skinny girls & mayonnaise

I recently released an album of my original songs.

“You should promote your album on your blog,” a friend said.

“But my blog is a food blog!” I protested.

My new album, available at CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon and wherever fine music is sold.

I wish I could say it was nine songs about food. But it’s not. It’s nine songs about all those things that relate loosely to food — love and sex, the pursuit of happiness, pondering our own bellybuttons, etc.

There are songs that speak more specifically about drinking, for example:

From the song, “World Beneath the World”:

Poured myself a tall one
as the sky above was falling
and then settled on a pillow
by the girl.

From “Pig”:

And it’s raining far away in Killarney,
where a drunk man is crying in his beer.

And also about food:

From “Dear Sara”:

Dear Sara, I met you at the breakfast table,
we sat there like some creatures from a
German children’s fable…

From “Andrew Bird Dream”:

Her virtue was there for the taking,
but he was preoccupied with his bacon
and so let the opportunity pass him by.

Then question, then, becomes what does this have to do — beyond blatant self promotion — with my food blog?

The answer is a somewhat philosophical one.

Me in my younger rock & roll incarnation

People often comment about the various things I do. “It’s amazing!” they’ll say, “You do so many different things!”

But I will tell them that I only do one thing, and I just have different outlets for that one thing. Sure, I write, I paint, I play music and I cook. But all those things are really the same thing to me — just different modes of creative expression. My music sounds the way my paintings look; my paintings look the way my food tastes.

When I sit down with my guitar and a pen, the motivation and process is the same as when I go into the kitchen and pull out a pan. When I’m in the studio, layering instruments and sounds, it is the same as when I’m adding garlic or stirring in butter, looking for just the right notes. When I perform my songs live, it’s like sitting down and digging into to a deliciously prepared meal with a big glass of fine wine.

So besides the odd food or drink lyric on my album, and a shot of a town in Mexico where we had some pretty darned good fish tacos on the cover, that is what it has to do with food.

Or maybe it really is just blatant self promotion. Now go pour yourself a tall one, fry up some bacon, click on the album cover above and go have a listen.