Love Letters to Myself - Love List (Interlude)

This is my favorite interlude on the album. I contemplated making this song longer, by either adding more sections, or writing more lyrics that fit with the melody I already wrote. Maybe one day I will extend it, maybe not! I think it's great as it is, with a very simple but powerful message—direct focus on people that I love rather than people I... Don't love!

This one includes what my brother and I call the Little Mermaid chords, as heard in Part of Your World, written by Alan Menken. He definitely wasn't the first to write the I - I7 (V7/IV) - IV - iv chords, and he certainly won't be the last, but it's that song that I always think of when I hear these chords, even with my own music.

I perhaps unsurprisingly sang this one somewhat out of the blue one day while eating lunch. The original recording picked up the sound of my fork scraping the compostable salad bowl as I poked around my lunch and sang.

One thing I'm particularly proud of with this album, and just in general, is my ability to write and sing in any key. While I do have my favorite keys (Eb is #1, and after that would probably be D), all of these songs stayed in the same key that I first played or sang them in.

Love List is in Ab major, with lots of Ab & Db chords—fun plagal cadences! I first recorded this song and posted it on Instagram a few days after I wrote it. In the video, I am constantly looking back and forth between my hands and the door across the room. It's not that was reading the music or words, or even really needed to look at what I was playing... I was still too shy at that point to look directly at the camera as I sang. I'm proud of myself for the progress I've made over the last couple years in being able to look at the camera while playing and singing.

This was also one of the first songs I wrote that I embraced the "effort sounds", and even tried a bit to emphasize them. I liked how my voice kinda cracks in "I don't wanna keep track of all" and the little grunts after "I just want" and "I'll focus on". Those extra bits of personality don't come through when I'm singing more quietly or in a reserved way.

—

I never liked the word "shit list"

I'd rather just have a "love list"

I don't wanna keep track of all

The people I think have wronged me

I just want to be

Happy with my life

So I'll focus on

The people I love and who love me!