composer, singer, songwriter

Other People’s Love Songs (2008)

Other People’s Love Songs is based on an earnest and sentimental concept: All thirteen songs were commissioned by individuals as gifts to their significant others. Corey Dargel – composer, lyricist, and singer – interviewed the couples and learned all about their histories, personalities, quirks, private jokes, and emotional lives. He spun this tender data into music and lyrics that encompass a wide range of feelings. The real-life subjects of these songs range from celebrities to the “couple next door.” Newlyweds, long marrieds, gay couples, siblings, daughters, mothers, and others stepped forward to commission these songs. At times, the results are almost voyeuristic in their intimacy.

You can listen to streaming songs and read lyrics as well as the stories behind each song at www.otherpeopleslovesongs.com

Purchase

Press Coverage

Listen to NPR’s Weekend Edition segment on Other People’s Love Songs.

Time Out New York interview (issue 682, october 23-29, 2008)

Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane interview (mp3)

“Dargel play[s] the role of a sardonic-hipster Cyrano, translating his patrons’ tangled and intense feelings into artful, sophisticated pop songs… merg[ing] the dreamy synth-pop of The Postal Service – cooing female background vocals and quietly sputtering percussion and all – with Dargel’s slyly romantic lyrics.” – 17 dots

“invigorating, innovative but immediately approachable… [with] an unguarded quirkiness and a sense of accidental poetry.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

“…the most transparently personal, elusive, charming songs this side of The Magnetic Fields. Every song seems to capture a different facet of a complex, adult, human emotion, that particular combination of regret for how things could have been yet satisfaction with how they came to be that is so much like the stimulating, comforting pain of pressing against a loose tooth with your tongue” – the big city

“Lyrically astute, and often very funny, Corey Dargel manages to give each of his subjects their own individual eccentricity” – Music Musings and Miscellany

“Dargel sings in a modest, sweet-toned, conversational way, and writes songs whose lyrics and melodies are at once wistful and wry, tender and irreverent… giving voice to the lives and relationships of his subjects.” – new york times

“ingenious nouveau art songs” – New Yorker

Track Listing

  1. My Voice Is in Your Head (for Katie from Teresa)
  2. Berkeley California (for Honor from Da)
  3. Your Secret’s Safe (for Ansel from Eve)
  4. Had I Jumped (for Anne from Kurt)
  5. All Other Sounds (for Brian from Molly)
  6. The Men We Used to Be (for Paul from Jack)
  7. Magnetically Elusive (for Moe from Eric)
  8. Hurry Up and Settle Down (for Damon from Jenn)
  9. Seagulls (for CJ from Karen)
  10. Lullaby (for 45x from Rachel)
  11. Five of a Kind (for Carl from Kristin)
  12. Summer of Love (for Maile from Jeff)
  13. Six Point Five Billion People (for Catherine from Phil)

Credits

  • Words and Music: Corey Dargel
  • Instruments and Vocals: Corey Dargel
  • Recording and mixing: Corey Dargel
  • Mastering: Tom Rogers at Atomix, Los Angeles
  • Artwork: Marisol Limon Martinez