Writing

I've been working on a new song the past couple of days, a wedding song. I mentioned a couple of days ago that I'd started writing again, now that I have some free time. Well, the first song I wrote took three days and I'm pretty sure it's terrible. This newer one is better, I think. It has meaning--always good to put that in a song. Really, it means something to me. Sometimes I'll start writing a song that isn't very meaningful to me or my life and I'll either run into a dead end or finish it and then never play it. But, I find when I write something that means something to me personally, then I tend to have a much easier time with it and that I end up liking the song much more. My fiance is always reminding me of this. This new song may become my wedding song. I'm getting married in a couple of weeks. I'm thinking about singing it instead of writing vows since it has become sort of an amalgam of adventures that my fiance and I have been through. This new song doesn't have a name yet, but I'll let you know when it does, and maybe I'll post an acoustic rough for you. I still have to work out a verse and the bridge lyrics.

Awkward Beginnings

I've been writing songs since the day I received my first guitar. I was always fascinated with music, always wanted to be able to play music. Since the moment I got my first guitar I couldn't put it down. It was May of 1995, the month I graduated from high school. I wrote constantly. I spent most of my life at that point in the basement. I would record into this old RCA boom box through its built-in microphone. I must have fifty cassette tapes in a box in the garage. A couple of years later, I moved to the four track. I've probably got 100 hours of old songs and song ideas on tape. I blush to admit some part of me always wondered whether those tapes would one day become valuable, like the love letters that Keats wrote to Fanny Brawne. Moreover, I recorded to hear myself. Perhaps that's narcissistic, too--like looking in the mirror, or better yet, like looking in the mirror so that others will look and see you. The writer writes for others to read; the performer performs for others to witness. We all seek a measure of approval and want notice to be taken. I intend to share some of these old tapes with you in the coming days, to post an audio timeline of sorts. It is as much for me as it is for you. How can I argue otherwise?

Anatomy of a Song

For those of you interested in the writing and production process of one songwriter, namely this one, proceed to the bottom half of the page and check out the newest addition to the blog, Anatomy of a Song. The course I take from writing to mixing is all there in rough mix audio for your listening curiosity.

Turning the Crank

I have been writing some lately.  Finished a song a couple of days ago.  Feeling a bit rusty.  Getting back into writing is like turning the crank on some enormous machine.  Bloop, there's a song.  It's a machine that makes pancakes.  The first one is always just a test.  Too buttery.  Like a late night metaphor--one so mixed it has to lose sense just to find it.

Needless to say, and I say it anyway, this is the first post of this new blog.  I have been pushing my new record, Time for Change, day in and day out.  The record was named for its title track, a song about my high school days, about the Baker house, days of romantic poetry and tree drawings, the days after my dad died, the trampoline, the fireplace.  I thought I'd post the first draft of lyrics for you.  There was only the one draft, scribbled over, noted with production ideas and melodies.