I wanted to hack the traditional form of song writing which typically consists of either collaborating with another individual - throwing ideas back and forth, etc. - or sitting alone and attempting to piece together music with lyrics. I decided to email my cousin Matt who lives in Gainesville, Georgia to see if he would write a song with me via gmail. He agreed and we began.
First, we chose a genre. Since we both aren't interested in country music, we thought it would be the perfect choice. We then decided on 100 possible words that could be used in a country song (ex. "Boy," "Mule," "Friend," "Beer," etc.), wrote them down, cut them up individually and put them into a box. I then selected a total of 40 that we had to use in the song. I sent along the words to my cousin who then responded back with a possible set of lyrics.
I did my best to accomodate what he had written with some simple acoustic guitar, re-worded part of the song to make it fit with the rhythm of the piece, and we agreed on a final song. The lyrics ended up rather bizarre, but the song still makes sense.
We created an entire persona for the band we called Bear Arms. The members of Bear Arms are Beuregard Beuford and Rodney Lang who hail from Pickens, South Carolina. The performance of the song is a "live" recording of the duo playing at the Eulet Street Bar in Pickens, SC. To create the illusion of a bar setting on the recording, I simply re-recorded my voice talking roughly nine times and layered them on top of one another. I gathered bottled and other foley items and made the sfx associated with a bar as well. The finished project turned out to be an enjoyable, albeit ridiculous, song.