Jaimee Eat World

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a safe and fun evening last night if you were out and about celebrating or even just slummin’ it on the couch at home like me.

This week’s cover song release is an “oldie”. I did intend on releasing it before the new year as a way to cap off 2025, but I’ll be honest, I’ve been exhausted since I’ve been on holiday from work and slower moving than I like to be.

That said, it feels just as fun to kick off 2026 with my old friend Chachi and a little bit of reflection.

Toss Me Off The Tower

I first recorded this one back in early 2022 – it released in its first form somewhere around January 22nd that year. It was a funny one to tackle and its zaniness still makes me laugh when I put it on. Here’s that original cut if you never heard it before:

And here’s Jimmy Eat World’s original:

Seen Expiration

I used to put a lot of rules or restrictions on myself when I started this project. I’d force myself to finish entire tracks, mixing and all, for example, within an 8 hour block. It’s a good exercise, but doesn’t always yield the best results. Chachi is probably a good example of that. It was a little rushed, but at the time I felt that lent itself to the song well enough that I was okay with it.

I decided to go back into the session the other day and clean up the mix. In doing that, I also wanted to try and soften the vocals which just came across too aggresively in certain moments, so I re-recorded them. I kept a few of the original takes and yes, I kept that ridiculous lead guitar I whipped all over the track.

Here’s the updated version now (you can also easily download it or play the audio file at the very beginning of this post – they’re the same):

It probably seems like more work than any sane person should put into a project like this, to go back and re-record things that you were already on some level satisfied with releasing, but I think the willingness to dive back into something I’ve already checked off the progress board is an important part of this project.

The distance between “holy shit, I’m writing and producing songs all by myself,” and “I’ve gotta show this to someone!” was remarkably short for me. I didn’t need my creations to be necessarily “good” (or even finished!) by any sort of professional standard before I felt the urge to show it off because creating art, any art, is exciting and empowering.

The problem with succumbing to that urge is it’s usually not much later that you’re like, “well, I think I can do better.”

And then the problem with being a musician and music producer I think is you’ll – okay, I’ll speak for myself – I’ll always feel that way.

Every time I go out and see live musicians I’m reminded how insanely talented so many people are in this world. My talents are sickly pale in comparison to many and there is always room for improvement.

Don’t Ask Why

With that in mind, a big part of the release stage of this whole process is often reduced to, “just put this out so that I can move on to the next thing and get better at this.”

You can wreck your brain for weeks on a single riff if you let yourself get buried too deep in your potential or expectations and to me, that stalls progress. As much as you have to be eager and curious about your own potential, you also have to be willing to say, “this is the best version of this right now and that’s okay.”

Or perhaps a nicer way of looking at it is, “this is how my soul feels about this today,” and that is absolutely okay. Sometimes it’s best not to question why we make some of the choices we do in the moment because that’s all part of the journey.

Recorded media are simply snapshots of history and there is something wonderful about capturing it when it’s messy or indecisive – perfection is an elusive ever-moving target.

The versions of these songs as they hit this website will be the final run through I make of them, so I appreciate your patience when I’m a couple days late on setting them free. As with Chachi, for transparency and comparison, I’ll include the orginal cover song recreations in their respective blogs in case you missed them the first time around.

Thanks as always for listening & see ya next week with something new,

JJ