music

Don’t Go

March 11, 2022 — 1 Comment

I generated several song ideas this week and none of them would take. Then yesterday (Thursday) I sat at the piano and this one came out in one session.

There’s a lot of influences here. The most obvious – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The other things here are ruminations I’ve had from that news. Questions about when and how violence is justified. Fear about nuclear devastation. Jesus’s agony in Gethsemane the night before he was crucified. A hope and plea for renewed connections across the lines we’ve let divide us – and facing the important truth that we all have something to bring to the table, even as we are all part of the problem.

The title line, “don’t go,” is a call for us to be present for one another. There are so many ways we can check out, be distracted or busy, write people off, ignore the deep call of our own soul – and miss what really matters for much of our lives.

Who lets the madmen decide how the world turns around?
Who gives them permission to push big red buttons and blow up our home?
Now I’m sorry cause sometimes I keep to myself
The things that need speaking out loud

Couldn’t you be with me just for one last tortured night?
I need you to see me and help me believe there’s some sense in it all
Now I’m bleeding and nobody knows what to do
Oh can’t you just wait for one hour?

Don’t go
You’re the last light for someone tonight
Hold on
We are better when we come together

Who’s going to save us from what feels inevitable?
Why do we tell stories where everything comes out alright in the end?
Now I’m certain that nothing is written in stone
And you never know what’s to come

Don’t go . . .

I’ll keep on singing cause that’s what I know how to do
And I need you to be you and let your life speak what you know to be true
We’re all healers and heartbreakers in our own ways
Destroyers and makers of worlds

Don’t go . . .

Darkest Deepest Lovely Light

March 4, 2022 — 3 Comments

Ah, here is a song whose writing has brought me deep and (velvety starry-night) dark joy. Made extra special with Nathan’s impromptu joining in on harmonica and vocals (and production support on audio and film recording).

For Week 9 #songaweek2022, whose prompt was “wheels in motion.” I started the song apart from the prompt but drew on it to generate the second verse.

Here comes the sunshine
Here comes the springtime
Here I go again trying to find the words to say it all

I hear the birds sing
I see the snow flow
I taste the afternoon, swallowing it slowly as I go

Nothing ever held me like you do
Nothing feels the way I feel because of you
You’re the one who keeps me coming back to life
You’re the darkest deepest lovely light

Wheels in motion
Waves on the ocean
Blood and breath and bones making up the music as we go

Moon watching over
Winter retreating
A wondrous gift is given, how silently, how silently it comes

Nothing ever held me like you do
Nothing feels the way I feel because of you
You’re the one who keeps me coming back to life
You’re the darkest deepest lovely light

Weeks 8 and 7

February 25, 2022 — 5 Comments

Still getting in the groove of writing and recording a song each week while now working a day job every weekday. This week I started several song ideas and just couldn’t land anything I was happy with, so I turned to my list of poems I’d like to songify, and this one by Emily Dickinson fit the bill. I think it’s the third of hers I’ve set to music now.

Also, I didn’t post yet about last week’s song, so here it is below. The suggested prompt was “kaleidoscope dreams” and I had fun writing a short rompy song with it, but probably nothing I’ll ever do much more with.

February Lullaby

February 10, 2022 — 2 Comments

The chords and melody are central to this song. I considered making it instrumental only. The only lyrics I could imagine working would be something antiquated, as if the song itself is old, because that’s how it felt to me as I was writing it. But then I came up with these lyrics, and their simplicity grew on me. It felt like maybe this is what something I know as antiquated might have felt like when it was first sung.

“No windows” was the prompt for this week 6 of #songaweek2022. I didn’t use it but I did record it in my windowless basement studio. With my little studio buddy at my feet (watch till the end to get a glimpse!).

It’s going to be alright, it’s going to be okay
It’s been a restless night but now it’s almost day
Go back to sleep a while, you’re going to make it through
You are my own dear child and I will sing to you

It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be alright
It’s been a long hard day but gently comes the night
Soon you will sleep a while, you’re going to make it through
You are my own dear child and I will sing to you

You Look Like a Song

February 5, 2022 — 3 Comments

I’ve just started working a day job again after several years of not. It’s part-time but it’s every weekday, and this past week was my first full week on the job, so I planned certain pockets of the day for songwriting and hoped for the best. My first songwriting session felt like treading molasses. Several little starts into something that bogged down and went nowhere.

It would have been fine to not come up with a song this week, giving myself extra bandwidth to absorb new responsibilities, but thankfully another session turned up something more promising and then I was able to finish the song in one more session and record it the next day. So that Wednesday night the whole weekly songwriting/recording/posting process (except writing this blog post) was complete!

The tune came first on this one, and my first lyrics turned out to be throwaway but good stepping stones. I was picturing rollicking sailors hoisting beers and saying “never” a lot. Here are some of my actual first draft lyrics:

Oh you never gave in and you never gave out / And you never considered the cost / It was better back then but you never did doubt . . . You were older than the stars / You were dancing with the light . . . You were running with the bulls / You were dancing with the fools . . . Paint a girl on your back and another up front / On your chest for the whole world to see

Yup, lyric writing can be a wild and goofy ride.

Eventually I turned to an older lyric idea I’d never finished, and worked it to fit this tune. That was verse one, and then the #songaweek2022 Week 5 prompt “used to think it was” got me into the second verse. Then some fun with words for the last verse.

You look like a song and you sound like sunshine
You touch me like gentle perfume
You smell like the rain and you fall like fire
You taste like the silvery moon

You are how I know there’s more
than the way I know the world

I used to think it was impossible
To feel this light and free
Then I left second-guessing and never went back
And the rest is history

This is what I know for now
So it’s what I sing about

Run away with me love on the tip of your tongue
Through a trail of residual starlight
It’s an elegant joke, it’s irrelevant smoke
It’s a nursery rhyme crossed with a bar fight

It’s as clear as broken bells
All this nothing much to tell