I'd forgotten about object writing.  Object writing is just stream of consciousness writing that focuses on one thing, i.e. an object.  What ever that object conjures up from your memories and associations you write down.  It's a good idea to focus on senses we often underutilize: Taste, touch, smell, hearing.  I used to do it a lot as a way to find ideas for my songs, but I've mostly stopped over the last year or so in favor of word mapping.   So I worked with the word disguise today. 

Disguise:  I think of the Groucho Marx mustache or for some reason hiding in the hamper.  That smell of cotton and must and stale 3 day distilled BO.  The smell of our entire family trapped in a wicker basket with a lid painted white.   The best hiding place in the house was the top shelf of the linen closet.  Was it a chimney before?   You could crawl up into it, close the doors and be swabbed in cotton.  Warm.  Clothe against skin like a bed.  No place to run once you wer caught.  No way to get to gools, but who would find you there up in the dark?  I've never been much of a halloween fan, sure when I was a kid I was a pirate, a great costume with a sword and an eye patch.  I went to the party at the Smiths but I don't remember starying for any length of time.  No one liked my costume or cared about me there.  I was the Hulk once in a paper bag painted green.  Spiderman another year in a mask you couldn't breathe through.   Big Bird was maybe my most sucessful costume.   Five dollars that baought a mask with plastic pants and shirt.  The whole thing like wrapping yourself in vinyl.  Vinyls not fun but being Big Bird almost made it worth it right? 

I actually don't spend a lot of time on the idea of disguise at first.   That's fine.   Whatever pops into my head i write about.  Idea that aren't written down stick around to become blocks.  

So that eventually led to this:

He used to play hide and seek
No one ever found him
Until he’d wave in the front yard

the tree Counters peak
But some how he’d avoid them
They’d stop playing ‘cause the game go too hard

Hiding away
Where does he go?
Hiding away
He’s hiding away

He the quiet man ‘round town
Thers’s not much that he says
When he comes into the bar to drink at night

Watches TV with a frown
Drinks his beer then he pays
And disappears before he’s left your sight

When do the games we play
Become the way we spend our days.

A woman that he knew
Once tried to win his heart
She’d catch a glimpse and then it was gone.

I think there are some things that can really make writing a song a day for a month go more smoothly.   At the top of that list should be getting enough sleep.  Having someone to do my laundry might be nice too.  Last night was definitely a not enough sleep kind of night.  Today was definitely an "I need to do my laundry" day.   That might be a song right there.   I think Amber Rubarth may have written it in fact.
Part of the reason why I'm doing this whole thing is to find out just how far I can push myself.  As I went into the month I kind of suspected there might be a dry spell in the middle.  That may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy but also I think having a dry spell requires the kind of judgement that I try to avoid when I've doing a song a day week.  Ideally I just get up and write a song.  Is it Good?  Is it bad?  It doesn't matter.  I wrote the song.  So in a way the whole thing is really about learning to work with my judgements and they've been getting the better of me for a couple days. 
So today after rejecting every fledgling idea that tottered it's way into my mind, I went back through and found an old set of lyrics in my "songs in progress" file and went with that.   It's time to start throwing out my judgement instead of throwing out my songs.

I put the pedal down in the rain
Headlights washing by in the opposite lane
It’s starting to get late but I don’t mind
Getting home tonight is one more song

One more song
One more time
One more kiss
One less near miss

I thought that I was breaking up with you
Can’t seem to get along just the hurt getting through
We spent some time apart if felt all wrong
Now we’re back together for one more song

Sometimes my days look all the same
Feet drag on the sidewalk, I feel numb and dumb and plain
If I’m smart that’s when I head out on the road
Put the pedal down and find one more song.

I'm beginning to think there are no sweeter words printed in the English language than "Export to iTunes."   Certainly "we don't need you at work this evening" comes close in the spoken language.  
Today felt more relaxed in some ways than the last few days.  I watched "The Wrestler."  If there was any doubt that Springsteen knows how to put together a song, the last moments of "The Wrestler" washed it away.   Later after getting the bejeezus scared out of me by Nightline's report on the economic crisis, I popped "New York Doll" into the DVD player.  Some of the parallels between it and "The Wrestler" were eerie.  But then, you don't come here to listen to me prattle about movies.  
Yesterday's conversation with the Herald reporter reminded me humor is important to the whole process.  I was musing on the humorless cloud that seems to have settled over my writing when this little ditty started to pop out.   It uses my favorite little ragtime chord progression that you'll recognize from the other day.  I did my best to throw in a couple curve balls with it and more importantly, this song is funnier.  

My humors been wearing thin
On the wrong bed side again and again
Is any body listening
I’d like to know

I’m feel like that cat in the cartoons
Tied to a rocket and blowing on the fuse
Is there some escape plan I can use?
I’d like to know

I’m trying to keep a noble attitude
Like Stuart Smallie or Wayne Dwyer
But hard making use of my gratitude
And my smile is making me a liar

There’s nausea that I feel
While spin out at such an even keel
Is there someone at the wheel
I’d like to know

All these problems just frustrate
I’ll better if I master fate
Or will it be too late
I’d like to know

I’m trying to keep a noble attitude
Like Stuart Smallie or Wayne Dwyer
But hard making use of my gratitude
And my smile is making me a liar

There’s nausea that I feel
While spin out at such an even keel
Is there someone at the wheel
I’d like to know

There's a lot of 'this isn't good enough' bumping around my head these days as I sit down to write songs.   It's not going to stop me from writing anymore but it neither makes the process any easy nor does it make for better songs.  It's pretty inhibiting in fact.  
I chatted with a gentleman who freelances for the Herald this evening for about fifteen minutes (exactly the amount of fame I'm alloted by Andy Warhol in this lifetime).  He's interviewing local songwriters for an article he's putting together on the RPM Challenge and somehow found me.   Cool!  Near the end of the conversation as I told him the importance sometimes just writing a song about how bad the song your writing is, said to me; "It sounds like a sense of humor is important to the process." 

Right!!  That's what I'd been forgetting.  

Here are the best set of 'rules' I think I've put together for song a days:

1. Forget what you think you know about songwriting,
lighten up, and have fun.
2 Write and record a song in a half hour or less every morning.
3. Forget what you think you know about songwriting,
lighten up, and have fun.

So, armed with that reminder, I put together the most claustrophobic-cabin-fevery-cooped up winter song I could.  I looked out off the porch this evening into the cold thin air of February and wanted nothing more than hang out in the hammock again, enjoying a summer breeze or watching a thunderstorm. 

     There's a time honored tradition among essayists--especially essayists who have a deadline and are faced with a blank page--to write about the angst of facing a blank page.   God knows I've done it once or twice.   Throwing together a Blues song feels like about the same thing to me.   This is not to disparage the blues.  The blues well done is an artform.  But having been raised in suburban Reading, MA I think I'll always feel like a blues hack.  (I was raised across from a graveyard and down the street from a former shoe factory so I have that going for me).  
      With those qualifications out of the way, there are fun things to play around with and study in the blues.   Repetition for one.  And the call and answer kind of melodies.   And of course Dominant 7 chords. (Sorry if your mind just went blank, I'm a theory geek).  So todays song was an opportunity to explore all those things.  And I'm going to bed before 3 A.M. which is a small victory in my song a day world. 

Just need some sleep
some sleep
to get me back on my feet
back on my feet
a little sleep

I need some trees
Some trees
a couple trees
to make me feel more eased
to feel more eased
A couple trees

The simple things in life
could be so easy
if I only took the time
to do the things that please me
But the fire and the smoke everywhere
All seem to need my personal attention

I just need some laughs
a couple laughs
I need some laughs
to help me feel relaxed
to feel relaxed
A couple laughs

I just need some time
a little time
some time
and I'll be feeling fine
to feeling fine
A little time

    About a year ago I set aside a week with the goal of writing a bad song every day.  The self-flagellator in me wants to say this was easy for me to do but it was harder than I thought it would.  And fun.  
     Recently I ran into a story on 'This American Life' that talked about two Russian artist's who polled the American populace for the qualities they most wanted in their music and for the qualities they least wanted in their music.  (Synthesizers were the only thing to make both lists).    They then hired a composer to create both peices of music.   (Google "The Most Unwanted Music" if your curious about the project.)  
     The Most Wanted Music turned out to be bland soul-pop R & B.   The Mosted Unwanted Music turned out to be cacophanous and jarringly obnoxious in the most amazing way.   And I kind of liked it, or at least I couldn't stop listening too. 
     The first song didn't do anything.  The second song did arguably too much but it was engrossing because of it.   The lesson I took from this for my own songwriting it to stop trying so hard to make everything nice and pretty. 

    Conflict generates interest.  

    So here's the worst of my songs from a year ago for your listening pleasure.   I like this a lot.  It's a first take recording so there are a couple places where I'm probably actually writing the melody as I go.  Enjoy! or if you hate it that's ok too.  It's a bad song after all.  

I like mine dark and creamy
sweet and rich and just a little dreamy
Aren't you curious?
Just a little curious?

Hermaphroditic Coffee
Coffee made with two kinds of beans
regular or decaf or obscene
Hermaphroditic Coffee

I need a lift the morning
A pick me up to satisfy my moaning
Aren't you curious?
Just a little curious?

Hermaphroditic Coffee
Coffee made with two kinds of beans
regular or decaf or obscene
Hermaphroditic Coffee

It's once again 'too late.'  The version of the lyrics I have for this were more or less done before I left for work this evening at 6:00 PM.   I more or less followed the same path that I did yesterday with this song.  Right now I'm feeling like there are some good ideas I'd like to explore more that haven't quite found their way into this song.   As a change of pace I do like the idea of a song with no chorus.  In any case it's late and there will be new songs tomorrow. 

The other day I met Steve at the Deisel Cafe.  I was starting to write "I don't take photographs" when I glanced to the side--there was likely a pretty girl behind him--and saw he was on the RPM Challenge website.  We chatted for about a half hour I'm guessing.  And he left me with the resolve to finally check out Anais Mitchell's music a bit more.   So this morning I went to ITunes and downloaded her newest album.
At the same time, the last few days I've been up way too late writing my song for the day.  Hence yesterdays "Too Late to Do This Right."  So I'd resolved to have my song written and recorded by the time I went to work at 6:00 this evening.   To get through the process I decided I'd try a game.  Pick a song and write it's polar opposite.  Since I had Anais' new album I figured I'd pick a song I'd never heard before.   I picked up my ipod and looked at the titles of her songs.  "Song of the Magi" piqued my interest.   I listened to the song for the first time writing out the lyrics first. 

Her song starts out:

When we came, we came through the cold.
We came bearing gifts of gold, frankensense and mirh
And there were trumpets playing
there were angels looking down
on a west bank town
And he so loved the world.  

Flipping it around I first wrote:

When they left, they left with nothing
Hands holding not one gold coin
And sirens howled,
Devil's gossiping
look at what they've done
It's so wrong,
You've got to stop somewhere.  

I like playing this game once in a while.   It's fun to see what happens when you bounce off of other peoples ideas.  I'd love to talk a bit about what I think I've written about here... but writer in me wants to know if I've done my job.  Have you heard the message I wanted to convey?   Let me know what you think.  In the meantime, I'll be honest... this song kind of creeps me out.

When we leave
We’ll take everything
Leave not one thing
Not one gold coin
And devils will hush
in their gossiping
look at what we’ve done
say it’s so wrong

Hush your crying now
Hush your crying now
Hush now

An old man died in the northern cold
He had no coal, no wood to burn
But we took our feast
Took up all he reaped
Won’t you turn your cheek
For us once more?

Won’t you loan you’re coat,
Give up your shirt too?
It’s right to do
It’s the Golden Rule
Oh a Child is born
He’ll give everything
He’ll owe everything
For what we do.

      The title pretty much says it on this one.  Here's the interesting thing I find about this whole process.  This is a song I'm not likely to pursue much further but there are a lot of bits in it I like.  
      I like the disonance of the intro.   That's fun for me.   I like the hook a bit too.  I feel like there's something to it that I might explore later in a different song.   The thing I really like though is the rising chromatic chords in the last line of the verses.  (We'll talk about the vocals over it another time). 
       So what do I gain by writing this song?  If you choose to look at it through the filter of will I ever play it again/ will people like it... maybe not much.  If you choose to look at it through the filter of I got to goof around with some fun chord changes and stretch my boundaries a little, quite a bit actually.

It’s too late to do this right
I don’t have the time anymore

I’ve mapped out all my thinking
I’ve laid the best of plans
I’ve avoided sex and drinking
It’s done nothing for me man

I’ve invited all your weird friends
We’re going to write a song
About paper glued to beard ends
And a laughing swan

The ghosts that hide in cupboards
The ghosts that iron shirts
The ghosts that floats in star wars
Are learning from this hurt

       Here's my song for today.  The attentive among you will notice that the curtains from the other day showed up after all.  Inspiration is a funny thing.   I spent most of the day out and about.   Worked this morning.  Did trivia this evening.   I wrote a bit on the Subway in hopes that I might trip upon some ideas before starting to enjoy beverages with my old roommates.  There was a beautiful sunset crossing over the Charles River.  I wrote out, "Can I capture the colours of the sun setting into a frozen thawing river/ with the fingers of the a hundred barren trees reaching up into the sky/ black against pink and orange/ like they might stain their hands with Easter if they were to catch it."   Not quite a song.  
       Dennis one of my old roommates is a trivia whiz.   He had answers before the questions were asked.  By the end of the evening I was calling him our Peter Lafluer (Dodge Ball reference), the charismatic leader our ragtag trivia team that had the heart to win.   Later as I as futzed and procrastinated through starts and stops of writing my eyes eventually dropped down onto the name Peter scrawled in my notebook.  And that my friends is what inspiration is apparently.  
        A friend pointed out I seem to start most of my songs with the Lyrics first.  This is pretty close to true.   And certainly true in so much as I can only think of one time that I found I melody I specifically wanted to write lyrics too first, then wrote the lyrics.   A lot of times I feel like the lyrics and melody show up pretty much concurrently.   Often enough so that I'll start trying to find the chords I want and they won't sound right until I get the right key.   Anyhoo.  Finding a melody first is a good suggestion.   Tomorrow's song? 

The curtains closing in
I may be taking my last gasp
The world is getting brighter
And at the same time fading fast
I’ve fallen from the garden
And still can’t escape the sin

MMm Hmmm Mmm Hmmm
Peter let me in.

I fought once for my country
It was duty that I served
I made it through the trenches
It’s more than I deserved
I had to fire my gun there
But don’t know if I hit him

10,000 petty slights and lies
I made along my way
May not be as bad as
Things I didn’t do or say
I’d try to be a good man
If I did it again

I've been rediscovering the wonders of caffeine addiction as I'm writing and singing my way through the month.   So I was in Diesel Cafe when I started to try to find some lyrics today.  My process seems to go like this.  Buy coffee.  (Cookie optional).   Sit down.   Do a crossword.  (This hoping to introduce some new ideas into my head).   Start writing.  At this point I generally have no idea what I'm about to write about.   Last night the red velvet curtains at the Lizard Lounge caught my attention.   I thought I might write about that today.  Here's some of the verbal doodling I did on the word curtain:

There's a curtain going done [sic] on the stage/ there's a glint off the page/ of a novel in the dark/ why doesn't it work together?  

Yup, I don't know what it means either. 

And it doesn't matter, I'm just groping around in the dark until I find something solid to grab onto.   So I carry on and try a new approach.  The other evening, struggling to put together a song, I took three relatively random words from a crossword and decided those three words were going to inspire my verses.  The words were salt, moonlight and cayotes.   Thus "New Songs" was born.   I thought I'd try that approach again.   I used the words.  Ghost, Stone and Coffee.  

Nothing doing.  

Or not much.  

This was acutally like finding a wall and knowing a light switch had to be near after groping around in the dark for a while.   I decided I needed to introduce my nouns to some verbs so something would happen.   (Back to the crossword).  The first words that met each other was Shaving and Stones.   Now that felt like something!  

After wriitng out the first verse a game occurred to me.   What would happen if I just tried rearranging the words in each verse and create new verses.   This is what I got:

You and I we used to be so close together
How and why we’d ask sometimes but the answer didn’t matter
Conversations never seemed to end we’d just be apart for a while
Now the river bed is dry

Shaving a Stone
Shaving a Stone
All we are doing
Is shaving a Stone

I asked sometimes what’s the matter, you’d say why?
Endings were our conversations we’d just be together and dry
I’ve never felt so far apart so close in one bed
Well, the rivers running now

How is it you matter now you’re so closed
Why is I ever felt so dry while we were apart
Sometimes I wished we were a river, now I just want it to end
It won’t be the same again

      I learned from playing guitar that part of doing anything with regularity is making it really accessable.  For instance, my guitar used to live in it's case all the time--which is a little like sleeping in a coffin.  Anytime I wanted to play it I had to get up,  find enough free space to lay it down, unclasp the four latches and then get the guitar out.  That's a bit of an effort when I could just play minesweeper instead.   It took me a while--maybe 7 years?--to buy a guitar stand.  All the while there was a voice in my head that saying; "If you really loved playing the guitar you'd make the effort to get it out of it's case so you don't deserve a guitar stand." (If you happen to have that same voice tell it to get bent.  It's good practice.)  So I bought the guitar stand and now I keep my guitar there.   Always.  And I play a lot more than I did those first seven years.  I also deleted minesweeper from my computer.

I've essentially done the same thing for my songwriting, creating a space where all the tools I need to write a song are readily accessable whenever I need them.   So here's a picture along with an explanation of everything I use.


Connect dots and reveal a picture.  (Sorry Mom, it's a bit messy.)

1.  Cables.  They mostly live on the wicker shelf you can almost see in the picture.  The ones for my songwriting are dedicated to their various microphones and devices and never get unplugged.
2.  My 'writing' bookcase.   A rhyming dictionary, thesaurus and various books on writing live here.   The observant will notice the rhyming dictionary is actually hanging on my desk right now.
3.  The insidious glowing light is a Presonus Firebox which turns the noises I make into stuff my computer understands.  I have an LR Baggs DI next to it which helps my guitar sound a bit fanicer.
4. Headphones.  Always plugged into the Firebox.   Also hidden between my chair and the bookcase is a short mike stand I can move to the desk and sing into for demos with and Shure SM58 vocal mike.  The vocal mike is always plugged into the Firebox and ready to go. 
5. This is the notebook I've been doing most of my writing in this month.  My 'Secret Snowflake' at work gave it to me for "ChrismaSolstiKwanzaKhu" this year.  (Yep, I live in Cambridge)
6. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.  This book is like a butterfly flapping it's wings in the rainforests of Brazil that now causes the  hurricane of my songwriting in the People's Republik, MA.
7. The 'Break The Spell' by Ellis.   She's a hero of mine.  I keep her on my shelf for inspiration.  There are a couple other CD's and cards that I keep up there as well. 
8. $100,000 bill.  Someday I'll get paid for this.
9. Bose speakers, you know to listen to my music.
10. Sustinance.  (Not the same cereal bowl from the writing of my Facebook 25 Random things for anyone keeping track. 
11. Writing surface.  And just about everything else surface too.
12. My trusty Mac Mini.  It remembers all my songs 'cause god knows I can't
13. Ream of 11 x 8.5" paper.   This is generally what I use to write.  And a pen of course
14. A place to sit. 

About seven feet behind my desk my two guitars live on their respective guitar stands.   The most important thing to me about this set up is that everything in it is plugged in and ready to go all the time and that everything is dedicated specifically to my songwriting.   I have other cables and microphones that go out into the world for shows and busking.  

So last week's challenge on FAWM.com was to write a song about a photograph.   Here's my answer to the challenge.   I'll write a bit more later.  For now I have to go down to the Lizard Lounge and make some music!

I kept a girl once in a picture frame
Now I’m angry just to say her name.
She was on that myspace kissing other guys
And that’s just one more reason why

I don’t take photographs
No more
What good are they for?
Don’t need my memories hanging around
They only show me folks who’ve let me down.

I was doing 80 our on 90 west
In my review I saw I had a guest
I’d been drinking so he took me in
He snapped the flashbulb that’s when I told him

I’ve got a picture from when I was cute
Dressed for Sunday in a starched down suit
I’d see God then at least once a week
Always wondered when he’d visit me

So sometimes we learn lessons the hard way.   I was busy editing down a bit of stream of consciouness-type babbling to present to you all as a sort of before and after song demonstration.   The Stream of consciousness bit would have been the before.  The more finished product, the after.   But my computer had a minor seizure in the middle of all that and I didn't bother to save the tracks before starting to edit.   Reboot and hope... no tracks.  Sigh.  Start over. 

So I take a little peice that looks like it could become a chorus "New Songs, New Beginnings" and find three words (Salt, Moonlight, Cayotes) that I might be able to relate to that chorus to supply a basic image for each of the verses.   After I do a little wriitng I'm feeling like I have some lyrics I could servicably call a song. 

The FAWM challenge for this week is to have a song that changes time signatures.  Why not do it with the song?  I give it a shot.   I do like the idea of a somewhat dramatic change coming in for the "New Songs" chorus.   I've never played around with time signatures within a song before.   I really like the effect of changing the chorus to 4/4 time at the end of the song.   Tell me what you think :)

Tim wears a thinking cap for inspiration and a helmet for safety.

I got home from work last night and checked Facebook for a bit.   My youth minister from high school had posted her status as "Be Kind, For everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"  -Plato.  Something clicked when I read that and said "tomorrow's song," which of course is now, todays song.
Message songs are hard to get right.   There's a fine line between earnest and annoying, powerful and preachy.   I worry about these things when I write songs.  I'm sure most writers do.  But the secret to getting it right is giving it a shot in the first place.  I'm not sure if i'm there with this song yet.  But I like a lot of what I have so far.   And if I didn't get it right, so what? 


I’m the kind of person who thinks
Everyone deserves a hand
And all the world needs to be better
Is a little understanding
But can be so callous sometimes
I see someone one in trouble
And just hope they turn out fine

Be kind, we all have our battles to fight
We all have our battles to fight.

And what about the guy
Who seems to have everything he wants
Owns 3 homes, Merceds Benz,
And only eats in the finest restaurants
But he gets yelled at everyday
The CEO wants more hours,
His wife is tired of him away


When Im hit by a pebble I look for a bigger stones
I want to wash your hands of all their dirt but just my own alone.


Everyone has their battles
You just never know.
Everyone has their battles 
You just never know…

Questioning; "What in tarnation I am I going to write about today?" in my Facebook status today turned to be exactly what I was going to write about today.  Does that make sense?   One friend commented back "I hope you use the word Tarnation."  Another said; "Make it rhyme."   Um... Ok, here you go.   Sometimes in my improv comedy class our teacher would point out that we had made a scene more about the game than the scene.   This song is definitely more about the game than the song.  But it's a fun game.

Obama spells innovation
At least that was our postulation
Now we want our vindication
Through some righteous legislation

Was Economic stimulation
cash flow misapplication
If it was infuriation
We need the dough not corporations

What in the tartnation

Micheal Phelps’ Celebration
Suddenly humiliation
Smoking pot for recreation
Why’s that mean incarceration?

TV news an indication
Of our countries retardation
Looking for real information
Why not try Colbert Nation

What in the Tarnation

Everywhere there’s degradation
People flushed with indignation
Mad at tiny provocations
While preaching peace not propigation

When I need some mitigation
I search out good libations
Or prescription medication
And if I’m still ennuciatin’

I Say what in the Tarnation

I was driving home from my parents tonight while NPR reviewed the movie "Fan Boy."  I found myself thinking; "I never truly embraced my inner fanboy when I was young."   The other night this was confirmed by my utter mystification while my new roommate and another local songwriter talked TNG--"The Next Generation"**   It seemed like a loss in a way, like I was a social outcast even among Trekkies.  Poor Me.   So what did I do?  Go to the Deisel Cafe and unwittingly confirmed what a complete nerd I am.  

Have you watched the movie WordPlay? 

I saw it two years ago.   By the end of the movie I was a crossword convert.   John Stewart does crosswords.  So does Bill Clinton.  But I got hooked because the Indigo Girls went on about how much crosswords have in common with songwriting.   Sadly, I'm both finicky  and only moderately bright.   I fell in love with the cleverness of the NY Times Crossword but could only make any headway on Monday puzzles.  The first few months of my infatuation I was jittery waiting for Mondays to role around so I could work on another puzzle with moderate success. 
Then this January I finally caved and just subscribed to the online crossword archive at the Times.   Now I get all the Monday puzzles I can handle.   Sometimes I even finish them.   Sometimes I use them as a jumping off place for songs as well.   Thus the song "Don't Cross Your Words" was born.  This song is the apotheosis of that--and oh how my inner nerd is jumping around doing the PeeWee Herman dance having created it.    

**If you're wondering; "the next generation of what?" then you don't have inner fanboy.

The Crossword.  Nov 10th is my sister's birthday by the way.



The Notebook Page:


The Lyrics:

Wearing a suede suit
Yawning in his boots
Rene swung into town
On Misty his horse
Won in divorce
From a wife who never frowned

He had a cheese clothe heart
Was a yes sir sort
Was born in Salem, Oregon
It was Gman Pete
On whom his wife got Sweet
And made the Drama for this song

Cross your T’s boys
Dot your I’s
Hold firm a sturdy alibi
Lovers and fighters
Sheath your swords
If you cross your hearts
Don’t Cross your words

Now Gman Pete
Was a shade Efete
He lived in a chalet
So when Rene’s Wife
Sewed at Pete’s one night
He said, “Yes sir!” That man’s gay.

But Rene’s Friend Dan
Was suspicious man
He hid with a camera outside pete’s spot
And through a window he taped
While his mouth was gaped
A problem much deeper than he had thought

Now Rene’s a man
Of simple plans
He knew how he’d atone
His role was cast
And he acted fast
When he saw pete’s Onion Dome

So he hired Seth
A sage of death
Who worked with a nail file
And the story ends
With the point he sends
Don’t you skid after walking down the aisle

It occurs to me that  the muse doesn't really seem to have much pride in terms of where she finds her inspiration.   She may have sent me half a dozen song ideas through the day that I wouldn't listen too or maybe was just too busy to listen to.  In the end, around the 11th hour (which is two in the morning where I live) she sent me this song.  And I took it.  

Set off on your boat
I’ll let you go
I have advice
But you won’t listen
We have to make
Our own mistakes
We have to learn our own lessons

I’ll Be Here
For you
For you

I have a map
I’ve marked my path
It worked for me
I hope you’ll take it
I don’t know
If it will work for you
So molds are made
So you can break them

I’m scared For today
Of sharing this
I’m not so young
I’m not so spry
It’s hard to walk
Where we may fall
We don’t want to fall
We have our pride.

Leonard Cohen says that writing songs is a matter of blackening pages.   You start off with a blank page, and run your hand from left to right with a pen and, viola!  A blackened page.  
I started reading the Artist's Way again today and two quotes from Julia Cameron stuck out for me.  "For me, the trick [of writing] was always getting past the fear and onto the page."  And "Writing became more like eavesdropping and less like inventing a nuclear bomb."  
At it's best, song a days are like both those things.  Outrunning fear and eavesdropping at the same time.   Maybe it's a bit like taking a jog while listening to an Ipod.  There's definitely a lot of trust in the process when things go well.   I was waiting for that to happen all day while blackening pages this afternoon. 

Here's what a blank page looks like for me on GarageBand:



My friend Steven just moved into our Apt for the next month this afternoon and for a couple of hours I let him distract me from the task of songwriting this afternoon.   I was pretty much in 'stare at the screen/page' mode anyway.  Process, process, process.   We ended up grabbing dinner at the Burren and then I wandered over to Diesel around 8:00 to sit down write something I could put a melody too.   I found a seat in the back where a group of code geeks and crossdressers was gathered.   They struck me as looking a bit circus like.   The song I wanted to write, but couldn't quite get my mind around this evening, would have used the circus as a metaphor for the insecurities we all carry, making the circus folk the heros because they've turned their insecurites into assets.   That song may still be in coming some day.   In the meantime, here's what showed up:

They came into town
In harlequin red
Riding on Elephants, horses and bears
I bought my ticket
Into the fun house
And the bearded lady, she caught me there

I’ve got to escape
I’ve got to escape
I”ve got to escape
From the Circus

On the Road now
For forty days
The puts me in the cannon act
They keep me in chains
As the wild mans child
Until I hear the cannon wheels crack

My old friend bill
He found me there
The had a plan to set me free
We’ll pack in the gun powder
Tight as a purse
And aim the cannon out to sea.

Here's what a blackened page looks like on GarageBand, woo hoo!

Nothing of significants written yet today but i was 'stumbling' around the internet looking for possible inspiration and the first thing that popped up was this Jim Jarmusch Quote.   Figured it was apropos.