When you try too hard to please someone else at your own expense, the leash starts to chafe. 

All  vocals and instruments by me (Jeremy Cohn) except drums which I arranged  and edited using authorized samples.

Good Good Boy

A retro synth ballad about what is really important in life. Animals.

Music, vocals, and instrumentals all by Jeremy Cohn.

Pets > People

Cover of the song by the Everly Brothers. Arrangement and performance by Jeremy Cohn

All rights reserved.

When Will I Be Loved

Music, Lyrics, and Performance by Jeremy Cohn. Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved

CW: grief, loss, and pandemic trauma
I wrote this in April, near the beginning of the pandemic. Its the first track I've released with original lyrics in the past six years. I find lyrics very vulnerable, and I don't think they're my strong suit. But I'm pretty confident in these. When I wrote them I had no clue how their meaning would change for me over time--I feel like they are less about the desire to reach the period after the pandemic anymore, and more about the devastation COVID has caused both personally and for our community, and about how even afterwards the grief and effects of this trauma are going to be permanent.

There are a lot of influences here, ranging from the indie band Spiritualized to John Denver to Bob Dylan and the theme from Friday Night Lights. The shanty "Bring Back my Bonnie to Me" is directly quoted in the chord progression of the verse.

Aftermath

A country blues song about learning how to become less of a trash panda.

Words, Music, and Performance by Jeremy Cohn (all rights reserved)

I made up the first verse of this song around the house a few years back when my now wife bought me a laundry basket to replace the old broken down one I was using (she bought me the pair of boots for Christmas a couple of years later). This symbolizes for me how the way I used to fail to take care of myself was about how I didn't really feel worthy of love. So in the end this a song about learning to accept love in all the odd quirky ways that happen in real life. 

Apologies to anyone who had to visit my studio apartment when I was 25.

Influences include Keb' Mo' (give him a listen if you aren't familiar--its worth it),Willie Nelson, and Randy Newman.

Chasing Seratonin

Laundry Basket

An arena rock song about wanderlust and craving open spaces.

I found the acoustic guitar part and main vocal line of this song on a one-minute voice memo I left myself in March of 2018. I'm pretty sure it was improvised and I have no idea why I wrote it. A line about "cotton fields" in the second verse along with it being written at the tail end of winter makes me think it was about travel, as my last trip would have been to visit my wife's relatives in the Mississippi delta for Christmas, and I'm sure I was missing it after a claustrophobic Chicago winter.

Little did I know how much more resonance that would have now after being shut up for nearly a year in a two bedroom condo (I have it better than many). So I expanded the instrumentation so that the track flows from a simple beginning into a huge wall of complex sound that is both comforting and restless. I also included dreamlike elements in the reverb of the vocals, a vocoder undertrack, and synthesized sounds in addition to the more standard acoustic and electric instruments. 

The result is a track I recommend listening to in a space where it can grow to fill the whole room and be played loud without blowing out your ears. Influences include Led Zeppelin, the Fleet Foxes, The Eagles, and Radiohead.

Music, words, production, and performance all by Jeremy Cohn. Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved

Beside Me

This song is definitely about an actual bird and not a metaphor for anyone I know.

This is another one I wrote a few years back when we were going through a (different) tough time. I always find as songs age I can see better what is temporary in them and what is enduring, so I enjoyed simplifying and universalizing the lyrics with new resonance.

In the spirit of the song I tried to keep the production simple. The vocals are exposed and unedited without any harmony. I used acoustic guitar and bass as well as the naked tone of my strat from the second verse on and a 60's surf style tone to create the "warble" that sings along with the choruses.

Special shout out to my friends at The Voice Lab Inc. who I've worked with the past 5 years and whose teaching has benefited me greatly. I gave them a lyrical Easter egg in the second verse. 

Music, Lyrics, and Performance by Jeremy Cohn, Copyright 2021. All Rights Reserved.

Songbird Sing

This one is a jam y'all. 

It might sound like it's about.....um....something. But its actually not. 

I came up with the hook while trying to figure out what to order for dinner with my wife. We were both very hungry, but didn't really have an appetite for anything because of the repetitiveness of the pandemic. So this song in a weird way is about pandemic fatigue, and the internal confusion that results. I always heard the background of the hook with this blues/funk feel, and once I realized how the lyrics could be interpreted, I decided to lean into it a little bit.

The drums on this track are basically demo drums and were made by hitting my drumsticks on a yoga block and my padded stool, along with an electronically lowered bass-drum sound made from a hand thump on the body of my acoustic guitar and the clicking together of my sticks. I would love to hear it with real drums someday.

Influences include Gary Clark Jr, Charles Mingus, Carlos Santana, Lenny Kravitz, and Prince.

Music, Lyrics, Performance, and Production by Jeremy Cohn copyright 2021. All rights reserved.

What Do You Want From Me?

I wrote and performed this song a few years back for a production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It". I wanted it to be seductive and inviting, but also a bit haunting, unreal, and even menacing--like a siren's song. The characters in the play are in exile, and though the lyrics are merry there is a deep underpinning of sadness underneath the whole play--I wanted this song to have that dichotomy, especially since two other songs I wrote for the production were more overtly joyful. 

For the production all I had was my voice and an acoustic guitar, so I enjoyed building out this arrangement using a Jeff Buckley-like guitar as a base and adding electric bass, organ, vocal harmonies, and some synthesized sounds to add depth to the piece. To reflect the dreamlike quality I wanted, I added some distorted and phased portions near the end--like the image is flickering in and out of reality. 

Music, Performance, and Production by Jeremy Cohn, copyright 2021. All rights Reserved.

Lyrics adapted from "As You Like It" by William Shakespeare

Beside Me

Jeremy Cohn

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