In 1999, with lots of help from my friends, I wrote and recorded a song each week for the year. One song was posted every Sunday of 1999 on a website called 52songs.com. Each song was posted and each week I made a visual image that went along with the song and its lyrics, and I posted those, too. We never missed a Sunday. The songs appear here in the same order in which they were added to the project in 1999.

Every song was recorded at Slipperworld Studios in La Honda, CA with the help of Charlie Natzke. His steadfast support and engineering (not to mention generous deals on studio time) made this weird thing possible. Many of the songs were mixed with Mark Keaton at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland.

I literally can't remember all the musicians who contributed, but Evan Eustis (bass and vocals) and Dan Lashkoff (drums) played on at least half of the songs. Mike Conner lent his talents to a fair chunk of material, and also didn't mind lending his gear once or twice. Charlie Natzke played guitar on several tracks (and wine glasses on one). Other musicians who helped out include Mary Pitchford (violin, vocals and keyboards), Paul Olguin (bass), Peter Tucker (drums), John Mader (drums), a guy named Pete (banjo), someone named Kevin (organ), Lee Parvin (piano and organ), and Michael Ray (upright bass). I know I'm forgetting people.

I played most of the guitars, the occasional bass, and anything really weird sounding. I sang a lot, too.

Back then, I was exploring the idea that the simple act of publishing a song to a web server could radically transform my work, expanding my songwriting beyond genres and styles to include anything. I wanted to explore and embody the notion that an artist's task is primarily that of making things, creating work as an ongoing, consistent way of life. I was curious to know if web-publishing might facilitate that state of grace. At this time, I was taken with the idea of quantity as a route to excellence. I wanted to write a thousand songs, so that at some point along the way I might get to be some kind of master. I was also questioning the concept of genre as it relates to an artist's ego and vanity. I tried to use as many genres as I could, to somehow go beyond genre. This, in retrospect, was quite naive. Above all I wanted to learn.

Whatever else happened, it is indisputable that we succeeded in the part that mattered: creating and posting a song each week for a year. As far as I know, we were the first to use the internet in this way. Others have done it since.

So here they are. The 52 Songs are a very long song-cycle, an extended family with at least a few members you'd probably rather not have over for the holidays. This work was based in risk and experimentation, and I was a beginner. There are successes and failures. Such is the nature of the beast.

Michael Zapruder