The Moon's Loving Light: Studio Notes
This will be the last entry from my 2025 album, I'm all caught up and ready to focus on new music.
Opening still for the music video, one of the funnest projects I’ve done in recent memory.
I can’t tell you how happy I am to be caught up. I guess the artist is never caught up, but this is work that I should’ve completed last summer but couldn’t find a way to do it. Not an excuse, just an admittance that I dropped the ball and took some time off.
It’s fitting that the last song I need to write about from last year’s album, I Am Nowhere, I Am Everywhere is this one. I love playing this song, and a good friend recently told me it was his favorite song of mine. The reality of where the song sits in my cannon is that I’m still learning to play it comfortably live, and I think it (out of all the songs) captures the spirit or our live band. The video is also hilarous AF. It was hands down the most fun I’ve ever had making a music video, and it marks the direction that I’m going with the new space themed album.
I clearly remember the first day we attempted it in the studio. My fingers wouldn’t work, it was an audible, a curveball thrown at the band for fun. As everyone in the band was plugged in, looked at the charts, we ran through the song structure for a bit then did two takes. We were already hot, because it was immediately after we recorded the takes that ended up being used for Listen to the Cold, the opening song from the album. Those are the best times to take risks, so it was no surprise when the band locked into the groove I was looking for. It was effortless, all I had to do was hold onto my seat and keep up with the rhythm section.
There’s a few things that I will skip over here, because this song was recorded in the same session as a few other songs off the album. I’ve already detailed alot from that session so I’d like to focus on this songs specifically. If you’d like more details about the instrumentation from that session, check this article I just wrote, or this one which talks about the writing process. Its all part of the same continuum, the same place I return to in making art and music. Year over year, I’ve simplified my process quite a bit, and try to remove as many unessary steps as possible. That being said, there were quite a few things unique about recording this song.
The first time I recorded the riff from the Moon’s Loving Light was back in 2012. I played in on my acoustic Takamine cedar top, which I was gigging with, and I overdubbed using my friends Danelectro Baritone guitar. The cuts came from an unreleased acoustic EP that I called “For Nothing“. It was a collection of lo-fi acoustic surf tunes. I remember like it was yesterday. Listening to the demos now, they still hold up. I’ll probably end up using the rest of the songs eventually.
I read once that David Bowie never threw a song or a piece of music away, he’d just put it back into the blender for later re-use. Part of me feels like I’m writing the same song over and over, which is in part true, there are chord changes, scales and melodies that I return to like a habit. As long as you are aware, this is not a problem. The analogy suits the artist, Pablo Picasso spent years doing variations on the same paintings, themes and topical matter. He was also never called an asshole. Love that song, do yourself a favor and listen to Bowie’s version (Pablo Picasso - David Bowie).
Getting back to my music. I think lyrically, the words came quickly to that song due to the fact that its just another song from my life. As soon as I had the first line and I could see the old house on 4 Tricor Ave, the rest of the song wrote itself. In hindsight, I may have been doing some emotional housecleaning. I could be wrong, but think the entire album was recorded to close a few doorways which looked back through the past, so that I could open new doors into the future. Looking at the album now, it’s a collection of songs of loss, of death, of eternity, of the inevitable cycle of change, of family, and of watching my children grow into adulthood.
The album is a mixture of 3 songs tracked by me solo, mixed with 6 songs recorded in a studio live setting. In the future, I’d like to only release studio live versions of all songs on the album. In the future, when I release the single, I will release the album version, with the original demo version as well as a live version. That worked well for me with the Space Cowboy Project release. Speaking of Space Cowboy, I’m now working on the rest of the album (no release date yet). I didn’t add Space Cowboy to this album due to the fact that it spiritually warranted its own album. I’ve come full circle so to speak with my work on Moon’s Loving Light, an earthly album, with a song that turns its gaze to the sky.
2025’s album also marked the last few songs that were recorded in those first studio live sessions. I don’t think the Moog was used on any of them, or the Nord Stage 4, I think all the keys were tracked using Mike Pritchard’s Nord Electro 6. Maybe Perpetual Change, I’m not 100% sure. Another line in the sand with this album was the professionalism of the music videos. I am very proud of every single one of them, regardless of how silly the Moon’s Loving Light’s video was. It was DIY creativity, I worked the camera, the fx, and editing of every music video. Each song became a short story in my collective narrative.
I have two large green screens that I am excited to get back to using. Over the past few years, I’ve started working on green screen projects, not to mention playing with dolls. Which is wrong in so many ways, but hilarous. I’m a huge fan of ILM’s work in the original Star Wars movies from the 70s. The At-At walkers in the Empire Strikes back are legendary. Of course I want to make music videos that nod to that era of film. For context, here is one of the GI Joe dolls I used for the video:
A collectible GI Joe space man I used, and will use for future projects.
Despite having never done it before, I photoshopped out the face of the doll and inserted my own face into the helmet when I was done lip-synching to the song. to clarify, I have made green screen videos and released them in the past, I’ve just never superimposed my face onto a space man doll. I plan on doing it more often just to see what happens.
To infinity and beyond. My ridiculous space man from the video.
The beauty of the entire excercise in making this video is that I want to make more of them, if not a full feature length visual album a la the 80s heavy metal film. The parts of the video that work the best in my eyes are the actual footage of the Moon, and the mountain footage I took from the gondola as I ascended to the top of Marmolada, in the Italian alps. Admittedly, the video can always be improved, but I love it as it is, which is why I released it. The Moon’s Loving Light works both as a concept song and as a video fits with the other songs on the album. I can say this stylistically, as well as the instrumentation. An argument can be almost made that it should have been included with this new material, but I decided to release it with the 2025 album. In closing, it’s fitting that my writings about my 2025 releases end here, with one of my most forward looking projects.
This is my last installment of Studio Notes until my next official release. When that happens depends on how productive the next few months end up being. I’m working with another local singer on the vocal arrangements, so I’ve very much looking forward to it. All posts from now on will revolve around new music which I will be releasing in the near future, no deadlines. My goal in 2026 is to complete a space odyssey which revolves around the song and visuals of Space Cowboy, and bring a far more sophisticated light show to our live performances. Wish me luck and perseverance, I’ll need it.
If I’ve been short in these last few installments from the album, understand that my mind is already recording vocal and guitar parts for the new album. I’m physically here, but my mind and heart are elsewhere. The good news is that this means I get to focus on finishing up all of my new demos, back to the drawing board.
LYRICS:
Open up the door
Let the summer wind blow in
Get our friends together
Let the evening start flowing
The clouds are parting ways
To let the moon shine through
And the moon’s loving light is on the likes of you
I can hear the music
Coming down from the mountain
Keeps on getting closer
Just a shaking up the ground and
Our favorite band is playing ‘till a quarter after two
And the moon’s loving light is on the likes of you
I can see my baby
Such a sweet little dancer
Moving with the music
How she weaves like a panther
The moon is drunk on whiskey
Don’t you know it’s true
And the moon’s loving light is on the likes of you
Load up the station wagon
Bars will soon be closing
Take a little drive up into the mountains
The moon is gonna shine
On your pretty birthday suit
And the moon’s loving light is on the likes of you
METADATA:
The Moon’s Loving Light
The Ram
UPC : QZHN52570340
Release date: April 18, 2025
ASCAP Work ID: T3308384654
ASCAP Singer Songwriter IPI Number: 375350750
ASCAP Publisher IPI Number: 375351159
ABOUT THE SONG:
In 1987 I began working on a Bachelors of Fine Art at SUNY New Paltz, a small gem of a town in the shadow of the Shwamangunk mountains an hour due north from NYC. The people I met in my time there set the stage for the rest of my life. Back in high school, I fugged up pretty bad and managed to get kicked out. Somehow, shortly after getting moved to a new high school in upstate NY, I began figural drawing and painting and was hooked. The tight community of artist, musicians, and writers I met in New Paltz from 1987-1991 set me on a path I continue on till this day. This song is for each and every one of them. The parties, the shared work, the trust instilled to complete the impossible, all happened while we became adults together. Far away from my own family, I found a new one.
Late one night after a party I looked up at the sky and was the full moon dancing between small clouds, lined up like a procession past the tree line. As I walked up to my studio late at night, I thought that the clouds were like the dreams of all the townspeople who had turned in for the night. The perfect companion for an artist about to open the door to his studio. The last line of the song is a nod to the culture of New Paltz, NY it’s a hippie town at least it was when I lived there. bars closed at 4pm in New York, still do. My friends and I had a habit of closing down the bars then heading up to the mountain lakes, waterfalls and streams to take a swim. There wasn’t a stitch of clothing involved in any one of those late night swims. Good times.
ABOUT THE RAM:
Mark “The Ram” O’Donnell is an independent American composer and visual artist based out of Carlsbad, California. He performs original, surf-inspired, West Coast rock-and-roll.
For more information about the Ram and his music, go to www.TheRamMusic.com
MORE INFO:
I currently use DistroKid to get everything out to the streaming platforms, Disco for all sync requests, Bands In Town to list live shows, and Substack for just about everything else.
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