Happy Holidays, everyone!

The song in the video above is from Parzen Family Singers’ NEW album, “Day After Yesterday,” now out on BandCamp!

The girls and I co-wrote the first track, “Why Can’t It Be Christmas (Every Day of the Year).” I fed them the title lyric and a backing track. And then set them up with a couple of SM58s. They took care of the rest. I really love this year’s Christmas song (but then again, I love them all).

Lila Jane and I wrote “Paco Chihuahueño” for the newest addition to the Parzen Family Singers (it’s his growl at the top of the track). Our other chihuahua got a song on the last album so it was only fair that Paco get his. Lila Jane and I improvised the vox in one solid take. For real. I wrote the lyrics as the track was rolling and LJ was right there with me. I’ll never forget that moment. It was so cool and so much fun.

“Shut It Down” was inspired by a protest we attended outside a migrant processing center near downtown Houston. I made a few videos for social media at the protest and when I watched the videos back at home, I realized I could “sample” them and splice them back together as a track. The chants themselves inspired the groove. Like all of our songs, it captures a moment in our year, in our lives. The girls have been going to protests with us as long as they can remember.

The girls asked me to write “Day After Yesterday (Emilee’s Song)” for their cousin who was in a really bad accident this year. We’re happy to report that she’s doing well (just graduated from college, on track, as a matter of fact, cum laude). The title came from a favorite malapropism of Georgia’s. I’ll never forget writing the song and lyrics sitting in my F150 in a H-E-B parking lot. It just came to me, like I was channeling it. Lila tracked her vox like a pro, in just two takes. Her vox really take it over the top.

I wrote and sang “Ten Years Gone” for me and Tracie’s upcoming 10th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! Ten years gone and you’re still turning me on/Ten years after and it’s still laughter and song. That’s the chorus. We’ve been planning our anniversary celebration and we both keep saying to each other: it doesn’t seem like 10 years have passed; it seems like yesterday! So true. If you listen closely you can hear one of the dogs barking on the slide guitar solo I played on my Taylor. I’m not sure what dog it was (I think it was Paco).

“The Mime and His Phonograph” is one of those songs that might have ended up on a Nous Non Plus record (if we were still writing and recording together). I’ve always been fascinated with the year 1888 (the year Nietzsche began to lose his mind). And so I tried to conjure images of what it might have looked and felt like when you wandered the streets of Paris then. To my surprise, I came upon a mime with a secret and special power.

Click here to listen and download now!

Happy holidays and thanks for the support, solidarity, and friendship.