Sunday Comes Afterwards

Happy Halloween! 🎃

three people, a man and two women, dressed up in holiday finery. the man wears a tux and music scarf, the woman in front wears a grey sheer dress, and the woman on the right wears a polka dot dress and white fluffy coat

Are you throwing a holiday party in the greater Portland area and need a dose of nerdy yuletide cheer? Did you know we sing both traditional carols and ORIGINAL HOLIDAY SONGS of the funny and sweet varieties? We'd love to talk. DM us for more details.

LOOK HOW CUTE WE CAN GET

That I don't know about, but I am very familiar with "formalized grammar tries to account for the way people speak, and then becomes a way to tell people they're speaking wrong," which seems similar. 😅

P.S.: I just looked back at the start of this, and I think I may have been unclear. I'm arguing with the author of the course Ankari was talking about. I agree with Ankari!

And now that this thread has gotten out of control, I think I'm going to end it here.

Look, a distraction! 👀

[throws a smoke bomb and runs off]

First, if people are going to think you're weird, that seems like their problem. Second, there are similarly weird people out there who will love you more than that first group ever will.

...but I grant that this general approach to life may help explain why I'm perpetually underemployed.

Now that I've gotten this far, I'm realizing that the point I REALLY want to make isn't "every song needs to be grounded in details" so much as "you don't need to hold yourself back from expressing yourself authentically so as not to alienate people who will think you're weird."

With that said...yes, there are different approaches to songwriting, and not every song is about narrative. It's *really easy* to find counterexamples. (My own "Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo" springs to mind. Sometimes an earworm is just an earworm!)

As for leaving room for the listener to project onto...even beyond the ability to parallel, no work of art *doesn't* have room for listeners/viewers to embellish and reinterpret. Just look at AO3. 😁

But building a bridge requires both sides to be firmly anchored, and it's the details that make that anchoring work.

(Also, it's a vividly told story, the music is a bop, and it's performed well. Nothing here is meant to suggest that the rudiments of songcraft and musicianship aren't important.)

I *have* experienced leaving home to find myself and finding fulfillment in things I was raised to find anathema.

Would I have found this commonality on my own? Perhaps not! But that bridging between my experiences and those of others is one of the great things art can do.

Chappell Roan had a mega-hit singing about a girl from Tennessee who moves to L.A. to dance at the Pink Pony Club. According to the approach at the top of this thread, this song should do nothing for me. Every part of it is alien to my experience. But I adore it.

Humans are *great* at projecting themselves onto things, at drawing parallels, at finding ways to relate. Sometimes I think it's our best feature.

We resonate with narratives that are grounded in specific details; if there's nothing to grab onto, why would we care enough to project?

There's a common misconception that goes something like this: if the central metaphor of your song is that you and your partner go together like strawberries and cream, lactose-intolerant listeners will be alienated.

This is balderdash.

FWIW, it's possible this course is making a point that holds up in context, I don't know, but speaking broadly I could not disagree more. 🧵

Anyway, that's this coming Sunday, 3 PM EDT, noon PDT, 7 PM UTC.

I love the October and December shows because each of them has songs that I don't do in the rest of the year. 😁

October 2025 Livestream! YouTube video by Sunday Comes Afterwards

Oh, the complete lack of promotion for my Halloween livestream? It's not like I thought it was still more than a week off, instead of this Sunday, haha, why would you even suggest that? 😅

(Europeans: the U.S. isn't rolling back the clock for another weekend; my stream will thus be earlier for you.)

YouTube video by Sunday Comes Afterwards Plausible Deniability

NEW HALLOWEEN SONG!

I started writing this circa 2016, but I couldn't release a song about being in the closet without outing myself. 😅

I've finally gotten enough distance to be able to finish it without interposing my current perspective.

Both versions of me hope you like it. 😊

YouTube video by MALINDA A song about not feeling ready to come out 🏳️‍🌈

This is my annual reminder that National Coming Out Day can be a useful tool and opportunity, but it's never a requirement.

Be safe. We'll still be here when you're ready. 💖

Big news in my world, announced on Patreon:

I bet composing was easier before every combination of notes was already used by somebody else. 😅

AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF SONGS I HAVE CAUGHT MYSELF RIPPING OFF IN ATTEMPTING TO WRITE THE MUSIC FOR MY LATEST:

My Simple Christmas Wish (David Friedman)
God Bless the U.S.A. (Lee Greenwood)
Kavana (Country Yossi)
Professor Willow Has a Farm (Me)
A Lizzy Hilliard song, tbh I forget which

YouTube video by Sunday Comes Afterwards Everybody's Hopping at the Holiday Hut (Lyric Video)

Whether you call it Sukkos, Sukkot, Chag HaAsif, the Feast of Booths, the Festival of Tabernacles, or That Holiday With All The Zoning Violations, it starts tonight!

Here's a song about it from a 70s musical, set in the 50s, in another universe.

Spotify would like me to record a short video for my "top fans" in this year's Spotify Wrapped.

I'm tempted to record one saying "this platform doesn't pay me anything; please check out my Bandcamp and YouTube," but I imagine they screen for that sort of thing.

I'm just gonna ignore it.

Livestream in 42 minutes!

COMING OF AGE, by PEGGY 6 track album

New Peggy EP dropped today!

No worries. Thank you!

Gnosco Claim your badges! Authorize us to write your earned achievements to your PDS and see your Smoke Signal badge awards in one place: https://badges.smokesignal.events/ (Error message in white on red) PAR HTTP response invalid

@smokesignal.events Salutations! Any idea why the badge-claiming thingy doesn't work for me? 😅

Livestream this Sunday (and an introduction) | Stevonnie Get more from Stevonnie on Patreon

In which circumstances demand that I try a new approach to my Patreon posts.

September 2025 Livestream! YouTube video by Sunday Comes Afterwards

My next livestream is this coming Sunday, September 28, at 3 PM EDT! (Noon Pacific, other times in other places.) As usual, I'll be playing the ukulele and taking requests!