#488 Let me bore you to sleep

Hello and welcome to Jason Newland dot com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

That's it. Close your eyes. Safely close your eyes.

So, I hope you're well. I hope everything is groovy with you. So, a few things to talk about.

Where do I start? So, I had, yesterday, because it's now the third of September, 2020, and it's 5.33 in the morning. So, I'm up early. Andre, what are you walking over here for? Oh, Andre, this early, this early in the recording.

He just came up, looked at me, farted and ran off, and now he's with his slipper, with his girlfriend. Andre, I can't believe you sometimes. I never, ever, do such a thing.

So, I'm just looking at the phone. So, I got a message from someone on YouTube, a couple of days ago, saying the volume's too low, I can hardly, well, it was quite, it was a nice message, you know, you've got a lovely voice and whatever, but the volume's too low, so I'm unsubscribing. And that bit, I kind of didn't really understand.

The unsubscribing bit. Why not ask me to try and change it? Because that message was really helpful, and it got me to listen to the recordings, because I didn't realise it was as low on the playback, once they were actually uploaded. I didn't realise the volume was as low as they was.

That was not my intention. The intention was to produce better quality sound, but not so as you needed a hearing aid to actually listen to it, you know, I didn't expect you to need to put the headphones, like, I don't want to say into your ears, but I suppose get your phone into your ear, so you can hear it. So, they weren't supposed to be that low.

So, all day yesterday, I spent, I tried to correct it. I figured one way to do it, and then it broke. The app that I paid for broke.

I don't know why, maybe I overused it. I've tried, I've re-uploaded it. Nothing.

So, but then I came up with another idea. See, there's always a solution, if you're willing to stick it out. So, my voice is me, my throat is in my throat.

Lovely. What a lovely sound. Let's see, I've got my headphones, so I can reach really close up to the microphone like this, and I can judge how close I can get and what it sounds like, because I can actually hear myself while I talk, which is a bit strange, but it's okay, because I can kind of hear myself twice, I think.

Let's, let me just take my headphones off. Here we go. I couldn't hear myself at all.

I'm going to keep talking, I'm going to count down from 10 down to one. So, I'll do five with headphones on, and the last five with the headphones off, and I'll see what it sounds like to me. They're just, it's the same on the recording, I suppose, but I wonder if I can hear it.

So, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, so 5, and now I'm going to take the headphones off, carry on counting down, four down to one, and hear what it sounds like. So, what's it, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. No, I can't hear anything. Oh, I'll try again.

I'll count down to 10, 10 down to one, then I'll take my headphones off at seven, and I'll put it back on at four. Maybe, maybe I'll be able to hear it, I don't know. So, I've got my headphones on, take them off at seven, put them back on at four.

So, I couldn't hear myself talking when I took my headphones off, but I wonder if once I put my headphones on, I'll still be able to hear myself talking. Okay, so it's 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1. So, I could hear myself talking down from seven to seven, and then 3, 2, 1, but I couldn't hear myself. How weird.

That's strange. Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. You knew I was going to do that, didn't you? I, let me have a look.

I did, I did, I did, I did, I honestly did. I sang a song yesterday, and it's called Million Years Ago, by Adele. I stuck it on my Let Me Boy To Sleep podcast, and the Jason Newlands Hypnosis podcast, but I didn't put it on any other podcasts, because technically, it's not hypnosis.

And technically, it's not sleep. Here's a weird thing. I, so I've got, I've got new neighbors.

Andres, I've got new neighbors, and they, he, he came, I was, I was, I was, I got this cleaning machine. And like I mentioned that carpet cleaning machine, it's really good, but it's very, very noisy, proper full on blasting out. It's, it's in the same league as a washing machine that no longer works properly.

You know, that like, just sounds like an aircraft taking off. You know, the kind of washing machine that you move into a place, move into a new building, and your neighbor, your friendly neighbor, he, he just says, yeah, I've got a washing machine you can buy. Yeah, you know, it's not much, it's, I'm going to get a new one anyway, so you can, he can have that.

And yeah, it's only like 50 pound. That's nothing, isn't it? Yeah. In fact, and, and you can carry it all the way, all the way to your place.

And it's full of like, you know, it's got a big brick in there. And it's, it's gonna really hurt you, your little hands and yeah, and, and your back and everything. But it's going to be good because you'll have a washing machine.

Won't you? Or sometimes they'll even give it to you free because it saves them paying money to get it taken away. And then you find out why it's free or why they're willing to give it to you. Because it sounds like a space shuttle launching every time it goes on to a spin.

Anyway, that's not the point of the story. There was a point. Oh, yeah, my, yeah, the carpet cleaning machine is that kind of level is really, really, really loud.

And because the carpets needed proper cleaning, and I haven't finished yet. I've done the hallway, I've done the inside of the front door. And then I did the bedroom.

So it's only the living room left really. I mean, I can, there are parts that I haven't done yet. But it's the living room only now really left to sort of focus on.

But the parts I did was really needed going over quite a few times. So I was, yeah, I was doing the carpet and I heard this like noise. I thought what the hell? I realized this tapping, something was banging against the window.

Because I can't hear anything. But I can, it's almost like a vibration or something. I don't know.

The windows open, a peanut hit me on the head. And I looked out the window. Clearly unafraid of any more threaten or heading towards me.

And there's my neighbor, and he shouted up. Sorry, man, I don't mean to be rude, but that what are you doing up there? I'm trying to sleep. It's really loud.

And I said, I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. He said, well, just, you know, I mean, I'm not, I don't mind noise, you know, just, but that's like beyond, you know, wearing earplugs, but I still can't sleep even with earplugs in.

Because it's so loud. I said, okay, I'll tell you what, I'm nearly, I'm just about finished this little bit I'm doing. And then I'll stop and I won't do it till tomorrow.

I'll, and he said, oh, blew me kisses, chuck some flowers into the window, you know, just general stuff. And that was just, I thought, yeah, I felt quite neighborly, you know. Apparently he had knocked at the door, but I didn't hear, for some reason, I didn't hear him.

And so I just thought, fair enough. So I just turned it off. I was knackered anyway.

I mean, I was sweating so much. You know, if it wasn't, if it wasn't a carpet cleaning machine, you would wonder what I'd been up to. It was just honestly sweating.

So later on, I, yeah, I was just, you know, just doing my stuff, clearing out. And I thought, there's this song that I wanted to sing that is Ali, Ali, what's her name? Ali Sherlock. I have to start remembering.

It's Ali Sherlock, as in Sherlock Holmes. And she's one of the songs, she's only 15, but she, she sung this song when she was 12. And the only reason I came over was because I was on YouTube and she, there was a bus, it basically, the headline of the YouTube video was check out this man's voice.

It's amazing. And it's a Michael Jackson song. So there's this bloke singing, it's like brilliant.

And he was, he was singing Billie Jean. And then there was this woman next to him, started singing as well. And the voice, it's like, what? I thought she was, it looked to me a little bit like she was just a fan.

I didn't know she was actually going to be singing. It looks like she was just loitering. And it turned out it was her channel that the YouTube video was on.

And she was singing, she sung loads of songs. She's been on Ellen TV shows. She's, yeah, made loads of money on YouTube and doing really well.

I was like, wow. And I found out she's like 15 years old. Blimey, I couldn't believe it.

It just, it just really surprised. I'm more surprised I've never heard of her before. Because that kind of talent, why is she not a huge star? And yeah, she's clearly very young, but so is Britney Spears.

And so is Michael Jackson. And that never affected him, did it? So why, why shouldn't he, why shouldn't she get into show business? And there's loads of young people that have, that's not that, well, there's a few. The Osmonds.

Billie Piper. And Billie Piper, for those who don't know who she is, is, you might know her from being in Doctor Who a few years back. And also from being, I think she's an award winning actress now.

But when she was, I think about 15, she did a song called Because I Want To. And it's in the 90s. And then I think she, she reached puberty and then went and married Chris Evans.

And I think, literally I think she was like 16 when she Chris Evans. Maybe 18. I'm sure she was younger.

But which that's legal in this country. So it's okay. And she might have been 18.

She might have been 20. But it's a long time ago. Let me check it.

I'm going to do some fact checking. Billie Piper. Okay, let me just check this.

Billie Piper. So she was 15. Because we want to.

Okay. So that was in, what year was that in? Okay. She was in, was she in Doctor Who? Secret Diary of a Cool Girl.

Penny Dreadful. She was in Collateral. Hate Susie, which is things.

I Hate Susie, which apparently is a really big show at the moment. And she's been in loads of stuff. So, you know, it's brilliant.

Oh, yeah, she was 18 when she married Evans. She was 18. So I guess they must have met when she was 18.

May 2001. May 2001. She was born in September 1982.

She was 17. Good for you, Chris. Age, she was, he was 35 at the time.

Because we want to. Because we want to. That song was so annoying.

Really annoying. I mean, like, really annoying. But anyway, Tiffany.

Wasn't Tiffany 16 or 15? Let me have a look. See, Tiffany. Tiffany.

I think we're alone now. Doesn't seem to be anyone around. Just as well otherwise we'll go to prison.

Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany. No. I can't believe you put Tiffany.

It's just all about jewelry. Singer. Oh, okay.

Let's have a look. Tiffany, Tiffany. Here we go.

She was born 1971. And 1987 was her. Oh, it's a cover.

I didn't realize that. But I think we're alone now. It doesn't seem to be anyone around.

I didn't know it was a cover, but it was great. Great song. And so she was born in 71, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87.

So she was 16. She's now 48. Wow.

Mind you, thinking about it, in 1987, I was 1971. She's 48. Yeah, she's like a year younger than me.

I was thinking when she brought out the song. Let's have a look when it was brought out. Apparently she's had some quite a lot of success in America.

Music wise that she didn't have here. Here, here. Let me have a look.

Oh, come on. By the way, this is Wikipedia. So it might be complete.

Singles from Tiffany. I think we're alone now. August 1987.

This is August 1987. I was, well, I was 16 until the end of August. Wow.

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what the point is with that. This is, you know, Ellie, Ali. It's not Ellie, it's Ali.

Ali Sherlock. Phenomenal voice. And discovered someone else has got an amazing voice as well.

It's a lady called Molly. Amazing voice. Wow.

So I think, kind of, I just wonder why Ali Sherlock isn't a big star. That's, you know, based on her singing ability. And there's a song a million years ago, or a million years ago.

And it was by Adele. And I, I'd never heard it before. I'd only ever heard Ali Sherlock's rendition of it.

So I went on to, you know, listened on iTunes to Ali, to Adele. So she starts off softly, and then builds up to it. Ali Sherlock goes in straight away in fourth row.

And, oh, a message to Adele, who for some reason came under a lot of flack because of how she was dressed at the weekend. I'm gonna, my, I'm going to put my little 10 cents in. Adele, you looked hot.

You look gorgeous. So there you go. And that's probably what most people looking at it thought, that she looked lovely.

You know, she's lost weight or something. So apparently, and she's, you know, she's showing her body off. She's, she wasn't naked or anything.

But she's, you know, she's, I can relate to that. Because my cousin, again, she wasn't big, but she, she went on a really, really kind of strict, dire exercise period. And she ended up with, like, really fit, like physically how she wanted, how she wanted to look.

And she was also getting attention from men that she was enjoying. And she felt confident. And I remember that.

And I imagine, you know, I suppose I've, maybe I've been there a little bit, a long time ago. But I remember when I, I got myself probably premium, like a bit of steak. Probably 2009, I would say, I got myself physically in the best condition possibly I've ever been.

Muscle wise, maybe no, not cardiovascularly wise, but muscle wise. And I was, I looked good. And I was wearing skimpy clothes, you know, really tight, tight shirts and tight jeans showing off me, me bum and me biceps and shoulders and chest and stuff.

And I had a two pack on my stomach. I actually had a picture of two pack on my stomach. No, I didn't.

And so I, yeah, it gave me some confidence. A bit different type of confidence. I was kind of confident anyway, at that time, but it gave me a different type, different type of confidence.

Didn't last long because I gave up smoking, I just bloomed. I just turned into a Teletubby. So what I thought, because this reminded me, I think seeing Adele, it's weird how the fingers kind of mixed together.

Seeing Adele, seeing the smile on her face, she looked really pleased, you know, happy. Good, good for her. Good for her.

That's all I've got to say. And I'd say that regardless, because it wouldn't have mattered who the person was, whose picture it was. Just because it's someone famous, I would be still being like, yeah, good for her.

And just don't cackle. Please just don't cackle. And she, yeah, so it reminded me of my cousin.

Then it reminded me of my cousin's brother, who's also my cousin. And we used to make music with my cousin's dad. He was a guitarist in a, what was it, a country and western band.

He was actually a winner of the best country and western band in the UK. Years, years for years and years. You know, this is in the, I think he had that award in the 80s.

And it traveled around. I mean, they, okay, country and western music, you know, is nowhere near as popular here as it is in America. I mean, I guess that's, most people would kind of accept that as being truthful as it is.

But what I didn't realize is how popular it is. It's way more popular in the UK than people realize, than the general public realize. It's really popular.

It's, yeah, I went only, I went to one gig, or maybe two gigs. And I couldn't believe the, you know, the huge venues. I'm not, I'm not talking about theaters.

These were places where they'd sing, and people would be dancing, and there'd be a bar. And then, you know, it's, a lot of places are really suited for that stuff, especially, you know, kind of like holiday resorts or holiday places that maybe are closed because it's out of season. But they can open up in an evening that's perfect for having a band.

Leader of the band. So what I did is I thought, because I used to write songs with my cousin. The first song I wrote, the first song I wrote was, how was it? I wrote songs when I was a kid.

But the first song I wrote with, this is from my cousin's dad, technically my uncle. But these were my cousin's, these were the children of my cousin. And she was my grandmother's sister's daughter.

So, you know, so they were cousins, but not like first cousins. Probably, I don't know, quite distant cousins, in a sense. The first song, I remember I was dating this student nurse, this lady, student nurse.

And we split up. So I wrote a song. And I went around my uncle's cousins, whatever.

And he, we spent a few hours together, did the music. I think he, I'm not sure if it was on the piano or the guitar, because he did both. He could play both.

He could play bass, he could play lead. It's just easy for him. But then, if you've been doing something for 30 odd years, he's been doing it since the 60s, I think.

Probably longer, maybe. Maybe the 60s, he wasn't that old. Probably the 60s.

I don't know. I mean, reality, he's probably, he probably is about 70 now. Which means he was born about 1914, something like that.

So he, we did this song called I Miss You. And it was all right. You know, I liked, I was quite pleased with it.

And then I played it to her, the song, had it on a disc, you know, on a disc, on a tape. And I played it to her. This is 1996.

I was 26. So I played it to her. And basically, she just looked out the window, like, just, we got back together.

But she really just wasn't interested in the song. So we got back together. And later on, I wrote a song called I Wrote You a Song.

I think it's, I won't sing it to you, but it was when something like this is, I wrote you a song. It took quite a long time. I gave it to you.

I played it to you. And all you did was look out of the window and sigh. That was the first bit of the song.

And then I thought it took a long time to write the bloody thing. Why did I bother at all? Why did I bother? Why did I try? Why did I even take the time? Why did I bother? Why did I try to write you this song? Because I wasn't even on your mind, or I don't know. And so I was quite pleased with that.

And I played that to her and she yawned. So, and I did another song called the Tuesday Song, which was, I did three songs. I did four songs all together that I wrote, that I did with music.

The first one was called I Miss You. Second one was called I Wrote You a Song. The third one was called the Tuesday Song.

So I must have written that on a Tuesday. And the fourth one was the eight hour epic song, something like that, because it took eight hours to write. It was really long.

But I stuck, when I really, when I want to do something, I generally stick to it and keep going. So I wanted to finish that song. And in some ways, it's possibly the best one I did.

But yeah, I actually did have the songs, still got them on tape. I've got them floating around somewhere on one of the, I think I'm on the hard drive or something. But I remember I posted them on Facebook years ago.

And my cousin, he used to help me to do it. He said, can you, I found put his name on it, he said, can you please remove my name? I don't want anything to do, be associated with that. So why not? He said, well, I'm, because of his job, he didn't, yeah, he had a certain job that he didn't want to be associated with me, basically.

So okay, fine. And so that was that. And then, you know, I got a little bit of, a little taste to want to sing the million songs.

Not million songs, million years ago. Can't believe he's doing this at, what's the time? 6.13 in the morning. So, I thought to myself, because I spent, you know, I wanted to write a song, or maybe write some poetry, but I've not got around to doing it.

However, however, yesterday, I thought, once I got the headphones, and I realized I could hear myself with the headphones, it's, it's kind of easier in a, from a singing perspective, because it means that when I sing, I can hear how wonderful I sound, you know, it's that kind of thing. And so that's what I did. I thought, okay, I'm going to sing Million Years Ago by Adele.

And then I thought, oh, I want to record it, I want to film it, and also record it separately, the audio, and then sort of put them together. So that's what I did. And I thought, well, how am I going to know the words to the song? Because it's on the phone? Well, I can't do on the tablet, because that's what I'm recording the audio on.

The phone is going to be recording the video. So what I did is I found the lyrics online, and I got my whiteboard that's in the kitchen. It's a big old whiteboard, and I wrote down the lyrics on there.

I ended up putting that, balancing it up in a chair. I realized that I couldn't see the words properly with my reading glasses, because if I'm going to be on camera with glasses, I'll wear these, the ones I'm wearing while I'm looking at the screen, because they aren't wobbly. My normal glasses that I need to wear when I go out are wobbly.

I sat on them a few weeks ago, and they broke. I don't really want to be on camera with those glasses. However, I couldn't see the writing on the board.

So I had to put the glasses on. I had no choice. It's either that or hold the board.

It would have been in the way of the camera, wouldn't it? I think the whole video lasted about 14 minutes, and I sung a few versions of the song. A few of my own takes, I guess. Not many, probably about four, maybe five.

And I just chose on the last one. And that was it. So what I did is, it took about three hours to upload the video, which was 4.3 gigabytes.

14 minute video. There's something wrong there, isn't there? So I couldn't do anything with that. It's now uploaded, so that's good, onto the cloud or onto my documents.

So what I thought is, you know what? I got the file, the audio file, uploaded it. And because I was singing into it, I didn't need to do anything about volume, because it was a good volume, because I'm singing into the thing, into the microphone. And I decided to just edit out.

I saved the whole recording as, I don't know, practice recording for a million years. So all the other versions is on there, because I'm probably going to want to listen to that in the future, just for fun. And I just saved the version that I thought was the most complete.

Although I'm not really pleased with the beginning of it. It's one of those songs that get better and better as you sing it, you know, as you go along, you kind of get into sort of a certain groove. A bit like miniature golf.

And I uploaded the recording, or edited it, you know, made sure that it sounded all right. You know, but this, it was fine, just cleaned it up like the beginning and the end. Uploaded it to Spreaker on the Let Me Bore You To Sleep podcast, and shared it on Facebook, and Twitter, and on YouTube.

Now the reason I left the video running, and left the audio running is because if in the past I've tried to just do like one song and then stop it, listen, and in the end end up having loads of files. Instead I just let it keep recording, and just sing, do as many versions as I can until I can listen back and see which one I think's okay. And I did the same with the video, I could just cut it down, so it just fits the slice of audio that I've got.

Which is just as well, because as I'm doing it, a peanut hits me in the face again. So I've got my window open, so I take my headphones off, I look out the window, it's my neighbour again, who I spoke to earlier. I said, hello, you alright? He said, yeah, just do us a favour.

You look very angry. I said, what's that? He said, can you turn your carpet cleaner machine on again? That's rude. Very rude.

That's, that's, that's, can't believe it. My singing is not that bad. You'd rather listen to, oh, blimey.

So that's, that's kind of what I've been up to really. I didn't make any recordings yesterday, which is unusual for me. But I tried to re-upload or edit, make louder recordings, and then re-upload.

Quite a few of the recordings for the last few days. Didn't manage to do all of them yet, but I'll finish them today. And then it's a case of I delete them all from YouTube, and now I'm uploading them, re-uploading them back again.

It's, you know, it's one of those things. But, whoever the man wants to unsubscribe to me, thank you, because if you hadn't told me, I'm sure I would have found out eventually, because most of the feedback I get online, outside of Facebook, is people moaning sometimes. But, it's useful.

So, you know, if I can make a change that helps people. And I don't want to put recordings on that no one can hear. And I'm really surprised that it, it passed through.

I managed to do that. Because, I suppose, because I'm listening on the iPhone, on the iPad, with headphones, I can hear the recording. What I wasn't doing is listening on the podcasts to see what it sounded like.

And when I did, it was like half the volume. I'm surprised they couldn't hear it at all, because I could hear it. And I'm listening on my iPad.

And I was listening without headphones. But I listened, and I could, I could hear the difference between the newest version, the newest recordings, and the ones like three days ago, before I started recording with this microphone. So I only started doing this on, I think it was Sunday.

And it's, you know, it's only been three days. But I listened, and it was literally half the volume of the new recordings. So now I've, I've corrected that problem.

I just didn't know there was a problem. So I'm really pleased to have found out. And even more, just, God, you're so annoying, that blimmin' ferret.

But that's it. That's how I'm gonna go. Thank you very much for listening.

And remember to be kind to yourself, because you do deserve to be happy. Lots of love. Bye.