Jesus Gave Me The Cross (Let Me Be) - Andy Witmyer

This is a video I made for one of the very first songs I ever recorded from home; without the help of anyone else. I performed the song after roughly two weeks of teaching myself how to play guitar by way of a friend's acoustic, which he had so generously left in my room. The song appears on my never actually released first album (The Dream Compass), and in spite of how primitive the production elements are compared to what I can do now (a full 8 years later), I think the song holds up in a strange sort of way. Although I've never really been a very religious person, I've always found the story and trials of Jesus Christ to be fascinating - this is reflected in the words I chose to use. As for the songs ultimate meaning - well, I do know specifically what it means to me, but I'd rather you find meaning in it for yourself.

Musical Notes: Jesus Gave Me The Cross uses a tuning that I know longer remember - during the first few months of learning to play guitar, I abandoned standard tuning and just changed the strings to whatever I wanted to (I actually kind of miss those more innocent days of playing). After recording it, the song was never played again. Maybe one day, if figure out the tuning, I'll try to give it another shot - but for now, this video shall suffice. I would like to add that while the song only contains an acoustic guitar and my vocals, in certain parts of the song, extra layers of both were added for effect. There are no bass parts.

Additional Notes: I chose not to use any keyboard on this or any other songs on the Dream Compass's second disc of material. This is noteworthy only in that I chose guitar over the keyboard, which at the time was (and still is) my primary instrument
of choice. Not to mention, I'd only been playing guitar for a matter of weeks. It certainly made for an interesting challenge!

Influences: Having played this song for a handful of friends over the hears, I've heard it compared to Elliot Smith, Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" album, and Syd Barrett's b-sides album "Opel". While I can hear traces of these musicians in this song (particularly Elliott Smith), and while it is pretty ironic that years later I would come to love all three of those musicians, I can honestly say that during the time of this song's recording, I wasn't aware of any of them - not in the slightest! Though I can hear a little bit of Peter Steele's lyrical influence on the song, other than that, I'm not entirely sure who or what inspired me the most during the recording of this song. As a fan of coincidences (tinged with irony), I figured I'd share.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Andy Witmyer
• Witmyer
• Dream Compass
• The Dream Compass
• Let Me Be
• Jesus
• Jesus Gave Me The Cross
• The Cross
• acoustic
• indie
• singer-songwriter
• solo
• lofi
• stripped down
• Nick Drake
• Elliott Smith
• Syd Barrett