You can here the new demo on the "Tunes" page.
I mentioned in my last post that I was working on a demo with Lee Johnson from Boulder CO. Well, we received the finished demo today and I wanted to share it with y'all. Hope you like it... it rocks!
You can here the new demo on the "Tunes" page.
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I did a complete re-write of "Forever My Man" (female singing to male) -- changed it to a male singing to female and had it re-sung by Dusty Drake. I am so glad to be writing again after a long and very busy layoff. It makes me grin : )
Guys, I hope this song makes you want to grab your wife and slow dance with her. You never know what might happen! You can here the new demo on the "Tunes" page. I got Galen Breen's demo of "Rubbin' Off On Me" this morning. Hope you enjoy.
I have posted a while back about one of my love songs which was a challenge to write -- being sung by a woman to her husband -- and I now have the finished "Forever My Man" demo up on the Tunes page.
I uploaded a picture of some buttercups (wild daffodils) to my profile on Facebook. I'm reposting the picture below. Well... here is the song that goes with the daffodils! Gals, grab your man and slow-dance with him! I posted a link to a Pomplamoose video on Facebook today with the comment "The simple joy of creativity." One reason I am keeping this journal is to allow anyone that's interested the opportunity to "get inside my head" in regard to my journey as a songwriter. I recently put a new love song I have written out for demo production. This song represents a challenge for me relating to "simple joys". One thing I run into a lot when I a getting evals for songs I am writing is the need to "punch up" the lyrics and make them larger than life. I understand that from a commercial standpoint and I can't argue with the logic. In this particular love song, I am looking at a couple of very intimate vignettes in the life of the couple and in doing so, must relish the fact that life's joys can be very simple. Consequently, the song is probably weak commercially but enjoyable on a personal level. I kinda treat each song the way a painter would treat a canvas. I try to do my best on it and paint a picture. I'm gonna hang them on the wall -- warts and all -- and they will be what they will be. I hope that the enjoyment will eventually by shared by others, but that is beyond my control. Life's joys are simple. In love, it is the sharing of everyday joys that is most important. Not every day and every event can be larger than life. Enjoy them when you have them, but savor the simple things. Well, my first writers' night is behind me. I drove to Little Rock yesterday afternoon for the monthly Songwriter Night held by the Little Rock regional NSAI chapter at Kahlil's. I was in the second of 5 rounds and heard some very fine songs performed by some very fine writers.
Folks, I was really nervous. Like I posted on Facebook, I stand up in front of audiences to speak all the time with perfect composure and humor. I sing solos in church and sing in duets/trios/quartets routinely with perfect ease. I was a knee-knockin' newbie last night! I did not sing well. OK that is the negative. For the positive, songwriter coach Marc-Allen Barnette is always banging the drum about getting out and performing your work. Basically, we all go through this. Though I will continue to rely on demo singers to put the best polish on my songs, I am resolved to be my songs' best cheerleader by performing them well, with excellence! So I will work harder at that. It is on list of songwriting goals for 2011. I prayed on the way yesterday, that I would love, serve and give through my songs last night (and always). When I stand up in front of a little songwriter gathering, I want to take what God has given me, turn to the crowd and make it a gift to them. Pray for me to get that done with excellence. As expected, the Little Rock regional NSAI meeting was very enjoyable. There were about twenty writers there and perhaps six were new faces (four first timers and a couple of writers who hadn't been there in a while).
A young family friend, Jonathan Traylor went with me. I knew he was interested in songwriting, but was totally taken by surprise when he played me the CD of country songs he has written. His songs are very entertaining and the one that he had critiqued at LR was well-received and amused everyone (his songs tend to have some very tongue-in-cheek humor). I'm glad he went. I was intrigued a couple of days ago as I read an interview with Ricky Skaggs in The9513 Country Music blog. Most everyone knows that Ricky has been in the music business since he was a sorta bluegrass prodigy in his teens. He can play just about anything with strings, not just kinda, but well. He made this statement: "I’ve always loved diversity. God is a diverse god. He’s very creative, and I think He created us to be creative. I think He wants us to be creative. That’s the thing I love about music: there’s so much music out there. My iPod is full of all kinds of different music, and my kids have helped me with that a lot because they listen to a lot of different music." I was immediately reminded of Eric Liddel -- the runner who was the subject of the great film "Chariots of Fire" about thirty years ago. Eric came from Scots missionary family and eventually, at the end of the Second World War, died in a Japanese prison camp in occupied China. His sister's opinion was that running was a waste of time. His memorable reply in the movie was, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure." This comes the closest to what I can describe as my "feeling" as a songwriter. Songwriting is hard work. The joy of a song well-written and well-received by others who know that is wonderful. Eric Liddel considered running as a part of his purpose. He honored God by doing the things he was blessed with to the fullest and most excellent degree possible for as long as God enabled him. Ricky Skaggs, 90 years later, is echoing the same sentiment. What a joy to honor God in the diverse, creative ways he has made us. I only, ever, want to make this creative "partnership" with God the basis of why I write. Well, since the last "Rewrite" post, I have finished up "The Worn Pages" (formerly "The Brown Pages") and have sent it out for demo. I took it to the Little Rock regional NSAI meeting and got some valuable suggestions then a couple of small rewrites and NSAI evals later it is ready to turn loose of. I hope to have a demo of it up in a few weeks but until then I will put the worktape in the Home Studio > Workstapes section of this site.
I have heard the comment made about how "magic" it is when the audience spontaneously sings your song along with you. That is something I witnessed at a Merle Haggard performance last Tuesday night.
The interesting thing was that the audience was made up of twenty-somethings all the way up to seventy-ish (MH's age). I was sitting in a row of twentysomething working men and these people all(!) knew these Haggard songs by heart and sang along. I made a list as the evening went on: * That's The Way Love Goes * Silver Wings * If We Make It Through December * Sing Me Back Home * Rainbow Stew * Set Me Free * Kern River * Okie From Muskogee Of course, there were many, many songs performed but these listed had instances of spontaneous sing-a-longs. What a thing to write songs that people identify with so strongly! Setting aside subject matter and the fact that more than a few audience members were drunk, as a writer I have to learn to connect so strongly and to cut such a wide swath age-wise. This was phenomenal. Writers and performers often talk about touching lives with their craft as a primary motivator. For a moment, I want to ignore the demographics of the audience, which, again, was roughly aged 20 - 75, neither predominantly male nor female, and was kind of a mixture of honky-tonk partiers and upper middle class concert goers. Here is a man who has an enormous body of work. It has been covered many times over by other famous artists and is well enough known that the entire demographic I mentioned above could sing along spontaneously. Isn't Merle touching lives? Again, let's not get tangled up over "how" he is touching them, or to what end. Let's look at the big picture and realize that lives can be touched in this way. Let's take courage from that and figure out how to do it in a way that we can "overcome evil with good" as Romans 12 says. |
AuthorI'm John Rowland, a country songwriter, working man and father from East Texas. Archives
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