Well, I changed my mind and submitted a song for the after all. It's billed as a 24-hr song challenge but it ended up being more like 3 hours (had a pretty tight schedule yesterday afternoon and this morning!).
The prompt was "freedom", which could have/possibly should have pointed me in the direction of an all-American and/or Philly-lauding banger (or a statement on how so many of our freedoms are currently being attacked), but the first thing that came to mind was the struggle, which I often feel, to be free of old habits, old beliefs, self-defeating patterns.
So this song is about my frustration and confusion at repeatedly finding myself "in bo***ge" to those ways of looking at life and the world, and an honest plea -- to something, or someone -- to show me a new and different way.
You can hear the whole thing on YouTube. Pretty rough work in progress, but, in the spirit of going against those old rigid ways of thinking, I wanted to force myself to just finish something -- especially something built around connecting to the broader Philly music community -- even if it was not perfect, so I definitely accomplished that! š
Zach Zaitlin Music
I'm a Philadelphia (by way of Maine) based singer-songwriter/composer and music educator. Debut full-length album, PRIMETIME, due out soon!
As the release of the first single off my debut LP, PRIMETIME, comes into sight(!!), the stroll down memory lane, remembering my JOYEUX NOĆL EP, continues.
Hereās another portion of the 3rd of 5 songs (so, both numerically and emotionally kind of the heart of the album, methinks) on the EP, āCoffee and Treatsā.
I dredged up some real oldie/goodie video clips ā one of which I had forgotten even existed! I forgot I had this luxurious band, including Ezza Rose singing with me and Josh Lava on drums, at the release show in Portland, OR ā of me performing (mostly) this song over the years, both in my Music Life 1.0 stage and my current Music Life 2.0 stage, after largely abandoning this part of my creativity for over 10 years.
On the forthcoming LP, you will hear some dynamic chamber-style string moments as you do in this track, but there will be more moments in which strings are used more as a āwall of soundā drone texture.
It also just occurred to me that JOYEUX NOĆL uses no synths, really (closest thing was some organ and Rhode sounds). I believe I discovered my Roland Juno synth after the release of the EP, and so the years since then have seen me develop my appreciation of sonic textures of all sorts, and a desire to craft a cohesive and expressive soundworld.
I think/hope that listeners will discover what I mean when they listen to the new album. There will certainly be intimate, tender, chamber-music-reminiscent moments hearkening back to my training in and love of classical music, as you hear on this song, but there will also be a much broader variety of sounds reflecting the rich and varied musical influences I have encountered since this now long-ago-released EP.
I canāt wait to share it with you all.
As the release of the first single off my debut LP, PRIMETIME, comes into sight(!!), the stroll down memory lane, remembering my JOYEUX NOĆL EP, continues. āļø šŖ
Hereās another portion of the 3rd of 5 songs (so, both numerically and emotionally kind of the heart of the album, methinks) on the EP, āCoffee and Treatsā.Ā
I dredged up some real oldie/goodie video clips ā one of which I had forgotten even existed! I forgot I had this luxurious band, including singing with me and (wtf on your new IG name, Josh??š) on drums, at the release show in Portland, OR ā of me performing (mostly) this song over the years, both in my Music Life 1.0 stage and my current Music Life 2.0 stage, after largely abandoning this part of my creativity for over 10 years.
On the forthcoming LP, you will hear some dynamic chamber-style string moments as you do in this track, but there will be more moments in which strings are used more as a āwall of soundā drone texture.Ā
It also just occurred to me that JOYEUX NOĆL uses no synths, really (closest thing was some organ and Rhode sounds). I believe I discovered my Roland Juno synth after the release of the EP, and so the years since then have seen me develop my appreciation of sonic textures of all sorts, and a desire to craft a cohesive and expressive soundworld.Ā
I think/hope that listeners will discover what I mean when they listen to the new album. There will certainly be intimate, tender, chamber-music-reminiscent moments hearkening back to my training in and love of classical music, as you hear on this song, but there will also be a much broader variety of sounds reflecting the rich and varied musical influences I have encountered since this now long-ago-released EP.
I canāt wait to share it with you all. Hop on my email club (see linktree) so you're on top of it!
1. EP release , PDX 2. Show at , Seattle (both absurdly long ago) 3. 2025 4. 2026
06/03/2026
Imelda is the second track on my EP, JOYEUX NOĆL, which I want yāall to know about before I introduce you to my š„ very rapidly forthcoming debut LP, PRIMETIME š„ . Imelda is one of my favorite songs to play, and probably among the compositions Iām most proud of.
This LP (a full-length, 12-track album, due out later this year) has been over 16 years in the making! After releasing JOYEUX NOĆL in 2009, my perfectionistic streak really came to the surface ā I wanted to make sure the full-length album I would follow the EP up with would be exactly how I wanted to express myself musically and that I would avoid all of the perceived āmistakesā of the EP.
All of that pressure and rigidity I put on myself (along with many big life changes, including moving back to the east coast from Oregon, getting sober, and trying out a new career path as a classroom teacher) led me to ātake a breakā from my music during which I was always āon the cuspā of getting back into it. But as time passed, picking up where I left off seemed increasingly daunting and confusing.
It took me many years of experiencing the increasing pain of hiding (or hiding from) my creativity ā and an alarming 40th birthday! ā to decide that the pain of not doing my music outweighed the fear of the unknown and the inevitable challenges of actually doing it.
Thatās how the conviction to finally make the album was born, and Iām so excited to share it with you all.
I think the title track, Primetime, builds in many ways on Imelda. Not to give away my āsecretsā, but it turns out, like most songwriters/composers, I have my go-to tricks and tools. Like in Imelda, youāll hear lots of crunchy 2nds to create an angsty, driving sound on the piano. I also do some fun little stepwise parallel chord movements in both songs as transitional material between sections.
While you listen, enjoy these pics: a couple shots of me playing live with .crush (whose cello playing will actually be featured on the first single of the LP!) and Andrew Auble (one of two guitarists on the original Imelda track); plus other random shots that capture the angsty melancholic spooky vibe I associate with this one.
05/05/2026
As I continue to do this little āretrospectiveā on my 2009 Joyeux NoĆ«l EP (as part of the build-up to the release of my first-ever full-length album, PRIMETIME, sometime soonish!) it occurred to me that having some pics from that time of my life might be reasonable, and hopefully not too sentimental.
When I wrote āCoffee and Treatsā, the third track on the EP, I was living in Portland, Oregon, with a really fun and close group of friends ā the kind where you could just drop by unannounced at their house (or at least I thought that was welcome/acceptableā¦), and then venture off, quite often, for, well, ācoffee and treatsā (Portland was and continues to be an epic wonderland for both of those things). This ritual was really a central part of our lives!
So what is this song about? My writing it certainly was not a declaration that Iād never get coffee and treats with my friends ever again (phew). Like most of my songs, it took on various layers of meaning as I wrote it, and it continues to do so even now many years later.
I think itās primarily a sort of ācoming of ageā song (still feels like most of my songs are in some sense, even the ones Iām writing now!), reflecting on this awareness that life would change, and that I could see that that period of my life, even as I was living it, would one day be a (mostly sweet and pleasant) memory. At the same time, especially in verse 2, the lyrics describe a concretely present and immediate experience of being in love. But, looking back now, it seems that perhaps even as I wrote it, part of me knew that that too would be a thing of the past before too long ā like so many of my songs, I seem to be trying to capture obliquely my sense of wonder and mystification (is that a word?) over how time works, about what all of these experiences and relationships ultimately mean.
Anyway, if all thatās a bit too heady for you, you can see that, indeed, many treats were had during this period of my life, and much music was played as well.
Speaking of time, this song has a few time-specific refs from when I wrote it (2008-9) and also quotes/plays off a piece of classical music. Did you catch any of those? š¤
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