Headphones - I Never Wanted You

I stopped into Guitar Center on my way home from work last night to buy some drum accessories and I wandered into the acoustic guitar room where I picked up a Cordoba C7 that I’ve had my eye on for a while. It’s a beautiful nylon string classical with gorgeous tone.

This has been a favorite song of mine since the first time I heard it. The original version is just vocals + synthesizer + drums. There is also a vocals + piano version that is, if you can believe it, even more haunting than the original. And then Bazan started playing it with his full band on tour last summer + fall and that version rocked a little harder (even at a dramatically slower tempo) but still had the incredible impact of the original, buoyed by the most heartbreaking lyrics that have ever been penned.

I’ve been tinkering with a vocals + solo guitar arrangement of it for close to a year. Hell, I’m still tinkering with it. I bounce between fingerstyle and strumming. I fumble my way through singing and playing the bridge section (crazy simultaneous 4/4 under 3/4 time signature happening in that section). I can never settle on an acceptable key because my vocal range just cannot hold a candle to Bazan’s (he’s powerful from the deepest bass notes to the highest falsettos).

Anyway. I figured it was time to just commit something to permanence. I knew it wouldn’t be great, and it’s not, but it gets my point across. So I went into the little practice room and closed the door, put my iPhone on the stool next to me, and recorded this. I was constantly interrupted by other customers in the room and my own indecisions about how and what to play. It took me about 45 minutes to get a good take. This was my last try and it’s completely unedited aside from cleaning up the beginning and ending of the voice memo into which it was recorded.

Originally recorded: March 25, 2011