On another note, Ella’s song is pretty damn cool. It made Brian and me blush and we didn’t know what to say. I’ve definitely never had a song written about me before. In addition to writing some great lyrics and some sweet rhymes with a clear and tight rhythm (none of which just anyone can do), thank you for thinking I can belt high notes that I certainly cannot belt, and thinking Brian is older than me (he’s not - he’s only 25). But seriously, it’s the most flattering thing I’ve ever read. It takes a great deal of work and some fancy budgeting to be able to be a writer in your twenties - and also a complete disregard for the important things in life like health insurance…

But nothing you said you want to do is out of reach. So go and do it, Ella. College is the best time to write a show if that’s what you’re looking to do. You’ve paid your 40k (or some scholarship has) in order to have unlimited access to the school’s resources for your education. So educate yourself. Write a show and put it up. That’s exactly where both Brian and I started. And then we started working together and since we were both such self-starters, things started happening more quickly.

It’s just a matter of doing it. And finishing things. From what I can see, the difference between a writer and a would-be-writer is that the writer finishes projects.

Good luck to all of you. I feel like I have a vested interest in each of you doing exactly what it is you set out to do. Do us proud and keep in touch!

Kait said her goodbyes in her most recent post, but I just want to reiterate how honored I am to have been part of this project with you. We had a blast making this video - it’s a tribute of sorts. If anyone else is mourning the end of the experiment and looking for an outlet, post a video response.

Lots of love,
Brian

This is a very hard post to write. I’ve been thinking about it all day and I’ve been dreading it. This is because it is my sad task to tell you that The Freshmen Experiment is coming to an end… at least in this incarnation.  After lots of discussion, we have decided that the website it too all-consuming for us to do without major tech support and too expensive to do with major tech support. It’s been a hard decision to make, but now that our freshmen are no longer freshmen, we have decided that this is the right time to suspend the site.

The suspension won’t take effect immediately. Brian and I have a few more tricks up our sleeves. We plan to finish off “Last Week’s Alcohol” and we even have a few surprises to share, but our bloggers will stop blogging at the end of this week, and we will finish off our songs soon thereafter, and our experiment will be complete.

For me, this has been a beautiful and illuminating experience. I have laughed and cried at some of the posts and comments. I am more proud of some of the songs we’ve written for this project than of anything else we’ve ever written. Partly it’s because they felt so real to us, but I think it’s also the attempt to take the words of our kick-ass bloggers and turn them into lyrics and melodies.

And then there are the relationships that we’ve developed with the readers which has been something different than anything I’ve experienced before. If any of you all-star commenters come to a concert of ours, please introduce yourselves. You’ve been a crucial part of this special and incredibly personal project.

Two great pieces of news come out of this. One is that there’s no way we won’t try this again. It was way too much fun and we learned way too much not to put it to good use - only next time we’ll have a videographer, sound designer, web designer, tech consultant, and a marketing firm… oh yeah, our plans are BIG. The second is more immediate. CC will continuing blogging on her own new website. Brian and I will follow wherever she goes, of course, and beg her to let us write songs based on her writing on occasion. Maybe she’ll even let us guestblog for a week or two here and there (hint hint)…

You can always find me on my new lyrics blog (www.kerrigan-lowdermilk.com/lyrics), where you should comment because it’s very lonely there without you. Even after the experiment is completely finished, this website will still be here for you to come back in wistful moments and read / listen to your favorite posts. Please do. I know I will.

Thank you guys for everything. You have made this site what it is.

In the meantime, be jealous. I know I’m supposed to savor the sun for as long as I can and I’ll miss it come winter, but the idea of 70 during the day and 50 at night? Mmmm. That is some good sleeping weather. And we get to go swimming, which I LOVE. So I’ll try to write soon, but I just wanted to let everyone know. I haven’t forgotten about Last Week’s Alcohol. I’ve just been called away.  Right now I’m trying to structure out the story and it’s kind of messy. I can’t figure out how much time to spend at the parties and how much to spend on the top and bottom where they’re together. What do you guys think? Party? Right now I’m thinking party. I love the way it loops around and that the entire reason she goes back is because of all the drunken shinanigans around her.

Saw Vicky Christina Barcelona. While I don’t like the title, it is an incredibly fun place to be - both in location and plot. Reminded me of Superbad in that you could end it positively wherever but good job ending it at 90 minutes, Woody. It was lots of fun… And if acting were a sport with points, Penelope Cruz would have kicked everyone else’s ass. I would have given her a 6.2 for difficulty and a 7 for execution. According to the tepid and rambly reportage of the Olympics scoring system on MSNBC earlier today, that is very excellent.

C (I synced this at 1:44.)
I’m watching you.
I’m watching me.
I’m watching us
Fall. (This hits on the downbeat at about 2:04)
Fall.

A
C
I’m watching you.
I’m watching me.
I’m watching us
Fall. (The fall hits at 2:04 on the downbeat.)
Fall.

A
A1
A2 (ends with Last week’s alcohol.)
D (scans with the melody line from the piano accompaniment)
B
This is how it feels to fall in love.
This is how it feels to fall.
The weakness, the sadness, the sirens, the madness.
The urgency swarming in your chest,
Like you’re racing the streets in an ambulance.

C
I’m watching you.
I’m watching me.
I’m watching us
Fall.
Fall.

And imagine this last part extends. The cool thing about the way it’s built is that you can steal from the B or the C to extend it. You can take any of the individual lines or even sections of the lines from the B section or you could riff off of the word fall or just “I’m watching”.

The overall story is going to be about the sort of dance between falling for someone and going out for an evening of drinking and therefore flirting with the possibility of being with someone else and finally allowing yourself (because you’re drunk) to at least temporarily fall for that original person – not that that original person is right for you. On the contrary, he/she often is not. All the while you have this sense of impending doom – which CC so nicely represented with her ambulance. I think I made the ambulance work, by the way. Right? I’m going to talk to Brian on the phone today and see if this is something he can work from and then I’ll start tackling the verses. I’ve never built a song in this way before. It felt so epic and overwhelming when we began but now I’m beginning to wonder how I’ll fit it all in. I suppose I do have a lot of As and Aprimes to work with…

But without really adding anything, I’ve edited down the details that CC wrote that I’m interested in trying to use. The only thing I drastically changed is the part in italics. It was originally: “This is how I felt when I began falling in love with The Ex. The first time it reminded me of those moments in movies when someone’s riding in the back of an ambulance holding the hand of her boyfriend or daughter or mother. It’s that mixture of sadness and affection and urgency that was swarming in my stomach.” I don’t know know if I can get that image of the ambulance into this song as well but I’d like to. It’s a hard thing to make work in a song because each word takes on such potency - I feel like the literal-ness of an ambulance could confuse the point but if it doesn’t, then it could be coo.

Here are CC’s details:

Making assholes of ourselves.

Drunks passing by just couldn’t catch our vibe

“Let me see your fingers.”

“I like your military hair.”

You come closer and we both forget that night when I yelled.

And we both forget about the girl from home.

It was just me and you in your small twin bed, your computer humming gently against my lap.

Angry, bitter tears fill up the bottom of my eyes

Slipping a mini skirt over tights

Give me a call and we’ll find each other.

As shots are being passed around, I draft a text.

“Sorry, I’m about to go to bed. Let’s get dinner tomorrow night?”

I wanted to send it to you later tonight.

We’re drinking last week’s alcohol.

It’s warm and sears our throats on the way down.

German techno

Their voices pound against my ears.

We are stumbling, laughing.

Our cell phones keep falling out of our hands onto the wet ground.

I’m happy drunk.

We catch up, both of us holding Natty’s in our hands.

Vodka paired with any juice you can find.

No one cares.

No one will remember but her.

She uses the wall to balance herself.

CALL FROM YOU blinks up at me.

I press ignore and feel his hand on my waist.

We don’t hook up because he stopped calling.

My lips brushing against his ear

I give him my cheek when he comes in for the kiss.

The alcohol is making my brain careen from side to side against my skull.

So we could stay, have fun, be happy drunk.

She wanted to make him jealous, I think.

Prying her off the lips of the random guy once again.

But I like you, the random guy says. I fucked things up, didn’t I?

I shake my head in disbelief.

I know his name, of course.

But we’d never spoken before.

I feel my phone vibrate again.

I flip it open to see CALL FROM YOU.

This time I pick up.

Yes, it is partly because of the Smirnoff and Bacardi we drank that I’m playing connect-the-dots with the freckles on your arms and ignoring the butterflies.

The feeling makes me suffocate.

But when I finally leave your room and climb into my own bed, I cry because I know I was willing.

This is how I feel when I begin falling in love.
A mixture of sadness, affection,
Of urgency swarming.

I want you to know what you’re listening to: this isn’t what the song will be. This is the groove I’ll be listening to as I write lyrics… so the lyrics end up almost feeling like a descant above this main melody. At some point, we hope that the main motif will be sung with a lyric on it but that probably only happens once.

Take a listen. My notes so far are mostly schematic. I don’t have a plan for where the story goes yet but I’ll start to map it all out pretty soon and I’ll share this as I go.

[View post to listen to audio]