Song of the Week: “A Little Less Each Day” by Anna Coogan

It’s time for another “Song of the Week”. In these articles I talk about some of my favorite tunes inspired by Books. We can all agree that music inspired by books is awesome and I’m gonna tell you why.

“A Little Less Each Day” by Anna Coogan | inspired by Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity

Every time I hear this song I find myself closing my eyes in an attempt to listen to it harder than I did the previous time. I love a simple opening guitar line, especially when I know what is coming next.

Anna was out on tour during the time she had to read Nick Hornbys’ High Fidelity and write the song. I believe she was in somewhere in Europe with her band. I could really feel her inspiration coming from believing in love, and what long distance can do to being in love. This is something I can relate to from my life’s experience, even if my feelings weren’t exactly the same as the way the tune came out for her.

To me, the song is about how hard it is to love someone. There are many challenges and sometimes you lose. But that’s OK. There is always love out there for you to take.

My favorite part of listening to this one is Anna’s brilliant use of her powerful voice teamed with the use of space (I LOVE space in music.) She chooses very specifically to hold some notes longer, and to cut some off.  Not only that, during the song she puts her use of those two strategies next to each other. Starting with her very first lines:

 Well I miss you.  (short)
I know that I shouldn’t but I do.  (short)
And I’d feel better.   (short)
If I knew you missed me too (looooooooooong)

 This is incredibly powerful technique. I find myself thinking deeply about love, and missing love.  It really changes my mood, and makes me want to sing along, and “feel” along with her (don’t worry people, I have plenty of love coming my way).

Some of my favorite lyrics (I know it’s most of them):

 Ocean’s make you groggy.  Airplanes make you terrified
Sometimes when I think of you I sigh. Sometimes I cry

Oceans make me jealous.  All that water standing between us.
Airplanes make us closer when we fly. Sometimes

Lastly, her use of “the ocean” as a character in her song makes me smile every single time.  I bet the ocean is incredibly lonely (there’s only one big one), even as the big guy is hugging the whole world.

To hear Anna’s thoughts on this song and High Fidelity check out this interview we did with her.