about an specific idea/concept is usually work and this song was no exception. Thankfully, I never ran out of inspiration. Most of the lyrics were written in the order I sing them. I only updated a couple of parts before I recorded the vocals.

I began composing the music when I had the first few verses and a rough idea where the refrain was headed. At first I found myself resorting to the chords and melody of a German traditional song (“Der Mönch im Nonnenkloster“) but eventually I found a sufficiently original approach, a catchy chorus, a chorus after the chorus (with lots of room for me to butcher the pronunciation of squirrel), and also a quick bridge to make it all more dynamic. I considered inserting the melody of the Germany national hymn between verses, but the song was already getting long. (I even shortened the second chorus.)

I consider the lyrics to be just a few looong sentences. I added two more parts with free-style rambling just to be sure that my entry would be run-on enough. The middle-part allowed me to address the issue of sarcasm. I felt this was necessary, because the initial lyrics came across almost serious. I mean, lines like “Invincible, almighty and fearless in the night” might go unnoticed. Finally, I have no idea what people who don’t understand German think of the line “their Bandwurmsätze are really, really long their Bandwurmsätze are really, really long”. Maybe one of the judges remarks on it. Anyway, I was thinking of making a video for the song; I won’t have time for that any time soon, though. Meanwhile, here’s the music/lyrics:

Squirrel

When it comes to building cars, Germany’s the best
And Germans on the Autobahn drive faster than the rest
With the pedal to the metal and reckless as can be
Just like Michael Schumacher racing down the street
Nothing that can stop us on and off the road
Be it truck or airplane, be it bicycle or boat

And with regard to soccer, I’m sure that you all know
The Germans won the World Cup while England had to go
And while we don’t like to admit it, our country makes us proud
‘Cos Germans are the greatest – there is really no doubt
Invincible, almighty and fearless in the night
And if there’s something broken, we can fix it all right
Yes, there is nothing that we Germans cannot do
‘Cos we know everything so much better than you
But as a citizen of this nation
I struggle with the pronunciation of ‘squirrel’

Germans built the wall and they tore it down again
And they still miss the Deutschmark every now and then
For example when it’s time to pay at the Oktoberfest
Where schnitzel, wurst and sauerkraut are easy to digest
As long as there is order, as long as there is beer
With Merkel on our side, there is nothing to fear

German maids are beautiful and German men are strong
And their Bandwurmsätze are really, really long
And all the Black Forest cuckoo’s clocks are never running late
So why not book a trip and come to see the Brandenburg Gate
Enjoy some German music: Rammstein, Volksmusik
We rock you like a hurricane until you agree
That there is nothing that we Germans cannot do
‘Cos we know everything so much better than you
But as a citizen of this nation
I struggle with the pronunciation of ‘squirrel’

Anyway, Germans are always on time, sticking to the rules, very talented and charming, fantastic singers – like me, for example – builders, engineers, inventors, Nobel Prize winners, Friedrich Nietzsche, you know, and Dirk Nowitzki, Pope Benedict, Beethoven, Wagner, Nena, handsome German people each and every one of them, big fans of discipline, yes, that’s us, and when we use sarcasm, it’s always 100% obvious, smart, efficient, never making any mistakes – and most of all we are very modest!

Ja, there is nothing that we Germans cannot do
‘Cos we know everything so much better than you
But as someone who grew up in this nation
I struggle with the pronunciation of ‘squirrel’

Why couldn’t they just call it “Eichhörnchen”? I mean, they took so many German words for the English language like Rucksack or Kindergarten and we also took some words from them like Handy or like Public Viewing – okay, we misused them*, but anyway, it’s so weird and I can’t pronounce it; it’s a tongue twister and, ah, it’s driving me crazy and did you know that Chip an’ Dale are called Ahörnchen and Behörnchen in German?

* Handy = mobile/cell phone, Public Viewing = broadcast of soccer games in public places

(words and music by Johannes Schult 2015 Creative Commons by-nc 4.0)

The challenge of the second round of SpinTunes #10 was to write a horror song. This reminded of the hate song challenge in a previous edition of SpinTunes. I could have easily written about a madman and his victim. I just don’t see how this makes the world a better, or at least a more interesting place. Also, I listened to Devil Doll‘s “Dies Irae” album for inspiration, which is horror music in perfection. No way I could rival such a masterpiece. So instead, I went looking for something different. And soon enough I found fellow SpinTunes musician Edric Haleen. Edric has a place in my music folder (as well as in my heart) ever since his excellent take on “It All Makes Sense at the End“. My hope was that I could a certain amount of horror while also being entertaining.

I began writing the lyrics the day the challenge was announced. Two days later most of the lyrics were in place. I had some preliminary melodies in my head, as well. The original plan, however, was to play expressive chords on the keyboard and adapt the lyrics to fit the piano extravaganza. The only problem was that I didn’t have a keyboard. Mine had broken a couple of months earlier and I hadn’t gotten a replacement. So I frantically ordered a new one at my formerly local dealer, hoping it’d arrive in time. It didn’t. Thursday evening I turned to Plan B, which involved composing the verse and bridge (and intro) on guitar. Friday found me returning to the initial refrain melody in my head and piecing together some chords to fit it. By chance, I got up rather early on Saturday and started programming the whole thing. Looking back, I’m not sure I could have produced the song faster with a keyboard. I guess the fills would have been more dynamic and weirder. The tempo changes throughout the song, so I kept building it from intro to outro, part by part, note by note. There are a few things I would change in hindsight, like the transition to the second chorus, the unnecessary repetition of the “seen” rhyme in the third chorus, the bars after “heavy metal connection” (with ascending three-note fills instead), and the jolly intermission after the third chorus (which I only included because I thought I should add something I played ad lib on my MacBook’s keyboard).

Recording the vocals was fun (but not for my throat). I cited some of Edric’s songs and alluded to his rather long entry in the previous round. I also included a couple of bars of the German national hymn (switched to a minor key) after the word “Germany”. I’m aware that the mathematical stuff in my lyrics is statistical stuff. The trouble with song writing contests is that there’s never enough time to research anything properly. I was tempted to interview Edric beforehand – or even invite him to play on the song. In the end, I wanted to keep the surprise. Also, he was probably busy with his entry (or his dog). And did I mention that there’s never enough time?

Being Edric Haleen

There was a little door behind my office desk
I was just curious when I looked inside
What happened next felt rather Kafkaesque
A metaphysical roller coaster ride to the other side

I woke up in a body that wasn’t mine
In a bedroom in a house that wasn’t mine
At least I had retained some of my volition
So I looked for a mirror to examine my condition
It was weirder than anything I had ever seen
I was trapped inside the body of Edric Haleen

Aaaah!

I was no longer bald and I had a beard
Maybe this wasn’t as bad as I had feared
I looked down at my/his trembling hands
But I did not dare to peek into those pants
At least I hadn’t turned into Charlie Sheen
But it felt scary being trapped inside Edric Haleen

A woman I’d never seen came in and tried to kiss me
She said that I should hurry or else the kids would miss me
Did this mean that we had kids? Or that I was a teacher?
I really didn’t know the standard operating procedure
I ran out onto a street I’d never seen
And still I was trapped inside Edric Haleen

I just want to go back home to Germany
But now that I’m Edric – what if he’s me?
Will he go out and trade my heavy metal collection
For Billy Joel, Elton John, Barry White, Elvis Costello and the Attraction?
What have I done? What does it mean?
I’m trapped inside the body of Edric Haleen

I want to be Jutze again – I’ve had enough
But now I feel the urge to sing about mathematical stuff (…99999999999…)
The variance of a binary variable is p times (1 – p)
Why the heck does this dog keep barking at me?
This song must be at least 6 minutes 15
Oh the horror of being trapped inside Edric Haleen
It all makes sense at the end – but I’m stuck in between
Will I ever find a way out of Edric Haleen?
Just let me out!

(words and music by Johannes Schult 2015 Creative Commons by-nc 4.0)

Miracously, I made to the final round of SpinTunes #8. The challenge was:

Painful Progression – Write a song about PHYSICAL pain, and do so using a I-V-vi-IV chord progression in the chorus.

My naive assumption is that I can deal with the musical restriction more easily than the other contestants this round, who are a bit jazzier in my ear. Anyway, for this round I couldn’t just throw out a quick song like I did last round. I’m not a good singer, so a “normal” pop song wasn’t my aim. My first idea was to write some kind of Irish folk song, instead. Even before I picked up my guitar I decided to write about the pain of a menstruating dragon. I had this idea for the first time back in 2006, when I took the Hammerfall song title “The Dragon Lies Bleeding” literally. It took me a couple of hours to come up with a jolly chorus. The rest of the song manifested itself more quickly. I had a percussive click track resembling a bhodran, which I kept in the final version. I went a bit crazy with all kinds of keyboard sounds (including some banjo!) but most of them are buried in the mix. Needless to say, I would have loved to have real instruments. Anyway, there was a deadline to meet and I am quite satisfied with the outcome.

What made me very happy was the following review by Dave Leigh:

This sounds like the sort of thing that Hobbits would sing at the pub. Really demented, sick hobbits. Hobbits who need therapy. Who in his right mind writes a song about a menstruating dragon? Nobody, and that should tell us a thing about Jutze. However, this is the form of insanity that’s just really, really entertaining.

Check out all entries! I also filmed a quick sofa video that ended up with an over-enthusiastic preview thumbnail.

Deep under the mountain in the dark and the cold
Sheltered from the wind and the rain
Sitting on a pile of silver and of gold
The mighty dragon is in pain
Maybe it is time to leave this cave behind
Time to get some fresh air

And it’s raining blood on the town by the lake
Everybody screams, the children are crying
Nobody knows how long it’s going to take
It looks as if the dragon is dying

Only the elders have seen this once before
Almost a century ago
They shut all the windows and they lock every door
Hiding in the cellars below
Maybe there’s a chance to escape the burning flames
Maybe they will survive

And it’s raining blood on the town by the lake
Everybody screams, the children are crying
Nobody knows how long it’s going to take
It looks as if the dragon is dying

High above the lake the dragon’s breathing fire
Feeling that the cycle is complete – once again
There’s no way around it, no use in climbing higher
The time has come to bleed
Maybe it is time she should start to procreate
It sucks to menstruate

And it’s raining blood on the town by the lake
In agony and pain the dragon is flying
Nobody knows how much more it’s going to take
The dragon in the sky feels like dying

And it’s raining blood on the town by the lake
Everybody screams, the children are crying
Nobody knows how long it’s going to take
It looks as if the dragon is dying

2014 Creative Commons by-nc Johannes “Jutze” Schult

This song is part of Edric Haleen’s Songwriting Cycle #3. I like the challenges Spencer Sokol gave me. I don’t like how I struggled to create a proper story. At some point I had this glorious idea of the first verse being as it is, but then the couple ends up at his brother’s house, only to find that his brother, who had wanted to go to the beach, did end up at Grandma’s place. The final verse saw Grandma happy at the beach. Anyway, I ran out of time and ideas. There was no brilliant insight at the eleventh hour, so I present you this littly ditty. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found the time to listen to the other entries, but I’m sure they’re far better than mine!

Yesterday we took our car to drive to grandma’s house
I sat behind the steering wheel right next to my spouse

She was really confident we didn’t need a map
But I had just installed a new direction finding app
So five miles down the dusty road
My smart phone said: “turn right”
My wife protested: “no, no, no
Turn left by the traffic light”
I didn’t know just what to do
So I kept driving straight ahead
My phone said: “calculating new route”
While my wife was getting mad

After three such incidents things getting tense
My phone said we were getting there, ignoring some dead ends
But ten miles down the dusty road
It said: “please turn around”
My wife protested: “no, no, no
We should be westward bound”
I didn’t know just what to do
So I kept driving straight ahead
My phone said: “calculating new route”
While my wife was getting mad
My wife was getting mad

Heads up: I’ll be playing a solo gig here in Konstanz on December 16th, opening for Suff-X. I’m also hoping to line up one or two more shows. Meanwhile, here are the links to a bunch of my 52-second songs.

• The most recent one is my attempt at a “Wedding March”, because a friend of mine, who likes ska, was getting married last weekend.
• My song about the “Bud Spencer Tunnel” is my first video to get more than 1,000 views. It even got me on German television.
• My belated birthday song “Nachträglich” is another German song, presumably better than the quickly penned tunnel anthem.
• “Dragons Fly to Burning Asgard” is a rather experimental song in which I try to sound like a cappella metal pioneers Van Canto.

This song is sung from the perspective of a 52-second song. It sums up one of the main goals of “Jutze 52”. I wrote and recorded it back in spring.

This track is licenced Creative Commons (by-nc) – just like all my 52-second songs. This means you’re allowed to copy, share, edit, adapt the song right away (no need to ask me for permission) as long as you don’t make money with it (non-commercial) and attributed the music to me. So you have the perfect filler for the ending of your next mix tape (or mix CD or mix iPod or whatever it is that is being mixed these days).

#52 52-Second Song

Hi there, I’m a 52-second song
Just a short one, just a quick one
To fill up the remaining free space on this CD
This is why I’m here – the reason for my existence
This is why I’m here – a 52-second song

And it’s just a coincidence that I’m also here to tell you
That whoever made this CD does care a lot about you
This is why I’m here – the reason for my existence
This is why I’m here – a 52-second song

And while we’re at it
Please save the whales!
This is why I’m here – the reason for my existence
This is why I’m here – a 52-second song

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

This song is the second song about NaNoWriMo. For those who aren’t familiar with the idea: the goal is to write a novel consisting of at least 50,000 words in 30 days (that is, in November). It’s utter madness. You learn a lot about your work ethics. You learn how it feels to suck. You bond with strangers who have also accepted the challenge. And you get emails with pep talk from folks like John Green, Dave Eggers, and Lemony Snicket.

I wrote this song on acoustic guitar, combining an old lyrical idea with my present NaNoWriMo situation. Thankfully, my word count has exceeded 9010 by now. I did take a screenshot from 9010, though, in case I’ll find time to make a video. While figuring out the beat I realized that I could turn the whole thing into a punk song. I programmed the drums only to find that I had miscalculated the tempo. By now I’m used to it, but at first it sounded terribly fast to me. There’s one bass track (programmed), two guitar tracks, and three vocal tracks.

Update six days later: video!

#46 NaNoWriMo Lament 2

This ain’t the song I wrote in Bremen
This ain’t the song I wrote in Mannheim
This song won’t explain the brain to laymen
This ain’t the song that will blow your mind
But come December I will save the world again
Turn water into wine and enemies into friends
But right now my word count is still at 9010

This ain’t the song I wrote in Cambridge
This ain’t the song that I wrote in the bathroom
This ain’t the song that is going to make me rich
This ain’t the song that makes your heart go boom
But come December I will save the world again
Turn water into wine and enemies into friends
But right now my word count is still at 9010

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

This song is the first of two songs about NaNoWriMo. I’m participating this year. For those who aren’t familiar with the idea: the goal is to write a novel consisting of at least 50,000 words in 30 days (that is, in November). So far, I’m on schedule!

I had written the other song first. So when the idea for a second one came up I was tempted to abandon it there and then. I wanted to have an instrumental track, anyway. But then time ran out and I quickly recorded this song, as well. It has three acoustic guitars along with percussion, bass and organ (all rather low in the mix) from the computer; plus, of course, vocals. I can imagine a full band version. However, no time for a full band version – I have a novel to write!

Again, yes: video. This time I deviate even more from the original lyrics. You have been warned.

#45 NaNoWriMo Lament 1

No time for love – I have to write a novel
No time for food – I have to write a novel
No time for anything, so shut the door and go offline
Say goodbye to all your friends

No time to shave – I have to write a novel
No time to sing – I know it’s crazy but I really want to write a novel this month!
No time for anything but 1667 words per day until November ends

No time for music – I have to write a novel
No time for lyrics – …

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

This song nearly didn’t happen. I had written the first two verses months ago and was somehow unsatisfied and/or hit a heavy writer’s block. Cleaning up some piles of paper on my desk today I discovered the page with the words. This time around I liked the lyrics better and immediately filled in the missing parts. Once the music was written I didn’t even have to readjust the tempo, something I almost always have to do to meet the 52-second deadline. And I even managed to throw in a harmonica bit at the end!

Oh, yes: video.

#44 Questions

Who made your clothes and who wrote the Bible?
And what’s the story of the food on your table?
These are the important questions
We have to answer them every day

Where does the money go that you spend on fuel?
Where does the power come from that makes your AC cool?
These are the important questions
We have to answer them every day

Did you smile a lot today?
And when was the last time you were in love?

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

This song started with the lyrics, which I wrote in Bremen on September 30th. Due to time constraints I kept the first musical idea I had and turned it into this song. I had to play it rather fast to make it fit the 52-second-scheme. If you want to listen to a slightly slower version, check out the video of me playing the song (without the fancy distorted drum computer).

#41 Just Like You

She looked just like you
But the smell of her hair
Was somewhat different
She looked just like you
But you weren’t there
You know without you
I wouldn’t be here
Where I am now
Is here without you
I wish you were here
Where I am now

She looked just like you
And she stayed for a drink
And then another
She looked just like you
But her fingernails were pink
You know without you
I wouldn’t be here
Where I am now
Is here without you
I wish you were here
Where I am now

(words and music by Johannes Schult)