Welcome To Your Future Happiness

After finally getting around to releasing some new tunes (see “LOCAL MUSIC“) I wanted to package together the few songs I wrote during the lockdown days. I posted these to YouTube back in the day but I always planned on including them in a larger release. Five years later and I think they stand on their own, and belong together.

Shortly after the pandemic sent us all home, I bought a digital tascam multitrack recorder and a couple of mics with the idea to get back into writing and recording. It was a hard time—and that comes through in the songwriting. I was living next door in our neighbor’s vacant house, working and writing and recording these (and other songs that didn’t make the cut). Some parts were recorded on the porch, and a lot of it in the bathroom.

Because of that I had originally thought to call this one “Beatrice’s House” but when I was looking through photos for a suitable album cover I found a picture from the day I moved in. She had put a bunch of post-it notes all over the house with little messages and instructions. The one in the fridge on a chocolate read “Welcome to Your Future Happiness” and I immediately knew that was the cover and the title. It was hard to see at the time, but that year was a kind of a gate, a passage to walk through. A passage to my future happiness.

I made videos for each of these. “Swimming” is my favorite.