Adam Young

F. S. Merriwether

This song had a wonderfully straightforward rhyme and meter scheme, so it took less than five minutes to come up with a version I could play on guitar. This version was very jangly and folky sounding, very much in a Kimya Dawson sort of vein. I tried working with that for a while and had a version with the usual acoustic string instruments, plus drums and tin whistle, but I ended up recording it at such a fast tempo that I couldn’t really get the vocals right.

I did another version that used a bunch of synthesized parts I had lying around. This wasn’t bad, but it was a little slow, so I shifted it up to D and that worked much better as far as singing goes. I added in a ukulele part, just to make it feel a little more organic.

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I’m still not really satisfied with my vocals here, but it’s not too bad. I like the goofy, stutter-y drum track. The actual version is fine, but the Postal Service derivativeness is a little off-putting. My vocals may be a little cutesy, but I’m not sure how else to do a song that talks about getting hugs from bugs.