The Second Hundred Years

The Great Plotnik has completed eight songs in his Best of Tiapos project, which though it may be subtitled "How To Distort a Vocal Without Trying Too Hard" is still the most satisfying work he's done in several years. Now it's time to return to the beginning, to the first song he tried to record, which is a love song called "One Hundred Years."

When he first wrote, re-wrote, re-re-wrote, and re-re-re-wrote this song, agonizing over every comma and syllable, it was really hard to get settled with. It's personal, it's a dedication and it's for The Great Ducknik. He was afraid she wouldn't like it, so he probably spent a little too much time trying to couch the music in hipness.

It's hard to explain what this means -- suffice it to say that now, after spending six months or so recording other songs, he has realized something important: he's not a great singer, but he can have great moments. He's also the only singer who can sing these songs, because Wilson Pickett is dead. No, because Plotnik is the one who wrote them. he knows what they mean better than anybody else.

The Great Plotnik spent several decades writing songs for other people to sing and always being unhappy with the versions these people would record, no matter the income the song might or might not generate. Oh, Lord, Meredith Baxter Burney and her husband.

But he doesn't have to do that anymore. This project is for him, not them, and hopefully for you, people who already know him, and you cybersignals who haven't tuned in yet.

So next week he will go back to "One Hundred Years," remove the dissonant guitars and start almost over. He will re-sing the song, this time a lot easier and from the heart. It might work. It might not work. He is sure to hate it in the end -- unless he is as happy as he is with everything else that is rolling out of the computer these days.