THOMAS ITTY

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 has been a very productive year for me. Last year I released my 35-song triple-album, "Retrospective." It was a collection of recordings I'd made over the preceding years that I hadn't released. However, most of the songs in the three new albums released this year were written in 2020... or in the past year. The first album, "Here Goes Nothing," was mostly written during a time of strife in my life when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. I am very happy to say she has finished her treatment and is cancer free now, but the songs on the album reflect the reality of what we were going through during that time.  The second album of 2020 is called "Covid-19 Days" because almost all the songs were written between March and May, at the height of the pandemic. I had to deliberately stop myself from getting too dark and depressing on the album.

My third album this year is called "This Too Shall Pass." The songs on it are a mixed bag of themes, ideas and stories. The opner, "It's Easy," is a song that progresses slowly (like Stairway To Heaven or Bohemian Rhapsody) both in lyrics and music.

"Spring Festival" is autobiographical and one of the first songs I ever wrote (when I was still a teenager). I updated it to make it relevant to my life today. This is followed by 5 songs that were all written in the past three months. They reflect the uncertainty and distress caused by the pandemic.

"Thick And Thin" is a love song for the times about sticking together through a difficult time. "Winning Is A Losing Game" is based on a thought I had when I was dropping off my twin children for their SAT this year. I felt a bit sad for them and every kid who was standing masked in a long line outside the building. I came home and the song kind of wrote itself.

I was sitting with a glass of wine after work one day in September when the song, "This Too Shall Pass," came to me. It was sort of Dylansque and long – the lyrics just kept coming! After dinner, I heard that RGB had died and I was a little bummed off by that so I lost interest in watching the news or TV after that. So, I went to the garage (studio) and worked on this song until almost 3AM. After I decided on the tempo and key, I realized the song, the way I had written it, would be over 12 minutes long so I knocked half of it off. It is still six-and-a-half minutes long. If I can, I like to keep my songs under 4 minutes but I'm a wordy kind of songwriter so it's hard.

"Henry My Dog," was written while sitting on our porch and ruminating about life with Henry sitting on my lap. Dogs are the best!

"Nobody Has It Easy" — I woke up one Friday morning and discovered we had lost all power (after a bad storm). Our house is all-electric so I couldn’t even have a cup of coffee. I went to the garage (which is also my recording studio) and sat in the darkness with my guitar and this song just flowed out. The first line states exactly what I was doing at the time! As I was searching my mind for a word that rhymed with “alone,” I realized that there are lots and lots of words that rhyme with it. So I decided to rhyme all the end words of the lines in the verses with “alone.” I finished the song in a few hours (we got power back around noon) and started recording later that night. I was going to call the song “Losers All Of Us” but when I mentioned it to my wife and daughter they both thought nobody would like a song with that as a title so I went with “Nobody Has It Easy.” It is a catchy tongue-in-cheek song… just a bit of fun… not making any grand statement or uncovering any deep philosophical truth.

I wrote "Beautiful" a few years ago for my wife but never recorded it — so I did for our 22nd wedding anniversary in August.

"The Stranger" is based on the novel by Albert Camus. It follows the story faithfully I think. The book was my gateway to existential philosophy. My daughter was reading it recently (in French) for her class — which made me pick up the book again… and inspired me to write this song. The movie was made in 1967 by Luchino Visconti (with Marcello Mastroianni and Anna Karina) and in public domain now so I used footage in my video of it.

"Curtain Call" — I was talking to my kids about a project they were doing for school with the Billy Joel song, “We Didn’t Start The Fire” and it got me thinking about doing my own song with a trip through history. I didn’t plan on doing it right away but it just happened that way and result is Curtain Call. It’s a bit wordy and long at almost 7 minutes but I think it’s a well written song.

Videos of all these songs are on my video channel. Check them out!

Thanks for reading and listening.

— Thomas Itty – October 29, 2020

OTHER ALBUMS BY THOMAS ITTY: