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And my 45th favorite song of all-time is:
“Two-Fifty” by Chris Walla
Chris Walla is the absolute genius guitar player and indie rock producer who is the lead guitarist for Death Cab for Cutie, and who produces such heavy hitters as The Decemberists and Tegan & Sara. He has released one solo album, Field Manual, and “Two-Fifty” is the standout track on it. It is a song about how the Industrial Revolution has altered the role of the individual in society. That’s right. That’s what it’s about. But it is a tender, reflective, subtle song, that more mourns for a loss of what once was, than is enraged by the inevitability of what has become. The video below is a video I made and put on YouTube because it wasn’t on there any other way (and still isn’t)…the video includes the lyrics, which are crucial. PS aren’t I clever, using the famous photo of a child worker in the Industrial Revolution before child labor laws, as the background for my video? PSS I realize this song, which uses a video I put on YouTube myself, comes right after “Easy Money”, another video I put on YouTube myself, but it is just coincidence.
As I was laboriously and tediously uploading yet another pretentious video to YouTube this morning, I thought for the first time in a long time to take stock of how many folks have viewed my large and eclectic library of uploads. Turns out, there’s not many surprises. Most of my videos don’t get seen more than the few dozen times they get clicked on when I initially post and “advertise” them on social media. But a select few have gained some traction and are being seen by strangers on at least a semi-regular basis. Now, most of these “successful” videos are music-related and of interest to only the target audience. And it’s pretty easy to get views this way. Some of them I knew would be of use to a fan base, because I made them because I personally noticed their absence on YouTube. But a few of these were genuine surprises. Here they are, in ascending order:
1. “Two-Fifty” by Chris Walla
Views: 1,021
By far my favorite song by the lead guitarist of Death Cab for Cutie’s solo work, I slapped this little video together when I noticed almost none of his solo songs were on YouTube. If you dig it (or are curious about my photograph selection) sit tight…it just might be making an appearance soon on my 100 Songs list.
2. “Black Friday in Erie”
Views: 1,178
This was one of the two larger surprises for me. But history has taught me one thing: videos with the word “Black Friday” and a specific town in them are recipes for getting hits from searches.
3. “Knot Comes Loose” by My Morning Jacket
Views: 1,316
I knew exactly what I was doing when I chose this song to record at this concert. You may have guessed that I am the type of man who watches A LOT of video of his favorite bands performing live. So I just happened to know that there was ZERO video of My Morning Jacket playing “Knot Comes Loose”, as far as I knew, anywhere on the internet. That is because it is a very rare live song. So when I recognized the first few chords, I started taping. And this is still the only video of it to have surfaced, although the sound quality is regrettably sub-par (most amateur recording devices don’t like being so close to enormous speakers), I anticipate this one to keep gaining a few hundred views a month for the foreseeable future, as any YouTube search for the song live results in my video being the top return.
4. “A Walk Across the McBride Viaduct”
Views: 1,561
This was BY FAR my biggest surprise. I had watched the view count for awhile after originally posting it (following this blog entry…and I’ll now offer an unspecified prize for anyone who can identify what movie the quote in the song I use comes from…NO GOOGLING, we’re on the honor system here, folks), as I was aware there was no other video online of the viaduct post-closure, and it being such a hot-button topic in this city, I thought some folks might be looking for some video. But in the weeks following it’s posting, it hovered at about 20 views, and I never looked again, until now. Now mind you, in the YouTube universe, all these numbers are TINY, but 1.500 is a lot bigger than 20. The viaduct pops up as headline news about once every three months, so I imagine searches for it come in spurts.
5. “St. Peter’s Cathedral” by Death Cab For Cutie
Views: 2,667
This one was a no-brainer. I posted it shortly after their newest album came out. There were already plenty of posted versions of the studio track, but none had scrolling lyrics like mine does. As per usual, I didn’t post this to try to get views or win some sort of popularity contest, it’s just the video I wanted and nobody had made it yet. Videos like this are not any sort of “artistic endeavor”, you can slap one together in 20 minutes (I do try to make the lyric scrolling pace with the music and be visually appealing without being obnoxious, which is more than I can say for lots of the practitioners of the form.) This one’s view count will keep climbing, pretty much forever.
6. “Black Friday ’09, Wal-Mart, 5am”
Views: 6,348
I knew this one was huge, because I watched it take off in the few days after I first posted it. I got about 2,000 hits that week, and gets about 2,000 hits every year now, the week or two following Black Friday. It’s certainly not because of how awesome the video is, it’s just because a YouTube search for “Black Friday Carlisle” turns this up in the top 3 or 4 results. And while Carlisle, PA is not metropolis, I imagine lots of people, following the big day, do searches for their specific area. A YouTube search for “Black Friday Carlisle Wal Mart” returns my video as the #1 result. My buddy Burke makes a nice appearance here.
Notes From the Fire 