The shortest month brought me a cold this year, leaving me grumpy, tired, and out of sorts. But one thing which penetrates my gloom is an upbeat song with a driving beat, especially when it is offered up by a loved one who empathizes with its message. The song is anthemic with gospel influences.
OneRepublic has been around for a decade and hails from Colorado Springs, founded by Ryan Tedder and Zach Elkins. It once was reportedly the most successful unsigned band on the MySpace internet service and rose to prominence in 2006 with the song Apologize, although that song does little for me.
Feel Again was an early release in August 2012 ahead of their third album, Native. Proceeds from the song’s iTunes sales are going to Save the Children’s Every Beat Matters campaign to benefit health care workers in impoverished countries.
It’s been a long time coming since I’ve seen your face
I’ve been everywhere and back trying to replace
Everything that I’ve had till my feet went numb
Praying like a fool that’s been on the run
Heart still beating but it’s not working
It’s like a million dollar phone that you just can’t ring
I reach out trying to love but I feel nothing
Yeah, my heart is numb
But with you, I feel again
Yeah with you, I can feel again, yeah
(Woo hoo) I’m feeling better since you know me
I was a lonely soul but that’s the old me
It’s been a long time coming since I’ve seen your face
I’ve been everywhere and back trying to replace
Everything that I broke till my feet went numb
Praying like a fool who just shot a gun
Heart still beating but it’s not working
It’s like a hundred thousand voices that just can’t sing
I reached out trying to love but I feel nothing
Oh my heart is numb
But with you, I feel again
And with you, I can feel again
But with you (I’m feeling better since you know me)
I feel again (I was a lonely soul but that’s the old me)
Yeah with you (I’m feeling better since you know me)
I can feel again (I was a lonely soul)
Woo hoo (Woo hoo)
(I’m feeling better since you know me)
(I was a lonely soul, but that’s the old me)
(I’m feeling better since you know me)
(I was a lonely soul, but that’s the old me)
(I’m feeling better since you know me)
(I was a lonely soul, but that’s the old me)
I’m feeling better ever since you know me
I was a lonely soul but that’s the old me
A little wiser now from what you showed me
Yeah, I feel again, feel again woo hoo
I’ve given two community presentations recently about the history of the Bartlesville Public School District since 1950. In January I was with the Downtown Kiwanis Club and this past week the Arvest Friday Financial Forum, held each Friday at 10 a.m. at the Eastside Branch. You can now view my presentation as an online video.
Making the Video
I put the slides up on the web back in January using Microsoft’s SkyDrive service. Its online PowerPoint tool is actually quite good, although the stupid thing would not play back my slideshow when I saved the PowerPoint file to SkyDrive with fully embedded fonts, saying some were restricted, even though I’d downloaded them all free from the internet. Switching the Tools settings in the PowerPoint Save Dialog Box to only save used characters fixed that issue.
The slideshow is much better with narration, however, so this weekend I decided to invest the significant amount of time needed to add audio narration, background music, and convert the presentation into a video. I had purchased a Plantronics USB headset with microphone last year to record audio narration for the August 2012 bond issue video; using USB for sound recording in Windows is much easier than relying on the old analog line input on the computer.
I was displeased with the sound quality of the built-in sound recorder in PowerPoint, so I used Audacity to record audio narration, saving it as an MP3 file for each slide. That turned out to be a mistake; PowerPoint is not compatible with all of the MP3 format variants. Mind you, all of the MP3 files I created would import into PowerPoint and play within the program itself. It was when I told it to create a video that it balked (after trundling along for a very long time), saying several of them were in an incompatible format. Unclear instructions allowed me to try and convert them within PowerPoint for compatibility, but only some were converted and the remainder were reported as Unsupported.
Aaaaargh! PowerPoint has never handled imported audio and video well. All too often the files will not work at all, or work on one machine but not play on another. Even formats they claim to fully support don’t always work: witness the MP3 issues I encountered. I know there are oodles of video and audio codecs, but for goodness sake you would think PowerPoint could fully support MP3! Thankfully much patience and perseverance usually finds a work-around.
In this case I used the free Boxoft MP3 to WAV converter to rapidly convert the MP3 files into the old uncompressed WAV format which PowerPoint seems to use without fail. (Audacity will save to WAV, but it isn’t good for batch conversions.)
Then I had to delete the audio link for each slide and create a new one. If Microsoft had any intelligence, it would create a wizard that let’s you quickly attach a series of audio files to each slide in a show, pre-set to play automatically and hide the audio icon, and automatically set the time for each slide to match the length of each audio recording. But instead you have to add the audio file to each slide and then use multiple clicks to tell it to play the audio automatically on that slide and hide the audio icon. Then you have to look up the length of the audio file in seconds (I looked at each file in Windows Explorer to see that) and then use more clicks to go to Transitions and set each slide to auto-advance after the appropriate amount of time. It is SO STUPID to make me do this over and over when computers are ideally suited to such mindless automation. Maybe there is some way to automate some of this in PowerPoint, but if so, it is not obvious.
Since each set of slides covered a different decade, I wanted matching background music for each set. I didn’t want to break copyright, plus I run the risk of having my video yanked or its audio cut out if I post a video to YouTube with any copyrighted music. I have repeatedly made vacation videos in iMovie on my MacBook Air and uploaded them, only to have them flagged for copyright violations. Each time I’ve filed an appeal and won it since I was using the music built into iMovie, for which end users are fully licensed. But it is ridiculous to have to go to such lengths.
So I did web searches for “royalty free 50s music” and “public domain 50s music” and the like to find suitable background tunes from the likes of sounddogs.com and freepd.com. Then I used Audacity’s Amplify Effect to take those tracks down 20 to 30 decibels, edit them to the length I needed, and add a Fadeout Effect. I then saved the tracks as WAV files and imported them on the first PowerPoint slide for each decade, setting the audio file to “Play Over Slides” and going into the PowerPoint Animation Pane to tell it to “Start With Previous” so it would play simultaneously with that slide’s narration and then keep playing over the later slides. I also had to tweak the Animation Pane settings for overlay graphics and the like in some slides to ensure that my narration would integrate properly.
Once the whole thing was finished, I told PowerPoint to save it as a video. It trundled for over an hour and I then viewed the result. I made a few tweaks, including splicing in some new audio for one slide using Audacity, and then had it render the video again so I could upload it to YouTube.
The entire process took many hours, but admittedly is simpler than what I did back in 1995 with fellow physics teacher Lynne Shaw, creating a 35 mm slide show (a real slide show with actual slides in a Kodak carousel) with synchronized audiotape narration. Years ago I converted that presentation into PowerPoint and later made it into an online video. But if PowerPoint had a decent narration wizard, that would have saved me several hours of tedium.
I long ago gave up on the execrable Microsoft Word from ever becoming a decent word processor (long live WordPerfect!). And don’t get me started on how stupid Microsoft Excel is about not auto-updating charts to match added spreadsheet data. Now I’m wondering if PowerPoint is ever going to wise up. All of Microsoft’s Office products are both ubiquitous and mediocre. But I am glad that I was finally able to render the presentation in a more accessible and full-fledged format.
Keystone Ancient Forest (click image for slideshow)
The Keystone Ancient Forest is only accessible on the second Saturday of each month. So an overcast winter day with temperatures in the 40s found me driving Betty and John Henderson south and west 60 miles to Keystone Reservoir to the west of Sand Springs. We trekked three miles today through the crosstimbers north of the dam on the eastern shore of the lake.
We hiked in the same pattern we had last summer when we were about 10,000 feet higher in elevation at Lost Lake: John blazed the trail, I followed, and Betty often lagged far behind, a biology teacher fascinated by her subject. We soon forked off the paved Childers Trail onto the gravel and dirt Frank Trail. It had one switchback up the hillside and then crossed a clearing before plunging back into the crosstimbers.
On the way back I posed atop another stump seat and we took a short side loop for another overlook of the lake, where first the Hendersons and then I posed as a light rain began to fall. That kept us from completing the rest of the short paved Childers trail, opting to head straight back to the dry car. It was a short but enjoyable hike, and I plan to return later this year to see it when the oaks are leafed out.
I launch my 2013 Songs of the Month with another entry courtesy of Kate Strycker: Some Nights by fun. As in “fun.” the indie pop band headlined by Nate Reuss. He previously was part of The Format, and Kate gave me a selection of songs from both groups, wanting to know my preference. I haven’t made a firm choice yet, as I haven’t scrutinized the lyrics of my favorite songs. But Some Nights is a standout song from the whole group. It was also featured on one of NPR’s All Songs Considered end-of-year collections.
The song was released in June 2012 as the second single from the eponymous album. You can find many interesting reads on the song’s meanings at the often helpful songmeanings.net. Songfacts points out, “The song expresses the anguish of a young man who is a long way from home, as he lies in bed at night thinking of his family members.” And Reuss said he was inspired in part by the music from one of my favorite albums, Graceland by Paul Simon (which you can currently buy for only $3 from Amazon!).
The opening is powerfully multitracked; Les Paul would be proud. Then a tremendous drum begins beating, with a few guitar licks. The pounding percussion certainly reminds one of the later Paul Simon, whose music came to emphasize percussion over melody, something foreshadowed by Cecilia back in the Simon & Garfunkel days, which clearly influenced Some Nights.
But then it suddenly eases off and Reuss sings more sweetly, with a dash of Auto-Tune in the background. I must confess I still have a soft soft for extreme Auto-Tune fun all these many years after it first pricked my ears in Cher’s Believe. About 2/3 of the way into the song Reuss severely Auto-Tunes his main vocal to good effect.
The song is relentless, with guitars dancing around the melody and Reuss singing his heart out. He said he wrote to himself, “This will be the best song you’ve ever written.” when composing Some Nights. I think he and his co-composers lived up to that challenge.
SOME NIGHTS
Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck
Some nights, I call it a draw
Some nights, I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights, I wish they’d just fall off
But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I’m still not sure, what I stand for oh oh oh
What do I stand for? Oh what do I stand for?
Most nights, I don’t know anymore
Oh whoa, oh whoa, oh whoa oh oh
Oh whoa, oh whoa, oh whoa oh oh
This is it, boys, this is war, what are we waiting for?
Why don’t we break the rules already?
I was never one to believe the hype,
Save that for the black and white I try twice as hard and I’m half as liked,
But here they come again to jack my style
That’s all right, I found a martyr in my bed tonight
Stops my bones from wondering just who I, who I, who I am, oh who am I, mm, mm
Well some nights, I wish that this all would end
‘Cause I could use some friends for a change
And some nights, I’m scared you’ll forget me again
Some nights, I always win, I always win
But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for, oh
What do I stand for? Oh what do I stand for? Most nights, I don’t know (come on)
So this is it? I sold my soul for this?
Washed my hands of that for this?
I miss my mom and dad for this?
No. When I see stars, when I see stars, that’s all they are
When I hear songs, they sound like a swan, so come on
Oh, come on, oh, come on, oh come on!
Well that is it, guys, that is all, five minutes in and I’m bored again
Ten years of this, I’m not sure if anybody understands
This is not one for the folks at home, I’m sorry to leave, mom, I had to go
Who the fuck wants to die alone all dried up in the desert sun?
My heart is breaking for my sister and the con that she called “love”
But when I look into my nephew’s eyes,
Man you wouldn’t believe, the most amazing things, that can come from,
Some terrible nights, ah (oh whoa, oh whoa, oh whoa, oh oh)
The other night, you wouldn’t believe the dream I just had about you and me
I called you up, but we’d both agree
It’s for the best you didn’t listen
It’s for the best we get our distance, oh
It’s for the best you didn’t listen
It’s for the best we get our distance, oh
Meador Manor 