Day 19: The Hidden Hipster Cafe (with Finn O'Sullivan)

Lyrics:

Napping, woken up by the phone
The caller I.D. was unknown
Didn't mean to answer the call
Didn't know what I was in for

Told me I was late for work
Didn't know that I had a job
Sick of being lazy
I'm bored and I'm hazy, why not?

Followed the address that they gave
To a hidden hipster cafe
Walked in and they pulled me aside
They said, "Guess what? You're making the chai"

Grabbed the steamed milk and a cup
They said "Wait! You're making croissants"
They thought that I had the skills
That I'd done this before; I had not

I wanna stay
At the hidden hipster cafe
And I hope they won't send me away
After all

The lanky, polka-dotted bow tie
Ordered a panini on rye
The scarf-spinning woman today
Ordered a double latte

There was a sale on Langston Hughes
At a discount with Ms Angelou
And those who came early
Could sign up for the poetry slam

8 p.m., that's when it begins
The scribes put that voice
To those rhymes
Then at the end there was this man
Removed all of his clothes
Ran into the snow

I wanna stay
At the hidden hipster cafe
And I hope they won't send me away
After all

The manager said, "Kudos to you!
"Can you come in tomorrow at 2?"
Then I came face to face
With another girl with the same name

She said, "Sorry that I wasn't there
"I was getting coffee elsewhere"
The boss threw a fit
Lost his shit and said, "Get out of my store!"

They sent her away
From the hidden hipster cafe
And I got to stay after all

Details: I met Finn a couple years ago at the Rocky Mountain Song School, and it was apparent that she was a tremendous talent. Not only are her lyrics complex, but extremely personal. Her songs have only gotten more sophisticated over the last couple years, and I've been eager to do something with her. Finn works in an indie folk-pop vein that I really enjoy, but don't delve into enough, so it was a treat to write something like this.

Since she mostly starts from personal experience, we began with an incident that happened to her this week: a coffee shop she had applied to called her up and asked if she was going to do her shift; the problem was that Finn hadn't been told she was hired. Things ultimately worked out, but we decided to make our song about a similar situation; in this case, the main character had not applied for the job.
Finn started out on guitar, but since I can only play guitar, I asked if she could play the ukulele. When she told me she had a banjo-lele, well, how could we not include that? I also got to do some rare harmonies on the chorus-- I'm proud that I was able to blend as well as I did (even if I flubbed some lines at the end); I'm not much of a harmonizer.

This was another really fun co-write! It took about 3 hours to write the song and 30 minutes to record.