Wow - it's amazing what happens when your computer crashes, and there are no distractions to keep you from your life's passion - LOL
The two-week period without a computer has resulted in some great progress on new music, and a lot of art to boot.
I was able to really tear into the lyrics on
"The Commodore's Daughter" - a true-life story of love, adventure, and danger ... and pirates!
Thanks to the Fret Club Song Circle for their constructive feedback and suggestions. The way the lyrics stood, it was a retelling of
events, but there was something missing:
the story. At the suggestion of the Song Circle members,
"what makes you want to root for the lead character (in the song)?" And that was what I felt was missing: there's a story, and it's fun and all, but why would anybody
care?
Taking the suggestions of Andy, Terri Jo and Melissa, I delved into the song as if it were a movie script:
Who are the characters? What are they like? What are their
motivations? These things don't have to be spelled out literally in the lyrics, but they inform the lyrics and give the listener a reason to be interested.
I also moved forward with a couple other new songs,
Missing You (But Not By Much) and
Ritzville, working out lyrics and developing the music.
A new song also emerged, tentatively titled
"The Time Has Come."
When my mom passed away, I knew that her death, and the long battle with illness, would be a fertile subject for song, but I didn't want to just 'write about it' - it was too personal to merely produce something hackneyed and trite. If I were to write a song about it, it would have to "say something" about what I was thinking and feeling as we all went through this experience.
I trusted my intuition, and let it sit in the back of my mind. I knew that eventually, it would emerge in song form - if I did not try to force it. And the words came to me. What makes it special to me is the
perspective of the lyrics. A combination of all the feelings that were pulling in every direction. The experience gave me a different view on death, and that is what is coming through in the lyrics... I hope.
I am gently persuading this song to come forth on its own, as it is a very personal subject. I'll post more as it develops.
