Jeff sings "My Songbird."

Yesterday I recorded a video of me performing "My Songbird," a Jesse Winchester song that Emmylou Harris popularized in the 1970s. My version is modeled on the version she performed on her Spyboy record, accompanied by Buddy Miller on guitar. My version, unpractised and amateur, isn't even worth a comparison.

But I did it! It's the first thing I've tried to record in my new apartment, and considering the room's severe lack of carpeting, the refrigerators' hums, the trains' rumbles, and my general skill-less recording, I think it sounds OK. A few slip-ups here and there, and my voice goes pretty flat on line 3, but meh.

Jeff performs Jesse Winchester's "My Songbird.": https://t.co/aG4tFZ0lPG via @YouTube

— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jeffnords) December 11, 2016

I appreciate the song's inner tension: I enjoy this thing, even "crave" it, but it's also wrong, because I have my share of analogous obessions. There are things that I enjoy that are wrong; there are activities that I love to partake in that aren't cut-and-dry in their ethics. Just like there's no clear ethical way to eat seafood, hedonism always carries a few ethical quandaries. And yet we still do them because life simply isn't bearable with a perfect ethical standard.

Be sure to check out the more polished, professional performances of "My Songbird."