In such a game, there is always an endless supply of environmentally generated mobs – that is, a computer-controlled, enemy creature. In New York, these are the squirrels, the rats, and the pigeons. Oh, the pigeons. Some have the classic grey and black coloring with the iridescent neck, some are lighter, and sometimes, you get that rare, jet-black, evil-looking pigeon with one red eye and scarred talons. Growing up in the city, I have always thought of pigeons as rats with wings.

But I have had a change of heart. You see, in recent years, I have developed a tender relationship with another bird in the Columbidae family (of which pigeons, or rock doves, are also a member). I am speaking, of course, of the mourning dove.

(lovely amazing animated video by Granger Willson)

To understand this, we must go back nearly three years, to June 10th, 2023. I was in Chicago, opening for ROSIE on my first real tour. My great-uncle had died a year before, and his gravestone dedication was that day. We had a show that night (at Subterranean, I think?), but my plan was to go to his grave and then play the show. I was staying at my grandparents’ house, which in the middle of June was a balmy 80 degrees inside, so I had opened the window in the middle of the night to cool off. I awoke at 6am to a banging inside the bedroom: a mourning dove had flown in through the open window! After snapping a quick picture, I grabbed the bird and tossed it back out the window.

Later that day, I stopped by Chicago Music Exchange to check out some of their guitars. The very first guitar I saw was a Gibson Dove. I got a text from someone in the crew, telling me to find a diner near the venue that we could go to. I Googled “diners near me,” and the very first diner I saw was Dove’s Luncheonette.

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I do not normally believe in signs, or angels numbers, or any of that kind of hocus pocus, but I could not deny that on June 10th, something was in the air. Some people believe that a mourning dove is a sign from a loved one who has passed away – who was I to deny that when I had felt it so clearly?

A few days later, I got a tattoo of the same mourning dove that had flown in through the bedroom window at my grandparents’ house.

Whew! What a preamble. All that just so I can ramble on about the complex inner workings of “Mourning Dove” to the few that will read this far?

And yet, if you’ve made it this far, then let me extend a warm hand of fraternity to you. I do enjoy writing these and you make it worth it.

Writing Mourning Dove

The song began, as many of mine do, with a nice guitar part and a good bit of mumbling. And something very cool happened while I was recording!

May 5th, 2025

If you go to 0:54, you can hear a pause in my playing, followed by the faint sound of a mourning dove cooing outside my window. I had noticed a mated pair of doves a few weeks before, doing their little dance and ruffling each other’s feathers. I think that was rattling around in my head before I heard the coo. Then, skip to 1:37 to hear me ramble, “a mourning dove outside my blah blah blah.” It’s always nice to have a concrete example of where the inspiration comes from.

I had been (and still am) listening to a lot of Adrienne Lenker. Specifically, her song “Anything,” which is chock full of beautiful imagery and internal rhymes. She walks a delicate balance of meandering lyricism that still feels so tight and satisfying. Using this as my jumping off point, I began to meander myself.

Verse 1 almost

In the second stanza of that you can hear some of those internal rhymes and repetition come through: best, best, obsessively, pressed to me.

In the Theo Kandel Songwriting School of Thought, we generally believe that a prechorus should be more than just a lead-in to the chorus. Rather, it should move and prepare you for what comes next, either with momentum or a lack thereof. A change of rhythm or cadence can always be helpful, or a completely new melody, or a completely new chord structure. The prechorus of “Mourning Dove” does all of this, but I had to work at it to get there. Here’s a recording of that:

Prechorus (figuring it out)

The chorus is repetitive, and I think that works well for the kind of song it is – yearning and circular, hammering the same point home again and again. This is a nice voice memo of me exploring that:

Chorus (figuring it out)

Verse 1 (done), prechorus (moan), chorus (moan)

A Quick Aside

Here’s a little backstory on the 8 1/2 part of the first verse.
Grace and I decided to go see a movie at Film Forum in the West Village, as we are both cultured and inquisitive people. They show real films there, man. She had heard that Fellini’s 8 1/2 was a great movie, maybe one of the best of all time, and Film Forum was screening it in 35mm (wow!), so we went, our cultured hearts all aflutter with anticipation. We were informed the following information when we arrived:

Very cool! Very authentic! So we watched the movie, surrounded by the most enthusiastic cinephiles that New York City had to offer. The crowd laughed and gasped, the theater filledwith oohs and ahs at Fellini’s masterpiece, his chef d’oeuvre. Grace and I were disappointed. The “15%” of the text that was supposed to be unreadable seemed more like 40%, and neither of us speak Italian. I will not get into my philosophy on movies (which centers around the assumption that there were no good movies before 1992 – that’s for another, more insufferable Substack post), but I will say that either I am an uncultured swine, or the movie was bad. Please leave your feedback in the comments.

Back to the song, please

So, armed with my lyrical wit and my newly discovered, soaring vocal melodies, I wrote the song – double first verse, chorus, second verse, chorus. But I knew something was missing! Not a bridge – no, this song did not need one. Not only was it already long enough, but it did not need that cinematic, dramatic turn that many of my bridges often take.

I knew it needed a double final chorus, but one that changed and built on the momentum that already thrummed through the song. It wasn’t until I went into the studio to record the song that I figured it out.

You can peruse my thoughts and rambles from my notebook below.

Recording Mourning Dove

This needed to be a simple recording. It is a simple song, despite the efforts I have gone through in this post to highlight the details. I recorded it, as I did much of this album (and Eating & Drinking & Being in Love) at Grand Street Recording in Williamsburg. Great place; lovely time. I laid down the acoustic guitar twice, and we doubled and panned ‘em. For inquisitive guitar people, it was recorded on a Gibson J-45 that Grand Street has in house. Easy lead vocal – had to keep it raw and intimate. After I got home from the studio, I knew it needed a little more juice. That second guitar part, the almost harp-like one, was recorded on this really cool 1940s Gretsch Jumbo that I had strung Nashville style (lower 4 strings an octave up). Then I added some tasteful, yet epic harmonies.

I then called upon my stringmaster and great friend Shaan Ramaprasad to record strings for the song (Shaan also did strings on “Romanticizing Poets”). I wanted it to be romantic and classic, rising in intensity as the song does. Aaaaand lo and behold: Shaan delivered, just as he always does.

Joe Ulmer mixed the song (and the whole album). It was mastered by Oscar Zambrano.

Reading Comprehension & Discussion Questions

1. This installment of “Digging Deep” comes three full weeks after the song’s release – do you think that T. Kandel is filled with a deep guilt for this blatant and despicable procrastination?

2. Despite his eloquent words to the contrary, do you really believe that T. Kandel no longer believes that pigeons are “rats with wings”? What is your local mob in your day to day life?

3. If you have seen the movie 8 1/2, did you like it? Why, then, might you be wrong?

“Right This Time,” the first single off of this second album (title to be disclosed at a further date) is out now. It is different; it is familiar. And quite frankly, it was not a labor of love, but was conceived and executed (mostly) in one day. This is much like the birth of Athena, in which she springs, fully formed and fully armed, from the head of Zeus. That’s a pretty good analogy, considering I am fully armed and armored in the music video for the song (watch below).

Writing Right This Time

I wrote “Right This Time” with Mickey Brandolino on May 2nd, 2024. We’d met in person the week before (after an extended friendship on social media, of course), and he was renting a studio in East Hollywood. It was a few months after Mk.gee released Two Star & the Dream Police, and like all musicians at the time, we were obsessed with figuring out his guitar tone. Mickey had a tape machine at the studio, and we decided to mic an acoustic guitar and simultaneously run it through the tape machine into the computer. The tone we ended up with was something akin to Fleetwood Mac’s “Never Going Back Again” – a slight chorus with subtle saturation. We tuned the guitar a full step down and then drop D (essentially drop C in a D-standard tuning), and we were cooking. The riff just flowed out of me. Mickey was noodling around as well and came up with the sweet descending post-chorus riff.

*note: when I refer to chords from here on out, I’ll be pretending like we are in standard drop D tuning, so don’t get all confused when I refer to a C as a D*

The verses felt like they fell into our laps, chock full of colloquialisms and snippets of conversation. Struggling with how to be better in a relationship than the last one, trying to cherish the present (yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that’s why it is called the present, thank you Master Oogway).

When it came time to write the bridge (we had skipped over the chorus because of our ~flow state~), we wanted a vibe shift, both musically and lyrically. When writing in drop D, it is easy to get lost in the 1 chord (D, D, D, D), hammering it in because it rings so well. By reworking the post-chorus riff, we were able to transition to the flat 7, major 7 chord (Cmaj7, but of course with the guitar tuned down it’s actually Bbmaj7). You guys know I love Simon & Garfunkel, and if you are a particularly meticulous reader of this Substack you will perhaps remember how the song “America” influenced the bridge of “Flight to JFK.” S&G influence again in “Right This Time!” In “Homeward Bound,” Paul sings, “I’m sitting in a railway station/ Got a ticket for my destination.” In “America,” he sings, “‘Kathy,’ I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh/ ‘Michigan seems like a dream to me now.’” So simple, so easy. You’re sitting right there with him. In “Right This Time,” I sing, “At the subway station/ For the northbound train/ I turn and say ‘Oh Grace, I think I feel insane.’” That’s nice stuff, I think.

*day of creation bridge voice memo*

The chorus was tough. It needed to be epic. It needed to be concise. It needed to be memorable. We tried for a while to get the melody. We eventually got it. I got a voice memo from the 5 minutes where we workshopped it back and forth. We get SO close in this recording, but clearly still had a bit to go.

*getting SO close to the chorus*

After actually finishing the first chorus, we decided it would be cool to extend the chorus each time it happens, adding to the overall build of the instrumentation. And boom! The song was done.

Recording Right This Time

The great part about working with a writer/producer like Mickey is that by the end of that session, we had basically finished the production of the song. The chorus-y acoustic, the nylon layering (done by Mickey), the bass, and a few more layers of acoustic were all done that day. A couple weeks later, I laid down the string parts (yes, violin was my first instrument), and we kinda put the project on hold for a few months.

It took me two separate days to nail the vocals for this song in the studio. Did we make it extremely difficult to sing by putting the song in C and writing the melody that we did? Yes. Do I regret it? Uh, yeah, kinda. But ya know what? It’s too god damn late for that. And I like how it sounds. Unfortunately I will likely never be able to sing it in its original key live. Whatever.

I had the idea to put some drums in as we were finishing up – found a nice Splice sample and sent it to Mickey. He recreated the sample with real drums, and now we’ve got a groovy song.

Joe Ulmer, who plays drums when I play with a band, mixed the song (and the whole album!).

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. This particular deep dive is pretty short compared to the other ones. Do you think T. Kandel grows weary of digging deep?

2. Hmm, the verse melody does sound a lot like Mk.gee’s “Are You Looking Up” (actually accidental). Do you think anyone will actually notice? Do you think T. Kandel will get sued? Do you think anyone cares enough to give him grief about it?

3. What direction do you think T. Kandel is going with this new album???

Today, my great friend, collaborator, and friendly neighborhood giant Wingtip (née Nick Perloff-Giles) has released his new album, Luckyman. This magnificent project is the culmination of months of work, and I am so very proud that it is out in the world.

Some Deep (and Probably Unnecessary) Backstory

*if you don’t want the backstory, skip down to the part where I highlight each song from the album*

I first met Nick in the summer of 2021, right after I moved to Los Angeles. Wingtip had been on my “fans also like” tab of my Spotify page for a few months (this was back when I was more “pop” oriented lol), so I was familiar with his work. One day, I came across a viral tweet of his that made me laugh out loud:

Seeing my in, I hit him with a dm saying “nice tweet, blah blah, would love to meet up when I move to LA, blah blah.” He responded with affirmation (rare in the unsolicited dm game). So, we met up in LA. Sparks flew! We talked and laughed and made music. He ended up producing my song “Half as Cool.”

Months later, he invited me to a session with a producer he knew. This was Jack Kleinick (who ended up producing all of Eating & Drinking & Being in Love). The Theo + Jack Love Story is for another time, though. That day, and in subsequent days, we made some sweet new Wingtip music (check out the song “Talk” and the EP Laughter from the Other Room). But we all knew it was just the tip of the iceberg.

In July of 2024, Nick hit me and Jack up and told us he was putting together a team – a special team. A HEIST. A heist to steal the hearts and souls of old fans and new in an effort to make the best album of all time. He also brought in Bren Chamberlain-Simon, a literal rocket scientist/wonderful musician and songwriter (check out Proud Father).

Nick rented an Airbnb in Malibu for one weekend, and the goal was to make as many songs as humanly possible. And by god, by gosh, by golly, we fucking did it. I’m not going to go into the process of each song, but I will give you a quick elevator pitch of each song on the album.

LUCKYMAN

1. Luckyman (Intro)

   Okay, I actually didn’t work on this track. But it’s cool and ambient and rips.

2. Luckyman

   In my mind, this has some early Coldplay vibes to it. Damn, things seem like they suck, but take a step back, man. Life can be good! You might have everything you need right at your fingertips!

3. You, Me, and the Flood

   Energy, baby! New love – what a beautiful thing that is. There’s a new sea rising up! It’s us: we are the flood.

4. Satellites

   This one is low key my favorite from the album right now, but hey! I’m not picking favorites. Japanese House vibes? When you really zoom out, our little Earthly problems are nothing in the grand scheme of the universe. But maybe that makes them all the more special.

5. Ugly

   Petty break up song? Nah, there’s some nuance to it. I wish you all the best, blah blah blah, but I’m actually working on myself and I’m living my best life. Talking Heads vibes. This one feels good.

6. Borderline

   Okay, now this one is giving The 1975, but like if they were doper and sicker. I’m scared to say “I Love You” because it’s scary, man! But that’s the beauty of it. I’m thinking ahead now, and it’s daunting but awesome.

7. Brite Spot

   You get drunk with your friends and have an epic night. You wake up hungover and you know just the cure: a diner. When has that not solved all your problems? And ya know what? It’s only Saturday morning. Let’s have a whole ass day and night. Weekend with your friends! Good times with the boys in LA!

8. Think About

   Oh, quiet moments of peace and love. Acoustic song (Theo loves Acoustic Song). Tender Wingtip. :’-)

9. Bloodstream

   This is like if “When My Time Comes” by Dawes had a baby with, uh, another song that is equally awesome. Theo rips a guitar solo on this one! I’m addicted to your love, baby. Your love is a drug to me! I want it mainlined right into my veins.

10. Love is Such a Stupid Feeling

    Love is not only a “stupid funny limbo,” but also “such a stupid feeling.” Love is dumb – love makes you stupid – love makes you spin around in your room like an idiot.

Some Parting Words

I wrote this post in the hopes that you would be so inspired by my words as to go stuff your ears with Wingtip’s new album. But before you go, let me get real for a second. I am ashamed to admit that I do sometimes take for granted that I am able to make music with my friends and call it a job. The pay is shit, the hours are unpredictable, and there is no real HR department. But it is in moments like these, listening through a project that is the culmination of years of friendship, that I realize how special this life can be. I’m so proud of Nick, and Jack, and Bren, and myself. I truly am… lucky, man.

Love,

teaky

I whipped up a little tutorial for “Leroy’s Song” because it would make my day to hear you guys singing this song and tickling those strings just like I do.

I do have an admission, though. At first, I was like, damn, I really don’t want to have to transcribe these licks into tabs, it’ll take so long, etc. so much to my chagrin, I tried to have ChatGPT do it. Yuck! I know! But in the spirit of full honesty that is this Substack page, I have decided to reveal my transgression to you. In the end though, Chat couldn’t do it anyway. I was very pleased that Chat couldn’t do it.

So I ended up doing the tabs myself, and uploaded them, along with the correct chords, to Ultimate Guitar (both the bane and boon of any musician). But I was hit with another roadblock!

The NERVE. “Simplified duplicate” my ass. But fret not – this is a happy story. I kept pushing back and ultimately my tab was approved. Thank god. Here’s the link to that so you can follow along with the video, or use on its own if you don’t wanna hear me yap.

That’s all for now. Happy Labor Day.

Love,

Teaky

One of my friends texted me the other day and asked what I do when I have writer’s block. I hadn’t really thought about it before – usually, when I can’t finish a song, or find myself at a creative impasse, I bang my head against the wall and drink 4-7 beers. I’ll tell you right now, though, that doesn’t often work. In the last few weeks, however, I’ve been absolutely cranking on some new tunes, flowing from my cranium like wine at the Roman Bacchanalia of old. Why does it happen like this, in spurts? ‘Tis no muse from which songs course through me – I do not believe in such divine forms of inspiration (although maybe it would help me if I did). It is more pedestrian. I have come to realize that creativity begets creativity; that is, when I am making, I make more as a result.

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I told my friend, perhaps retrospectively, that when I have writer’s block I try to start as many songs as I can. Each song acts as a kind of grease, a lubrication for the machinations of my mind. The wheels spin; the gears turn; the pulleys and levers do their pulleying and levering. And through this process, I am able to either complete the project I was working on, or create something better.

Such was the case for the writing process of “Stupid Funny Limbo.” It may surprise you that the song is over two and a half years old. It may delight you (if you truly are a fan of mine) that it was written in the same week as “Flight to JFK,” and in the same month as the rewritten version of “What if it all works out in the end?.” When it rains, it pours!

Writing Stupid Funny Limbo

“Stupid Funny Limbo” began, as many of my songs do, with a little fingerpicking and a pinch of mumbling:

nyc, 08.29.2022

I’m not going to get into the details of my romantic life, but suffice it to say that I was in love, unsure of how it would turn out (long distance), and bursting with situational details to add to my songs.

With a rough verse melody down, I moved on to the chorus. This 4 minute voice recording is all rambles, so skip it if you want, but listen if you’re interested to hear me say “no!” again and again.

nyc, 08.31.2022, part 1

A few minutes later, I locked in at least part of the chorus melody:

nyc, 08.31.2022, part 2

The end of the chorus was tricky, but maybe only tricky because of my inclination to make songs more complicated than they need to be. This next recording shows the structure of the verse moving into the prechorus (still lyricless, but the melody formed), and then the chorus, which still isn’t quite there:

connecticut, 09.05.2022

I really enjoy the melody of the prechorus. The minor 5 chord in there, if my memory serves, was taken from “Elegy,” where it is ubiquitous. Maybe too ubiquitous, maybe beating it over the head. This time, I had a little more tact.

Okay – onward! This next recording comes a week later, once I was back in Los Angeles. You’ll notice that the verse is all there, and the prechorus is almost done. “Love is a stupid thing in limbo,” I say. I hadn’t cracked the code yet!

The chorus is pretty much done, except for a really dumb “for me” at the end, which obviously changes to “for us.” The second half of the chorus benefits from my enormous Harry Potter fixation. If you, dear reader, recognized some similarities between the line “circumstance can wreck the best laid plans” in this song and Voldemort’s fire quote from Deathly Hallows “I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best laid plans,” then you deserve a prize. If you didn’t notice, then whatever.

los angeles, 09.13.2022

The rest of the lyrics of the song came together nicely, using my real life. Yeah.

Here’s the first full song recording I did, which is from the next day in Los Angeles. I use the second prechorus as a pseudo bridge. That changes in the final version.

stupid funny limbo rough 9.14.2022

Once the song was done, it sat waiting, expectant. It was on the shortlist of songs to make the album, but with time, I lost interest in it. I made a few demos that layered a bunch of acoustic instruments, and even got my friend Shaan to do a little string arrangement, but nothing was hitting. Argh! Nothing I did could really capture the essence of the song. So there it sat, collecting dust.

And then: eureka! I was brainstorming the songs for Somewhere Along the Trail, Vol. 2, and from the shadows of my private demo playlists, I caught a flash, a gleam of something bright. Renewed again was my love for the song, and revisiting it two years later made it seem all the more fresh.

Recording Stupid Funny Limbo

I will get much deeper into the recording process when I write my post on Somewhere Along the Trail, Vol. 2, which is slated for release on June 13th, but for now I’ll just say that like Volume 1, we aimed to capture the sound and feel of being in the room with me as I sing these songs. I headed into the studio with my buddy Michael, and with two mics, one camera (courtesy of Lou Palacios), and yer boy, we managed to do just that.

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. How does T. Kandel, in his words, break writer’s block?

2. What “unexpected” chord is featured in the prechoruses? Do you think it does anything interesting for the song, or is T. Kandel just flexing his musical theory knowledge?

3. What other songs do you think will be on Somewhere Along the Trail, Vol. 2?

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The Preamble

There seems to be a kind of societal preoccupation with not growing up. Hold onto your childish whimsy, your steadfast sense of wonder, your wildest dreams! I would call it a Disney-ification of childhood, but that would limit its scope. There is a vast subculture (perhaps subculture is the wrong word, but whatever) of infantilism on The Internet – parts of it dark and pedophilic, other parts simply cringe – and whether it’s someone cosplaying a favorite animated character of their youth or another heinous TikTok song using an interpolation of a nursery rhyme, it makes me think that we’ve taken this whole Neverland thing too far.

But maybe I’m being too harsh. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it,” to quote the original Peter & Wendy by J.M. Barrie. Perhaps it is better to keep on believing you can fly. That’s not what rubs me the wrong way, though – it’s this commercialization of childhood, sold to adults, that feels icky. An insidious form of escapism, to be verbose; a bombardment of nostalgia-based marketing techniques. Don’t you remember when things were better? it seems to ask, while you’re mid-binge of a television show you’ve seen dozens of times under a weighted blanket just to feel less anxious.

This is a roundabout way for me to start talking about “Romanticizing Poets,” which exists within the context of all in which it lives and what came before it. I see RP as the logical progression of songs in my catalog like “Older Now” and “Half as Cool.” In both of those songs I basically just whine about getting older, how I still feel like a kid, yadda yadda. I wrote “Older Now” when I was 22 and “Half as Cool” when I was 23, so I think that checks out. Post-college blues, unsure of myself as a musician, lost in my own existential contemplations of the universe. I am not immune to the retrospective! “Romanticizing Poets,” written right before turning 27, takes a different approach (we will get there, I promise).

Birthdays are perfect catalysts for these feelings to resurface; in this, I am sure I’m not alone. In your early twenties, there’s a fixation on being young and staying young, and the dreaded 25th feels like death (“Now every birthday feels like dying” - see What if it all works out in the end?). The only salve at 25 is knowing you can rent a car.

However, when I turned 26 (that devilish, dirty double baker’s dozen of an age), I found myself finally, unexpectedly, feeling comfortable in my own skin. There are perhaps many reasons for this, but at risk of this post becoming a psychological self-assessment rather than an analysis of my music, I’ll move on. Of course, the idea of turning 30 is still horrifying, but not so much as it used to be.

Writing Romanticizing Poets (The Music)

Grace and I took a trip to France in late August/early September of 2023, and that’s where the song is set. I’m obviously a big fan of real, concrete imagery in songs (see my Digging Deep: Flight to JFK post for some more context on that), so I decided to pack this song full of some of the most distinct moments from our trip. Raining at the Sacre Coeur, rolling our own cigarettes, playing rummy at the same cafe every day we were in Aix-en-Provence, willow trees on the bank of the Seine, etc.

But before I put pen to paper, I first put finger to string! The verse melody and guitar part of this song came through my classic mumbling technique:

10/16/23 verse ideation

I clearly didn’t have the ending of the verse nailed down yet, but in my notes app I had the song idea written: romanticizing poets. You can hear it come together a bit more in this next one:

10/16/23 verse locking in

In my stumbling and mumbling, I attempted to figure out a chorus. Indeed, often in my nebulous grasping for a song, I fall back on my tried and true techniques. I’ll show you what I came up with at first, but be warned: this song did not end up having a chorus! More on that next.

10/16/23 fumbling for a chorus that never quite emerged

This song, with the refrain “oh I’m romanticizing poets again” already in place, was starting to feel like a classic kind of song. Why tarnish that with a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus template? Why not instead exercise my vast songwriting knowledge and pick a different template! Enter the verse/refrain/verse/refrain/bridge/verse/refrain, seen often in jazz standards. In my own interpretation of these kind of songs, the verses explore an idea and cap it off with the grand refrain. Then the bridge expands on that idea, maybe tosses in a tentative explanation. Okay Theo, let’s run with that.

10/16/23 bridge idea interesting!

If these Digging Deep posts have been interesting to you at all, then I think you’ll have appreciated the meandering nature of that last voice note. Some of the pieces are there, but it’s wilder, untamed. Just needed a little pruning. I really had written the music of this song before the words – not unheard of for me, but definitely different.

Now let’s discuss the lyrics.

Writing Romanticizing Poets (The Lyrics)

As I mentioned above, I wanted this song to be chock full of poignant moments from our France trip. But that’s more or less a guise under which I was hoping to develop the idea of “romanticizing poets.” Please allow me to ramble for a second.

You are probably familiar with the “27 Club,” a so-called list of musicians, writers, and artists who all died at the age of 27, in the prime of their lives and careers. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse are some of the big names on the list. The “white lighter curse” goes hand in hand with the 27 Club idea – allegedly a number of these artists had a white BIC lighter in their pockets when they died (a theory debunked by historical fact). The whole thing has been sensationalized, mythologized to the point of legend. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself. What I think is damaging is the celebration of the destructive habits that many of these people engaged in. We have created a fiction around these godlike creative figures. See “too bright, how they burned.”

Too many people (myself included) have exalted these stories as legends while forgetting the very real people with very real issues behind them. I’ve always wondered if my music would be better if I was more tortured, more troubled, more mystical. (Shoutout Vincent Van Gogh, shoutout Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.) I use so much of my own life in my songs that I often feel like I’m fictionalizing it, and I don’t want to lose the humanity of it all in my journey for success. See “tragedy to fiction to a trite mythology.”

It goes beyond the 27 Club, though. Elvis is a good example of the sanitization of a musical hero, and of course that kind of list goes on and on. We often whitewash the more unsavory parts of a person’s life to keep them on a pedestal that we’ve posthumously constructed, and that does as much damage as forgetting them in the first place. See “an inconvenient contradiction, a neat mythology.”

So yeah. I think that all came together pretty well in the song. The writing process for this one took precisely one week, from October 16th to October 23rd, 2023.

10/23/23 first full, rough recording I took of the song

Recording Romanticizing Poets

It’s always a daunting process to try to record a song that I wrote so cleanly and clearly with just an acoustic guitar. How do you translate the dynamics of a live performance? How do you retain the emotionality of the song while making it sound better than the voice recording?

Jack Kleinick (album producer) and I struggled with this at first. I wanted to do a simple live recording, no click, just me and a guitar. Jack allowed it, and the very last day of recording at Grand Street in Brooklyn, at the buzzer, I did a take that I thought was absolute money. Turns out I was too drunk on the High Lifes and Jack Daniels to realize I was playing it incredibly slowly. I am literally laughing out loud listening to the plodding tempo. Here it is, in all its glory:

11/20/23, the drunk and languorous take

Okay, back to the drawing board. I had enjoyed borrowing the studio’s Gibson J-45 – it had a nice deep and woody quality, and as the song requires the guitar to be tuned down a whole step, it really resonated. Most of the guitars I own are smaller, concert sized, so they project well but often lack the low end that a dreadnought can provide. Once we got back to LA, I called up my friend Sam and asked if I could borrow his Gibson Hummingbird (previously mentioned in Digging Deep #8: Nothing New). At Jack’s home studio (a recurring theme of the album recording process), I recorded it again in one take, no click. Et voila! C’était parfait.

Parfait for the moment, I should say, but not quite fini. The song needed a bit more jeuje, a je ne sais quoi. And then it hit me. Strings! It is called “Romanticizing Poets,” after all. I hit up my friend Shaan Ramaprasad, the best strings guy I know, and told him I wanted “something spooky.” Just kidding. I told him I wanted something grand and romantic, and that is just what he did. It’s a simple recording for a simple song.

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. Do you think that T. Kandel actually believes in the stance he takes in The Preamble, or was he just feeling particularly bitter the day he wrote this?

2. What’s your favorite line in “Romanticizing Poets”?

3. Were you able to discern T. Kandel’s lyric scribbles in his notebook? Should he work on his handwriting?

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But enough of the preamble! You are here, I hope, to immerse yourself in my wondrous, arcane creative process, and for that, I will happily oblige you. Today, we are discussing “Nothing New,” which has quickly become a fan favorite on the album. I always hoped it would be – with the James Taylor style guitar, the sweet and sappy lyrics, and the subtle (yet intriguing) production, it was bound to reel some people in.

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The Writing Process

Although “Nothing New” may sound like a quintessentially “solo-written” Theo song, it was, in fact, a cowrite. I’ve mentioned cowriting in a previous Digging Deep post, and it continues to surprise me how the writing process can change each time I do it with someone different. I guess it shouldn’t really be surprising, but whatever. I’m a sucker for the music!

I wrote “Nothing New” in LA on February 4th, 2023 with my friend Sam Varga, a talented songwriter and artist that I (think) I met in Nashville when I was living there. I’m not sure if I had started to think about the new songs I was writing as part of Eating & Drinking & Being in Love, but something was definitely ruminating in there. I go through phases of enjoying different chord shapes; at this time, I was playing around in D. You can visit my Nothing New tutorial for more details on this, but I had just learned “You Can Close Your Eyes” by James Taylor, and like so many James Taylor songs, he noodles around in D. It’s pretty versatile and fun to craft some delicious riffs with.

Sam and I talked about the classic love song trope of “everything feels so new with you/blah blah blah/the sunrise looks different/yadda yadda yadda” and how it would be nice to turn it on its head a bit. Mumbling a chorus melody brought us here:

chorus melody ish (too close to 49 Winchester) with chorus ending

I had also been listening a ton to the song “Russell County Line” by 49 Winchester, and this melody is essentially a full rip off of that. Still, there are elements of the final song in there. If you listen at 0:39, you can hear me completely write off what Sam says about what actually ends up as the hook of the song. lol.

This next voice note is really interesting (to me at least, and to those of you that like this sort of thing). Sure, it’s almost 7 minutes long, but if you listen through, you can really hear the song take shape. I’m not usually recording for this long when I write (normally after the fact), so it’s a nice taste of the actual mumble ––> melody ––> lyrics process. I’ll include some time stamps so you can skip around.

figuring out verse melody, lyrics, chorus melody, lyrics

(0:00 - 0:56) - verse melody mumbling, with a few of the right words/phrasing

(0:56 - 1:10) - chorus melody mumbling (too close to 49 Winchester still)

(1:10 - 2:57) - lightbulb moment for Theo! unfortunately nothing good just rumination

(2:57 - 6:43) - figuring out chorus lyrics + melody, still rough. highlight at 3:46 where we come up with the first line of the chorus

chorus melody rough

This one is just ironing out chorus melody with lyrics. Things are still a bit shaky here, but they’re taking shape.

prechorus mumbling & rambling

It’s all about the mumbles, baby! When people ask me if I write the lyrics or melody first, I tell ‘em that often I just mumble until something falls into place. This is one such instance, and you can hear hints of John Denver in here. One of my favorite John Denver songs is “Poems, Prayers & Promises,” and this song is certainly chock full of Denver idiosyncrasies as well.

By the end of the day we had the song. Here’s the rough full take we did that day. A few things to note: the second verse has a prechorus that ends up being a bridge of sorts in the final version, and the riff isn’t ironed out yet.

rough full before switching prechorus

A few weeks later, I continued to smooth out the song. The first riff iteration I came up with is cool, but I realized it sounded way too much like Allison Ponthier’s “Faking My Own Death” (which is a super awesome song). If you don’t know Allison’s music, then go check it out – her songs are great, and her visuals are insane. Sometimes my strokes of inspiration are just me unconsciously copying someone else.

riff that sounds too much like faking my own death

The next day, I fixed the riff, which, as we all know, is gorgeous and beautiful and totally unique.

phone demo when it was all done

The Recording Process

Recording such a pure, fingerpicking song can be a daunting task if you decide to forego the easy path of doing it live acoustic. How do you produce it tastefully? How do you retain the dynamic quality of the song while beefing it up in the right places? These are questions that Jack Kleinick (producer) and I grappled with when we were figuring this one out.

We started by recording the fingerpicked guitar at Grand Street Recording on a Gibson J-45 that they have there. We ended up scrapping that guitar take. It’s definitely a sweet acoustic guitar, but it didn’t have the clarity in the higher frequencies that we wanted to really highlight the fingerpicking. A few months later, we re-recorded it in Jack’s home studio in LA on my friend Sam’s Gibson Hummingbird. Way better diction on that guitar.

Back to the November recording sessions, though. When we were at the old Hit Factory studio (long story I can’t remember if I’ve told you before), Michael (Andrew) started noodling around on his vintage Yamaha CP70. It’s basically an electric piano that they developed in the 70s to emulate the sound and feel of a real piano while being small enough to bring on tour (although it’s not that small). Michael laid down some Bruce Hornsby (ish) parts, and that’s when I started to feel the real meat of the song.

Michael (the noodler) Andrew tickling those keys

We let the song sit for a few months, and in that time, I experimented a bit with some layered guitar parts for a postchorus riff. These ideas ended up becoming the riff that you hear in the song itself! There was still something missing, though. I wanted a mandolin-type texture on that riff, but my mandolin is shit and sounded awful when I tried to record it. Jack’s girlfriend, Madeline (a great artist herself) has this cool South American(?) stringed instrument that worked perfectly. I can’t remember what it’s called, but I think it’s something like a cittern. It looks kinda like this:

All in all, the final effort was mainly about balancing each element we added to the song without compromising the songwriting. I think we did a pretty good job.

Finally, I just wanted to include in here a funny little recap video I took after I got home from the final night of recording the album in November. Enjoy!

Reading Comprehension Questions/Things to Think About

1. What are some of T. Kandel’s main songwriting influences for this song?

2. Should T. Kandel diversify his reading to include more than just sci-fi/fantasy? Do YOU have any recommendations?

3. What is your favorite song on the album?

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With THAT out of the way, let’s learn how to play Nothing New. I’ve done a short video on how to play the intro/interlude riff, so I’ll put that below, but I’ll also give you a written part so I can ramble even more.

In addition, I’m running a cover contest this week for two lucky winners to receive an exclusive bowling shirt. Pretty cool stuff. Information below.

The Chords

I’m sure it goes without saying, but chords are the meat and potatoes of guitar playing. Let me rephrase (because I’m realizing how dumb that actually sounded): being smart about your fingerings AND being attentive to the transitions between chords can help you a lot when it comes to fingerpicking. My high school guitar teacher, Len, taught me many things about the folk guitar, but one of the most important lessons was about anchor fingers. That’s how you get smooth, baby.

I’ll show you all the chord shapes I’m using throughout the song before we begin. Spoiler, it’s just D, G, A, Bm(ish), and the occasional Em7 and D/F#.

Note: every chord here except for the A7 uses the ring finger on the third fret of the B string – this allows you to use that as an anchor finger to get smooth and fluid with it.

The RIFF

This is the hardest part of the song for sure. Obviously, I am a big James Taylor fan, so you can find a lot of his idiosyncrasies as a guitarist scattered throughout my guitar parts. Nothing New is definitely the one where it comes through the most. He plays most of his songs in D (or with a capo in D), which allows for a nice range of ornamentation with the different chords used.

Here is the tab for the intro/interlude riff:

The key to this is keeping the motion fluid, getting that creamy feel on the guitar. The hammer ons/pull offs are essential to that motion. Remember your anchor fingers! Take this one slow, piece by piece, and feel free to use the video above to help you get through it.

Chords (With Lyrics)

You can find the Ultimate Guitar chords/tabs (which I also edited lol) here. For your convenience, I’ve added them below as well. Listen through with the song to hear when the Bm walks down! Simply lift your index finger up. Also, listen in the end of the chorus for the G walk down to the Em.

    D                G
The first time I got drunk,
      A7                  Bm    Bm/A    G
Henry swapped his parents vodka with some water,
       D             A7      A7sus4  A7
We got wasted on the street,
D                G
Maybe six months later,
      A7               Bm        Bm/A    G
Met a girl, she let me date her, broke my heart,
         A7            D  Dsus2 D
Made a romantic out of me.
 
 
       G       A7    Bm
Well I gave it all a try,
      D             G
I got low and I got high,
      D              G            A7  A7sus4 A7
And I swear I almost died outside Seattle,
          G         A7   Bm
I met you somewhere in between,
   D               G
My useless liberal arts degree,
    D                 G               A7  A7sus4 A7
And switching out the Spirits for the Camels.
 

            G
Well I know one day I will find,
             A7
That nothing happens for the first time,
         D                                  G  Gadd9  G
And this world ain’t got surprises left for me,
         G
When the coffee tastes the same,
       A7
And my bones ache when it rains,
          D               G
And I got no tricks up my sleeve,
        D             G
And I’m all I’ll ever be,
     D/F#     Em              D/F#                G   A7*
Well it won’t matter when one day there’s nothing new,
         D
If I got you. 
 
[Interlude]
 
    D                  G
The first time that we kissed,
    A7               Bm        Bm/A  G
I admit it was complicated and kinda   dangerous,
       D                   A7   A7sus4  A7
Do you think that played a part,
    D                  G
And somewhere down the line,
        A7              Bm
Tequila shots turn into red wine,
    Bm/A      G
And we’re still killing bottles,
A7       A7sus4    D  Dsus2 D
Laughing ‘bout the start.


            G
Well I know one day I will find,
            A7
That nothing happens for the first time,
         D                                  G  Gadd9  G
And this world ain’t got surprises left for me,
         G
When the coffee tastes the same,
       A7
And my bones ache when it rains,
          D               G
And I got no tricks up my sleeve,
        D             G
And I’m all I’ll ever be,
     D/F#     Em              D/F#                G   A7*
Well it won’t matter when one day there’s nothing new,
         D  
If I got you.
 
[Interlude]
 
        G       A7    Bm
Well we give it all a try,
       D                G
We get drunk and we get high,
           D             G               A7  A7sus2 A7
And we get hit on by the swingers at the dive bar,
          G         A7   Bm
I met you somewhere in between,
    D              G
New York and Tennessee,
      D                   G              A7 A7sus4 A7
And I know that this will work if I play my part.
 
 
       G
I know one day I will find,
             A7
That nothing happens for the first time,
         D                                  G  Gadd9  G
And this world ain’t got surprises left for me,
         G
When the coffee tastes the same,
       A7
And my bones ache when it rains,
          D               G
And I got no tricks up my sleeve,
        D             G
And I’m all I’ll ever be,
   D/F#     Em              D/F#                G
Oh it won’t matter when one day there’s nothing new,
            Em              D/F#                G
Oh it won’t matter when one day there’s nothing new,
            Em*             D/F#*               G*   A7*
Oh it won’t matter when one day there’s nothing new,
         D   Dsus2 D
If I got you.

The End

That’s it! Feel free to comment here or message me on socials if you want some more help with it. Tag me when you post your covers!

Love,

Teaky

I used to think that honeydew was the problem child – the runt of the fruit litter. Seeing as I had only had honeydew in the context of a fruit salad (fruit salads suck anyway), this makes sense. In a fruit salad, chopped, old honeydew oozes its watery flavor and corrupts the other fruits. But this is not the honeydew’s fault! Maybe we can blame The Wiggles for it. 

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My mind was changed in August of 2015, when I was working on a farm. I had woken up around 5am to do farm shit (feeding Big Poppa, the enormous pig, scattering grain in the chicken coop, fixing the fencing around the vegetable garden), and around lunch time, Tom, the owner of the farm, asked me if I wanted some melon. I came inside and gorged myself on the most beautiful, juicy, crunchy, summer honeydew you could imagine. Juice dripping down my chin, I vowed never to disparage the good name of honeydew again.

And here we are! Today, “Honeydew Moon” is out in the world, all 2 minutes and 49 seconds of its deliciousness delivered right to your ears. Here’s the story of it all:

Some Context

In late August of 2023, Grace and I took a trip to France. We spent a few days in Paris, which is cool and all, but the real gem is the south. Provence, baby! After Paris, we stayed in Nice for three days and then Aix-en Provence for another three. I studied abroad in Aix-en-Provence for a semester in college – it may be the best little city in the world. 

We made full use of the plethora (I was an English major) of farmer’s markets during our trip, bringing the food we got to courtyards, gardens, and, most importantly, beaches. Grace likes a good piece of fruit. Now that I’m a grown ass adult, so do I.

One night, we had dinner next to the water in Villefranche-sur-Mer, a small town in the French Riviera. I think the restaurant was called La Mère Germaine – super good seafood. As we ate, the sun set, and behold: the moon rose! A crescent moon, just like a nice slice of melon. 

Writing the Song

About a week after that trip, I was back in Los Angeles, doing a session with my friend Garrett Nash (gnash – awesome artist/songwriter/producer). The album writing process was in full swing, and I had already decided on the title: Eating & Drinking & Being in Love. Don’t worry, there will be much more written about the album process later on. We talked about my trip to France, we talked about the future, we talked about life and love and food and drink. I think he actually had the title “Honeydew Moon” written down already, which aligned perfectly with everything else. 

I had been listening to a lot of Big Thief at the time (I usually am) and it’s always been interesting to me how they blend a fingerpicked acoustic guitar with the band. I think my gut reaction a lot of the time is to strum an acoustic guitar when there are drums in the equation. Not this time! 

I started with a guitar part reminiscent of Jackson C. Frank’s “Blues Run the Game,” and from there mumbled out a rough melody. 

verse noodling - 9.12.2023

We went for a nice yodeling kind of chorus – essentially a two line chorus hanging on the “honeydew moon” line. I was thinking about that lovely dinner Grace and I had in Villefranche, and the deep, inky blue sky pierced by the moon. Innnnnnnky blue, baby. 

chorus noodling - 9.12.2023

With such a short chorus, we knew we wanted a bridge of some kind. It ended up becoming more of a one-time pre chorus, similar to what happens in Counting Crows’ “Accidentally in Love.” (It’s the part where they go “these lines of lightning mean we’re never alone NEVER ALONE NO NO” and then the song gets so hype). Here are a few minutes of us trying to figure out what the heck to say!

bridge noodling - 9.12.2023

Here’s the demo from that first day – not too far off from what the song became, which is cool. If you’re gonna get demo-itis, then why not stick with what you got?

demo from 9.12.2023

Oh whoops! I’m forgetting one thing. After listening to the demo, I realized the song was only 2 minutes and 4 seconds long. I don’t know about you, but I think songs have gotten too short in this day and age. Of course, it’s the opposite of movies – movies have gotten WAY too long – but as a lil folk singer, I cannot abide a short song. How did ya get everything ya wanted to say in there?

Recording the Song

Like all the other songs on the album (coming out September 20th!), we recorded basically everything in a four day stretch in November in NYC. Jack Kleinick, my eternal boy, produced the album (with me co-producing, but that’s splitting hairs). We split our studio time between Grand Street Recording and the former location of the historic Hit Factory. Joe Ulmer, my dude, knocked out the drums on the first day – we wanted them to sound a bit sloppy, laid back, full of fills and other lovely pitter patters. I added in a shaker (one of my specialties) and something called “goat toes.” That’s exactly what it sounds like – it’s a bunch of goat toes tied together, and when you toss ‘em up and catch ‘em, they sound real nice and crunchy. Here are a few clips from that day:

goat toes at Grand Street Recording

shaker at Grand Street Recording

cool screen thing idk what it is, Grand Street Recording

We decided to add some xylophone to the end of the song, which you can hear faintly in the recording. Here’s that!

The vocals were all recorded at the Hit Factory – I tried to keep it loose, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone singing and standing as stiff as I am in this video:

Of course, we had my buddy Andre Vasconcelos toss some tasteful distorted electric guitar in there too, which really brought the song alive. 

All in all, I’m really happy with how this one turned out. It’s kind of the perfect mix of my folk fingerpicking style and the more rock-y, live sound we aimed for. 

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. What is T. Kandel’s favorite French city, a city he calls “the best little city in the world”?

2. Do you like fruit salad? Why or why not?

3. Are you enjoying the new direction T. Kandel’s music is headed?

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We may be painting every day (woohoohoo), but today, “The Painters” is finally out in the world. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time – in fact, “The Painters” was written well over a year ago, on May 3rd, 2023. The process for a song like this (a very special song, a song that I hope will truly launch my career) is arduous, to say the least. And it is my self-proclaimed job to explain that process to you, here on my Substack, so buckle up, tie your shoes, and wipe your nose, because baby, that starts right now.

If you like what you see, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. I put a lot of work into this stuff, whether you like it or not, but it’s a great way to directly support a lil guy such as myself. 

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Writing the Song

In my previous deep dives, I’ve discussed my songwriting process in great depth, but I’ve realized that all of those songs were written alone. There’s a whole other side of my process that happens when I write with other people, or as we like to call it in the industry, cowriting. If writing alone is a leisurely canoe ride, floating down the river and admiring the way the trees shift in the wind, then cowriting is a two person jet ski, full throttling through the rapids. I enjoy cowriting. Sure, I can write a hell of a fingerpicking folk song on my own, but when I’ve gotta write a banger, there’s no better way than to bring in another set of ears. 

On May 3rd, 2023, I headed out to Pasadena (I think Pasadena, maybe somewhere around there) for a session with Josh Zegan, who I had never written with before. It’s always interesting to write with someone for the first time – you don’t really know their style or process, and figuring that out can take up a nice chunk of time. Josh has a sweet little studio room in his house, and we were quickly on the same page as to what kind of song we wanted to write. I came in with brilliant ideas like, “I want to write a banger,” and “I want to write a good song.” This is not enough information. Going through influences, we decided to try something that had the feel of a great classic rock song (Jackson Browne, The Eagles) but with a distinctively modern feel.

I had a guitar riff that I had been noodling around on for a few days, so we started with that, adding in the “woohoohoo” that you, my lovely people, love to sing with me. We cut the riff, but the “woohoohoos” remained. 

5/3/2023 riff + woohoohoo

We started with the chorus. After a few attempts, we found a melody that was energetic, repetitive, and just felt good. We worked through it – the nice thing about cowriting is that you can really push through to find something great. Some of these voice memos have the exact moments where we figured out something that actually went into the final song.

5/3/2023 beginning chorus

5/3/2023 figuring out chorus

5/3/2023 working chorus

Okay, verse time. A lot of the songwriting process for this song was mumbles – without a super clear idea of what we were actually writing about, it was easier to just let the ol’ throat fly free and see what popped out. I do that often when I write. Sometimes words just come outta nowhere! Of course, I had been listening to a lot of The 1975, so my instinct was a rhythmic melody with a bunch of words jumbled in. It took a few passes, but eventually we nailed it.

5/3/2023 verse melody idea

5/3/2023 verse metropolitan

5/3/2023 working verse

The prechorus of the song is arguably one of the most important parts. It builds, it drives, it brings you to that sweet release of the chorus. Starting it off on the major 2 chord (whoa, crazy for Theo to use a major 2!), it took a bit of work to bring it around. But it was worth it! Listen below to hear it all come together.

5/3/2023 figuring out prechorus

5/3/2023 verse, pre, chorus

5/3/2023 day of work tape

Making the Demo

As long as I’m showing you the writing process of the song, I might as well show you the nitty gritty of the recording process as well. It always starts with a demo, and I made this demo in my bedroom a few days after writing the song. It starts with the driving beat that we wrote the song to:

demo drums

I remember sitting in my room and thinking, Man, the woohoohoos are good, but what if there was a killer guitar riff as well? So that’s just what I did. Granted, the wah effect I used in the demo was weird as fuck, but it got the idea across:

demo riff

From there, I whipped up a sweet little bass line, added some Nashville guitars, harmonies, etc., and I had myself a demo. Here it is, in its entirety:

5/16/2023 demo

Playing it Live

There were about six months between making the demo and actually recording the song in the studio. During those six months, I played “The Painters” with my band a lot, and that completely changed the recording process (which I only learned later on). It’s usually the other way around – the song gets written, the song gets recorded, the song gets played – but this time, we had half a year of live experience under our belts. We knew how the song ebbed and flowed, and for once, I didn’t have to come up with all the electric guitar parts myself. I left that to Andre Vasconcelos, my guitar player, who is quite literally the best guitarist I’ve ever played with. Joe Ulmer, my drummer, came up with drum parts that I could never imagine. And we had a great time doing it!

August 2023, live at Levitt Pavillion

Recording the Song

It’s hard to talk about the recording process for this song without talking about the entire album recording process (yes, there’s an album coming in September), but for the sake of this post, I’ll do my best. Jack Kleinick (my producer) and I knew we’d have a tight window of recording – four days in New York in November 2023 – so we had to make sure the preproduction process was as thorough as possible. That meant doing the final demo so well that once we were in the studio, the pieces fell into place like a puzzle. 

We started our recording journey with a day at Grand Street Recording, a wonderful studio in Brooklyn, aided by the fastest recording engineer I’ve ever seen. His name is Jake Lummus (like hummus, but with an L). Over the next four days, we split time between Grand Street and the former location of the historic Hit Factory (where countless artists made some of the best records of all time). Long story, but basically my buddy Michael Andrew has the hookup there, and he engineered, played bass, and tossed some keys + synth on a few of the songs we recorded. 

I won’t bore you with the actual recording process (although what the heck else am I doing here?), but I’ll give you an overview of the instruments recorded and who played them.

Acoustic Guitar: doubled/quadrupled in some places, recorded by ME

Electric Guitar: recorded by Andre Vasconcelos, slay

Drums: recorded by Joe Ulmer

Bass: recorded by Michael Andrew

Background Vocals (harmonies, yeah yeah yeahs): William McNamara, Daniel Williamson, Dillon Davey, Gavin Becker, Austin Lyons, Grace Runnels, Greta Kandel

Engineered by Jake Lummus, Michael Andrew, and Jack Kleinick

Produced & Mixed by Jack Kleinick

Mastered by Adam Grover

Finally, here’s a lovely little video I cut together of the recording process. 

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. What, in your opinion, is the best lyric in “The Painters”?

2. How does T. Kandel describe the difference between writing solo and cowriting?

3. What kind of foods and beverages do you expect to see on T. Kandel’s upcoming album Eating & Drinking & Being in Love?

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Tune guitar to Open D (DADF#AD), and slap that capo on the 3rd fret.

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There I go again, waxing poetic on a Friday. That’s not what the people are here for, Theo! They’re here to read about your process, baby, if they’re really here at all. So that is what I will give you. But be warned – not only am I here to wax poetic, but eloquent as well. I am feeling quite languorous today and rather verbose in my spewage. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then scoot up your chair and lock in. If not, then be on your merry way, loser.

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On Life Songs

To understand “On My Mind,” you must first understand a specific type of song that I like to call “life songs.” These songs do not necessarily have to encompass the entirety of a lifetime (though they often do), nor do the choruses have to change each time (but the best ones will). They do have to give you that overwhelming, full-body-chills feeling that comes with a greater understanding of the world and your place within it. For the purposes of this post, let’s focus on two of the best ones ever: “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell and “A Little Bit of Everything” by Dawes.

“Both Sides Now” is probably the best song ever written. It is timeless, heart-wrenchingly beautiful, and above all, it makes you consider how the passage of time can affect your universal consciousness. Each verse and chorus follows the same structure, but the scope expands – from clouds, to love, to life. Clouds are both “ice cream castles in the air” and “in my way”; love is both “the dizzy dancing way you feel” and “just another show.” And LIFE (all caps LIFE)? Life is “tears and fears and feeling proud” and “dreams and schemes and circus crowds”; life is your old friends telling you you’ve changed, and why shouldn’t they? Have clouds changed? Has love? Of course not – you have. Looking at everything and saying “I really don’t know [blank] at all” is accepting that childish uncertainty and rejecting that foolish adult confidence. It is welcoming these “illusions” as part of a greater whole, something both utterly incomprehensible and yet deeply ingrained in our bones. “Both Sides Now” is a perfect song because it makes you feel everything without giving you the instructions. God, I’m heated just thinking about it. 

“A Little Bit of Everything” is one of those songs that grows as you do. Dawes is that kind of band as well (I actually had a Twitter thread in college along the lines of: “Dawes fans be like”). Like “Both Sides Now,” the scope of the song expands and shifts as you listen to it, and each time Taylor Goldsmith sings “a little bit of everything,” it means something different. The first verse focuses on a man contemplating suicide, anchored by the repetition of “it’s the [something], it’s the [insert heartbreaking line].” This is where I initially got the idea to do a similar thing in “On My Mind” (it’s the…, it’s the…). 

The second verse moves to an older man at a buffet, recalling all the hard times in his life, but still “smiling and … holding out his plate.” He wants “a little bit of everything,” the bad and the good, “the biscuits and the beans.” The third verse and chorus make me tear up every single goddamn time I listen! A girl is planning her wedding, and she explains to her fiancé that what they have is so much more than “some stupid little ring.” It’s “the way you joke, the way you ache”; it’s “a little bit of everything.” The song shifts into juxtaposition, with “the matador and the bull,” “the suggested daily dosage,” and “the red moon when it’s full.” It is everything – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and all the more beautiful for it. 

A few years ago (2019, maybe?), I tried writing a life song of my own. I had just graduated college and I guess I thought I knew what the world was about. That song is called “Older Now,” and you can listen to it by clicking here. It’s not a bad song – in fact, it may even be a decent song – but it has a softness to it, no bite. Someone actually told me after a show that it sounded like I had written it to please my parents. Oof! That one stuck with me. The song moves through three somewhat different choruses, exploring 1) friendship, 2) family, and 3) myself. So what did it lack? Specificity, that wily, slippery beast that eludes even the greatest writers at times.

Writing On My Mind

Fast forward to June of 2023. I had been listening a lot to “A Long December” by Counting Crows (another song that evolves) and I was obsessed with both the rambling lyrics and the infectious “nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah” repeated hook at the end of the chorus. It was time to let myself ramble! In these two voice notes, you can hear me come up with what ended up becoming the intro guitar riff to “On My Mind” and attempting to figure out a post-chorus repetition.

6/27/2023 intro riff?

6/27/2023 hook mumbling

Often, writing a song can feel like making a sculpture out of marble. You start with a big ol’ block of stone, and only by chiseling away can you begin to see the shape within. I think some famous sculptor has a quote about this – something along the lines of “the figure is already inside the marble, it’s my job to reveal it” – but I can’t remember. Anyway, somewhere in my mumbles and mutters, I began to carve out the chorus to “On My Mind.” It began with the word “hospital,” and from there it was a logical next step to my grandma in the hospital (sadly, it’s been quite a year of that). There’s something futile in visiting a loved one in the hospital, but not so futile that you don’t do it. It’s the very act of making the effort that makes it worth your while. There! That was the linchpin, something to grab onto. Here are a few unabridged voice memos – if you are actually interested, you can listen all the way through, but basically I slowly hone in on what I’m trying to say. 

7/5/2023 figuring out chorus

7/5/2023 keep figuring out chorus

7/5/2023 please continue figuring out chorus

7/5/2023 he’s figuring out the chorus!

That chorus ended up becoming the 2nd chorus of the song, and only after finishing that chorus did I realize I was finally writing the life song that I had always wanted to write. By that logic, the first verse had to start with childhood. I had to figure out what I was trying to figure out back then – the whole song is just me figuring out what I needed to figure out, and figuring out how to fit all that figuring out into the lyrics. Eek. Terribly convoluted.

7/18/2023 early verse 1 + chorus 1, post chorus working

7/18/2023 verse 1 shaky, chorus 1 decent, post-chorus eh

I had opened for ROSIE on her Healing Tour in June of 2023 (if you don’t know ROSIE, you should – she’s dope, and her whole team is awesome), and we ended up staying at the same line of hotels the entire tour. Every day (ish), we’d wake up, drive 6-8 hours, do a show, then sleep in a hotel that looked almost exactly like the one from the night before. Some even had the same exact artwork. I popped an edible one night and came to this realization (Truman Show kind of moment). I wrote in my journal: “Same hotel, different town,” which of course ended up becoming “Different city, same hotel” (in verse 2 of “On My Mind”). In these three voice memos, you can hear me reasoning it out, and eventually locking in the 2nd verse. 

7/18/2023 verse 2 rough

7/20/2023 verse 2 solid

I came up with the entirety of the third verse on a car ride, a cappella. A cappella, baby! Maybe this is a nice time to mention I was in the Vanderbilt Melodores in college, an absolutely electric, all-male a cappella group. You can look us up on YouTube. But yeah, I wrote that puppy in total silence. I wanted the song to move through an entire lifetime, so if the first verse is childhood and the second is early adulthood, then the third should reflect some kind of wisdom. That’s what comes from the struggle (I hope!) – the maturation of a life well lived and knowing that you gave it your best shot.

7/23/2023 verse 3 good

The third chorus was the hardest part – how do you encapsulate everything you’ve tried to express? I played around with a bunch of different options, but in the end, it was the simple things that stuck (duh, I should have learned my lesson earlier). It was nice to add a nod to the first verse with “throwing out your arm to get that last strike in your final game.” Et voila! The song was done. 

Wrapping Up

I’m really, extraordinarily proud of this song. I put my whole Thussy into it (I’m sorry). I’m not so vain as to put it on nearly the same caliber as my favorite life songs, but if I’m lucky, it’ll stick with you for a good long while. Stay tuned this week for a deep dive into the recording process and production. Until then, stay golden, ponyboy.

 Reading Comprehension Group Discussion Questions

1. T. Kandel mentions “life songs” as a beloved archetype, and uses “Both Sides Now” and “A Little Bit of Everything” as examples. What are some other examples of life songs that you can think of?

2. Do you like T. Kandel’s “Older Now”? Why or why not?

3. Do you like melted butter on toasted bread?

4. Has this Substack gotten out of control???

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Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business. I have brought you here to discuss the making of “Flight to JFK,” which seems to be everyone’s favorite song of mine (according to the data, at least). Good! I like the song a lot too. It brings me a lot of joy to see so many people connecting with it in their own lives. I even saw a father-son duo cover it on TikTok: tears!

If you like what you see, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. I’m going to start posting exclusive paid subscriber content soon, and you don’t wanna miss that.

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Writing the Song

The “Flight to JFK” journey began on September 21st, 2022. A bright, lovely morning in Los Angeles. I was sitting on the porch, noodling around one of my guitars (a 1966 Gibson LG-1 – not in great condition, but it’s got a boxy, intimate sound that works well for some fingerpicking. I love the late 60s Gibsons with their thinner necks). One of my roommates (Graham) came out and asked me how I write songs. I probably gave him some pretentious, nebulous answer, like “It’s always different, man, I really just feel it out. Maybe something like…” And I played a little C shape walkdown.

Before we get any further, let me clear something up. I know that the guitar part in “Flight to JFK” sounds like “These Days” by Jackson Browne (but really more like the Nico version). A few days earlier, I had been listening to “Part Of The Band” by The 1975, in which the chorus does a fingerpicked walkdown. I remember thinking, Hmm, there are so many walkdowns in so many songs – Jackson Browne does it in “These Days,” Billy Joel does it in “Piano Man,” Fleetwood Mac does it in “Landslide.” I really should get me one of these walkdown songs. That chord progression had been rattling around in my head. I’ve seen your comments on TikTok, furious that my song should share the same chords as another. It’s not a big deal, babes. To quote one of my favorite movies, Inside Llewyn Davis, “If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.” Or let me go a step further – Pablo Picasso famously said, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” I’m a thief! Sue me!

At any rate (one of my Grandpa’s favorite phrases), I began messing around with that walkdown, mumbling ideas as I went. “So you see, Graham, I can just mutter and hum until I find something I like.” And find something I like I did! Here’s a voice memo from that day, where you can clearly hear me sounding it out.

walkdown noodling/mumbling 9/21/2022

Rough as hell, but that’s the way it always starts. I let that puppy sit for a day, and when I picked up my guitar again, the words flowed like Guinness from a tap at an Irish pub on St. Patty’s Day. Apologies for that simile – not a good one.

half verse with lyrics 9/22/2022

full verse with lyrics 9/22/2022

Up until I wrote “Flight to JFK,” I’d never really written a happy love song. It’s harder to do than you would think, unless you’re a songwriter, in which case you probably already know. If I had a Theo’s Guide to Songwriting (not yet!), I would say that you have to keep the right balance between cheesy and specific (the two extremes of the love song axis). Too cheesy, and it becomes too general for anyone to latch onto. Too specific, and no one cares – why would they? One song I always turn to for detailed lyric writing is “America” by Simon & Garfunkel. There are some insane lines:

"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh/"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"

She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy/I said "Be careful his bowtie is really a camera"

"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"/"We smoked the last one an hour ago"

That’s my lyrical base camp. You can see bits and pieces of it poking through in JFK. Let’s keep that in mind as we continue on. I wrote a little chorus that bounced around a similar chord progression, and while I was stoked about it at first, I ended up ditching it. Here are a few passes of that:

initial chorus idea 9/22/2022

initial chorus full 9/25/2022

Listening back now, it’s clearly not the vibe. Who am I, some stomp clap buffoon wearing suspenders in the 2010s?? And yet, there is always something to be gleaned from the process itself, if not the result. The final line of the initial chorus, “I’m coming home for the weekend,” hit on something a bit more transitory. Every love song has to have a bit of tension for it to remain interesting, and in this case, it took the form of my sporadic trips back to New York City to see Grace. It was never quite enough time, but it was always worth it. There are no direct flights from Los Angeles to Laguardia Airport, and I would rather die than fly into Newark (rah, rah New York, boo Jersey), so every time I flew, I’d fly into JFK. Aha!

real chorus 9/27/2022

Now, the second verse. O Paul Simon, what would you do? We’ve situated ourselves in New York, so let’s lean into it. Picking through some very specific memories, I cobbled together a cozy winter day. 

second verse 10/27/2022

Mmhmm, delicious. At this point, I was really excited about the song, and when I get excited about a song that I’m working on, I play it again and again until I can’t stand it anymore. Probably shouldn’t do that, I suppose. I ended up shelving the song for a few months – I call that “Bridge Anxiety.” Self-explanatory, but it’s basically when I write a song that I like a lot but know it needs a bridge, and I’m too scared to write one that could ruin it. So the song sat, collecting dust and cobwebs, until one day I said ENOUGH! and picked it back up. That day was December 22nd, 2022, according to my voice memos.

I started off with the wrong idea. A quiet, contemplative song needs a big bridge, right? A lot of the time I seek juxtaposition in my songs – a lower melody in the verse leads to a higher melody in the chorus, specific verse lyrics lead to more general chorus lyrics, etc. It works, but sometimes you gotta let the song tell you what it wants, man. I knew I wanted to keep the song situated in New York, and a particular afternoon spent at the Guggenheim Museum seemed like the right setting. Here are a few passes – each one gets a bit closer to the correct bridge, but none of them quite hit right.

Jfk bridge idea 1 12/22/2022

Jfk bridge idea 2 12/22/2022

Jfk bridge idea 3 12/22/2022

Jfk bridge idea 4 (still wrong) 12/22/2022

The last one has the right ending (“You always find a way to sing along”), but I still felt foolish stretching my voice like that in a song that sits so sweetly within my range. I knew there was something in that A minor chromatic walkdown I kept doing, so I decided to stretch it out and sing a bit lower. “Saturday” was the word that stuck first – maybe I was thinking of “Saturday/In the park/I think it was the 4th of July” (Chicago!). Here are those mumbles:

Jfk bridge (correct idea, still working) 12/22/2022

A few weeks, a couple tweaks, and some nice chordal turnarounds later, and I did it! Wow! Finally! 

Jfk bridge final! 1/8/2023

Recording the Song

The recording process is usually different for every song I write – each song requires its own treatment. Like I said before, the song usually tells you what it wants, and I think that’s the best way to do it justice. You can’t force it! “Flight to JFK” is a simple song with a simple message. After my previous EP, What if it all works out in the end? I was a bit lost in the production world. What kind of music was I trying to make? Why did I feel the need to swaddle my folk songs in layers of production? Why was I writing pop songs, when all I’ve ever wanted to be was a folk musician? There’s a balance to be struck between the songwriting and production, to be sure, but I wanted a fresh start. JFK needed nothing but a guitar and my vocals, just as I wrote it, with no ostentatious ornamentation. 

In January of 2023, I headed into Studio G in Brooklyn to attempt just that. That’s how I recorded all of Somewhere Along the Trail, Vol. 1 (and a few more songs that I never ended up putting out). You know how the rest goes – check out the video below.

Flight to JFK (Alt Version) with Evan Honer

I almost forgot! That’s not the end of the story. If you’re here, hopefully you already know who Evan Honer is (singer-songwriter extraordinaire). Evan and I had traded a few DMs back and forth over the course of a couple months, and I knew he dug “Flight to JFK.” With a bunch of new music coming in 2024, I wanted to give the people something to tide them over in the meantime, so I hit him up and asked if he’d want to record a new version of JFK with me. It all came together over the course of a week: he came to LA, we headed into Jack Kleinick’s little home studio, and quickly figured out a nice arrangement for us. Again, we recorded it the way we would play it – live, one take, raw. 

Wrapping Up

Well, that’s all for this one, folks. I hope you enjoyed this extremely deep dive into a song that I will cherish for the rest of my career.

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Reading Comprehension Group Discussion Questions

1. What is it about late 1960s Gibson acoustic guitars that T. Kandel likes the most?

2. T. Kandel mentions a few of his favorite songs that use a C-shape walkdown. Can you name 3 other songs that use a similar chord progression?

3. T. Kandel claims that every good love song sits on an axis between “cheesy” and “specific.” Do you think that “Flight to JFK” strikes a good balance? Provide 3 lines to back up your point.

4. Is it better to live in blissful ignorance or painful reality?

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The Writing of Lunch

Some songs take an afternoon to write. Some can even take a few minutes! There’s a beautiful, transient quality to those songs, as if you’re plucking a leaf from the air as it spirals to the ground. “Lunch” was not one of those songs; in fact, it took the better part of the winter of 2022 and the spring of 2023 to write. In retrospect, the process was a bit like a video game, each section unlocking for me in levels. XP boost!

The earliest voice memo I have is from December 2nd, 2022. I was about to head to Santa Barbara for my friend’s birthday weekend, and I remember sitting at my desk, floating a meandering melody over a driving, fingerpicked guitar part. The line I kept repeating was: “Do I know you/Have I always.” It’s that feeling you get when you’re with someone you love and you just can’t believe there was a time in your life that you didn’t know them. Did you always know them? Did you always love them?

Here’s that voice memo:

12/02/2022 (verse idea)

Pretty much nothing at that point, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. Wrangled a nice little pre-chorus melody and got that down as well:

12/02/2022 (prechorus idea)

I returned from my debaucherous weekend by the pool and got right back to work. I wanted a chorus melody that floated higher than the verses (I sometimes subscribe to a very basic but reliable songwriting structure: low melody verse, higher melody pre, highest melody chorus). The tentative hook for the chorus: “The road keeps rolling on.”

12/04/2022 (chorus molding)

At this point you’re probably thinking: man, that sounds nothing like Lunch. wtf is that prechorus and disney-ass chorus melody?? And you’d be right. In fact, I wrote this song to completion (chill, ok) before realizing I didn’t really like it. And although I am a reluctant (but consistent) Broadway fan, I don’t want my songs to sound like Dear Evan Hansen (which I saw twice and cried at both times). I’ll toss a few of those voice memos below so you can listen if you like, but no worries if you skip ahead.

12/04/2022 (verse + pre + chorus ideas)

12/05/2022 (verse locking in, pre molding, chorus molding)

12/12/2022 (verse locked, pre working, chorus close)

12/12/2022 (verse locked, pre working, chorus working)

02/15/2023 (all locked or so i thought)

For a lot of my songs, I come up with a guitar part and vocal melody first, fitting in the lyrics afterwards. Other times, the music and lyrics just come together like a nice leftover egg scramble. This one was the former, and if I’m being honest, it often doesn’t work out for the former. 

I let the song sit for a few months until April, simmering on a back burner of my mind. I was back in New York (parents’ apartment) and noodling around on this shitty old flat top guitar that I got in high school (and have since put a rubber bridge on), when lo and behold! I was struck by inspiration. I had recently read Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems, and found his poem “Steps” particularly striking. 

“oh god it’s wonderful/to get out of bed/and drink too much coffee/and smoke too many cigarettes/and love you so much.”

Strumming in 5/4, putting those words to melody, I unwittingly unlocked the song. You can hear the moment I first started putting it all together, bringing back the old verse I had loved so much.

04/21/2023 (figuring out lunch chorus, stumbling across the old verse)

A few weeks later, and this time, you can hear it with conviction!

05/02/2023 (putting the verse in 5/4 with conviction)

Yeah, now that sounds good. Later that day (back in Los Angeles), I showed the idea to Jack Kleinick, my wonderful producer and friend. “We gotta get this down, dude,” Jack said immediately. And so we did. 

The Production of Lunch

Jack and I had been talking for a while about the kind of sound we wanted to make together. I am a sucker for the music of the 60s and 70s, an old soul, if you will (blech), and Jack loves making fresh, new sounds. The sonic crux of this song, and the project as a whole, lies in our desire to make something that pays homage to the music our parents grew up on while also sounding like nothing that has ever been made before. How do you do that? By fucking around, of course. 

I laid down the acoustic, 5/4 strumming pattern on my nylon string guitar, which I had tuned to open C and put a piece of rubber on over the bridge saddle. It was basically a slightly more resonant, sustained rubber bridge guitar. But it still sounded thin. I remembered seeing a video of my buddy Chris Lanzon (fantastic songwriter and musician), in which he describes layering the regular acoustic guitar with two more takes of strumming using a paintbrush. We tried it out, and the results were magical. The paintbrush strum is subtle, but adds an almost percussive element, like a super light brush pattern on a snare drum. Et voila! The foundation was laid down, and everyone knows the house don’t fall if the bones are good.

From there, we added the banjo riff using a similar rubber technique and layering it with Jack’s Rhodes keyboard. The bridge came together serendipitously as well – I discovered when I was writing “Elegy,” one of my older songs, that in an open tuning, I could use the minor 5 chord to function kind of like the flat 7 chord. That’s what gives it that almost haunting quality, and paired with a few layers of drone harmonies and some subtle drums, we had ourselves a really interesting section. 

The first day I sang the demo vocals I was recovering from a brief illness and had lost my voice. I had to sing it softly (which I tell myself to do more but never really do), and my voice cracked a few times. But what a lovely vocal texture! When it came down to recording the actual vocals, I tried to emulate what I had done before. Emotion, baby! We used Jack’s Aston Origin microphone (great mic, only $200-$250) on basically everything, and while I don’t know the minutiae of what Jack does to produce my vocals, I do know that we try to keep it as genuine, warm, and authentic as possible. 

Wrapping Up

Well, that’s all for this one, folks. I hope you enjoyed the first installment of the Digging Deep series. Now that you know all about how Lunch was made, go eat some for yourself.

Reading Comprehension Group Discussion Questions

1. T. Kandel’s use of 5/4 meter serves what purpose in conveying the emotions in this song?

2. In this post, T. Kandel refers to his different processes of writing songs. How do you think he wrote songs like “Flight to JFK” and “Me & All My Friends Have Got the Blues”?

3. Is T. Kandel’s Substack actually interesting, or is it more of a self-indulgent vanity project?

4. What would you like to see more of on The 7–10 Split?

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