7.2: Oh wake me please when this is over. Oh when the ice is melted away, and the hunger returns, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.

I will be the same, but older
And maybe twice the bear
That I thought I was

184/366

7.1: The juniper bends as if you were listening, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.

183/366 [Halfway there!]

Give me your hand
Your mother is drunk as all the firemen shake
A photo from father’s arms
Cinder and smoke
You’ll ask me to pray for rain
With ash in your mouth
You’ll ask it to burn again

I’m trying to learn “Cinder and Smoke” by Iron and Wine this week. It’s only 3 chords (Am, Dm+7, and Em) but the picking pattern is a little complicated.

I think next week will be “Sunset Soon Forgotten.”

Hafsól, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.

Jonsi pounding on his guitar with a bow and Georg beating out a rhythm on his electric bass with a drumstick. They were so fracking amazing.

I’m taking the cure so I can be quiet
Originally uploaded by Scrivenings
I bought my guitar two years ago yesterday. When I got home with it, I realized it was my blogiversary and put up a post joking that I had gotten it as a present for my blog, that’s how I know the exact date. So to mark the date, here is a little video clip of the first 90 seconds of me playing “Needle in the Hay,” by Elliott Smith. I learned this song not too long into my lessons and just loved playing it and kept coming back to it even as I got new songs, but then eventually it got wrapped up in learning all these new songs and I probably didn’t play it at all for close to a year. A few months ago, I was flipping through my older lesson book and saw it and played it again. I’ve been playing it off and on since then. You know, it’s still one of the songs that I most enjoy playing.

So, just shy of two years of guitar lessons and I can at least kind of play 90 songs now! Full list beneath the fold.

1. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Dylan)
2. House of the Rising Sun
3. Secret Agent Man (Rivers)
4. San Francisco Bay Blues (Clapton)
5. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down & Out (Clapton)
6. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)
7. Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (Buffett)
8. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) (Green Day)
9. Mary Jane’s Last Dance (Petty)
10. Head Over Feet (Morissette)
11. Losing My Religion (R.E.M.)
12. Old Time Rock and Roll
13. Glycerine (Bush)
14. Pecan Pie (Golden Smog)
15. Moon Over Goldsboro (Mountain Goats)
16. Measuring Cups (Andrew Bird)
17. Redemption Song (Marley)
18. Folsom Prison Blues (Cash)
19. Needle In The Hay (Elliott Smith)
20. You and Me (Lifehouse)
21. Jesus, etc. (Wilco)
22. No New Tale To Tell (Love & Rockets)
23. Polly (Nirvana)
24. Layla (Clapton)
25. Wonderwall (Oasis)
26. Woke Up New (Mountain Goats)
27. Two-Headed Boy (Neutral Milk Hotel)
28. I Will Follow You Into The Dark (Death Cab for Cutie)
29. Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
30. Norwegian Wood (Beatles)
31. This Land Is Your Land (Guthrie)
32. Spirit On The Water (Dylan)
33. Sounds of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)
34. Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway (Wilco)
35. The Leading Guy (Micah P Hinson)
36. Come Monday (Buffett)
37. California Stars (Wilco)
38. Ashes of American flags (Wilco)
39. The Ruling Class (Loose Fur)
40. The Golden Age (Beck)
41. Californication (Chili Peppers)
42. Young Pilgrims (Shins)
43. What Light (Wilco)
44. Workingman Blues #2 (Dylan)
45. Ramblin’ Man (Allman Brothers)
46. Jacksonville (Sufjan Stevens)
47. Such Great Heights (Iron & Wine)
48. She’s A Jar (Wilco)
49. We’re Going To Be Friends (Jack Johnson)
50. New Slang (Shins)
51. Sky Blue Sky (Wilco)
52. Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod (Mountain Goats)
53. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (Wilco)
54. Moving Pictures Silent Films (Great Lake Swimmers)
55. Your Rocky Spine (Great Lake Swimmers)
56. The Funeral (Band of Horses)
57. Fire on the Mountain (Grateful Dead)
58. This Year (The Mountain Goats)
59. Shankill Butchers (The Decemberists)
60. The Family Gardener (The Minus 5)
61. Blister In The Sun (Violent Femmes)
62. This Is Not Like Home (Great Lake Swimmers)
63. Ingrid Bergman (Billy Bragg & Wilco)
64. There Is A Light (Great Lake Swimmers)
65. One (the Johnny Cash version)
66. Speed Trials (Elliott Smith)
67. Guess I’m Doing Fine (Beck)
68. Lost Cause (Beck)
69. Of Angels and Angles (The Decemberists)
70. Blame It On The Tetons (Modest Mouse)
71. Sovay (Andrew Bird)
72. Wasp Nest (The National)
73. Love Leaves Its Abusers (Songs: Ohia)
74. Sodom, South Georgia (Iron & Wine)
75. Peng! (Iron & Wine)
76. July, July! (The Decemberists)
77. I See A Darkness (Johnny Cash)
78. Love Comes to Me (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy)
79. Waitin’ For A Superman (Iron & Wine)
80. Sax Rohmer #1 (The Mountain Goats)
81. How to Fight Loneliness (Jeff Tweedy)
82. The Lone Wolf (Kathleen Edwards)
83. We Both Go Down Together (Colin Meloy)
84. First Day Of My Life (Bright Eyes)
85. These Days (St. Vincent)
86. Autoclave (The Mountain Goats)
87. Houston (R.E.M.)
88. Drive (R.E.M.)
89. Fall On Me (R.E.M.)
90. When The Stars Go Blue (The Corrs & Bono’s version)

Granted, there are many of these that I have now pretty completely forgotten and would have to relearn, and there are some of them that I never really ever figured out and can’t actually play–like “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” which I’m almost certain I can play now once I sit down and try to learn it, but I could not play it at all back when I first asked to learn it. The recent songs with lots of finger-picking are all still very challenging. I can pretty much play the notes, but not with the kind of speed I need to develop to make it sound right. And there aren’t more than a couple of these that I can play without the chord chart in front of me, very few of them are actually memorized.

But still, 90 songs. Wow, that’s cool.

3.16: Cuz you will never stop looking and I will never stay, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.

Practicing Kathleen Edward’s “The Lone Wolf.”

2.10: Is it getting heavy?, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.

41/366
I grabbed about ten minutes while the kids were in the bath to practice “Waitin’ for a Superman” as covered by Iron & Wine. The chords aren’t difficult, but it’s my first real attempt at finger-picking, so it’s still causing me fits.

Wide as the ring of a bell, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.