So this isn't a real big discography yet, since I only have one album as of right now. However, here's a whole lot of info about it I managed to come up with.

BRIDGE OVER BOTTLED WATER


 

 

 

 

THE TITLE
I'm sure that many people noticed that the title is a Simon & Garfunkel reference. I don't think a lot of people would have noticed that it's also an R.E.M. reference. R.E.M. has always been one of my favorite bands, and I was reading Rolling Stone right around when Up came out. They were interviewing Michael Stipe and asking him why in the hell they had named their album that, and he mentioned it wasn't the only title they had come up with. Bridge Over Bottled Water was one of the titles that they had come up with, and for some reason they thought that Up was better. I disagreed, and took advantage of their momentary lapse in taste.

THE MAKING OF BRIDGE OVER BOTTLED WATER
I recorded Bridge Over Bottled Water as my Senior Project for high school. Senior projects, for those of you who are not familiar with the term, are something that some high schools allow seniors to do instead of going to class for the last part of school in order to keep kids at least doing something instead of just skippping school.

I recorded the album at home on a four-track analog Fostex recorder. It took about a month and a half of recording in my bedroom to get all 17 songs sounding good enough to me to declare it done. Betty Glover, who is either the mom of one of my friends or one of my mother's friends, depending on who you're asking, was incredibly nice and donated her graphic design services.

The album was digitally mixed by Steve Steckler of Big Sound Studio, and manufactured by DiscMakers. After investing my entire life savings plus a large number of birthday presents into the making of the album, it finally came out at the beginning of August 1999.

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LYRICS AND STORIES
1. First Things First lyrics story
2. You Can't Surprise Me lyrics story
3. Sunflowers lyrics story
4. Andy Warhol Was Wrong lyrics story
5. All The Way Up lyrics story
6. Poor Little Rich Girl lyrics story
7. Addict lyrics story
8. Stupid Things lyrics story
9. I Can't Save The Day lyrics story
10. The Man lyrics story
11. Where I've Been lyrics story
12. Bitching About The Heat lyrics story
13. Monday Morning lyrics story
14. Wake Up lyrics story
15. Four More Days lyrics story
16. The Next Time I Fall (w/Laura Anne Minkoff) lyrics story
17. Chasing After The Sunset lyrics story

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HEAR SOME SONGS FOR FREE!
*NEW: STREAMING AUDIO IS HERE*
I've finally gotten around to getting some streaming audio up on this site. There's going to be three or four songs on here all the time, and The songs will change every time I update the site. Each song will be dedicated to something. To get the stream to work, click the link. Then:

  • If you're in Internet Explorer, it'll ask you if you want to open it in IE or not. If you want it to just use the Windows Media Player built into the browser, hit yes. If you want to use your regular mp3 player, click no, and it'll open in your default mp3 player.
  • If you're in Netscape 6x, it'll ask you if you want to open it with your default mp3 player or save to disk. You want to open it, not save it.

Voila, you have streaming audio! These songs are all in mp3 format at 128kbps.

Unfortunately for those of you with dial-up connections, I haven't had a chance to encode these at a lower bitrate, so it's going to take a while to load and/or you'll have problems with skipping. I will post on the site when dial-up capable audio goes live, but until then, my mp3.com site has lovely dial-up capable audio.

And now, the actual songs!

First Things First - As this is the first time I've got this working.
Four More Days - In honor of my upcoming Finals Hell.
Addict - Gonna have to face it, I'm addicted to insomnia.
Monday Morning - Since I'm doing this at 2:30 monday morning...


You can hear some more of my songs (and download them) at no charge through the wonderful people at mp3.com and their enormous amount of server space, and I should have a few up here soon as well. I just have to figure out how to do it... Until then, please stop by http://www.mp3.com/EllenShapiro, but if you do, please consider buying my album through me or through CDBaby. I can only continue to give away my music if people do eventually pay me for what they like.

Unfortunately, unlike most of my idols, I don't have major label financing to back me up, I just have the money I personally can scrape together. So please, if you want to keep hearing new songs, consider buying my album so I can afford to record more. Thanks!