pale beneath the blue

Road stories and more from singer/songwriter, pale beneath the blue.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

An ode to my crutches

Well, it's just about that time. Time to say goodbye to the crutches. I can't just yet, I need to see what the doctor says in a couple of weeks, but I certainly need them less and less. It's quite refreshing to be able to walk into the gym without them. Or get in the car and not have them get caught on things, be in the way, or smack me when i go around a corner. Yeah, Me! I feel so grown up, though I still walk like I'm about 18 months.

Today, I was trying to write a song about graduation or something not specific, but where you help someone until they can do things on their own. What was funny (well, it amused me) was that I was really struggling to find the words so I thought, "just write a song to your crutches. They've always been there for you and now it's time to seperate from them and go it alone." So, I wrote a couple verses of that and then turned on some music that I put together two days ago and then the words I wanted came out nearly perfect. I still need one line, but I'll find it. It will come to me when I least expect it. I think it's really funny sometimes where inspiration finds us...

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Monday, February 05, 2007

Cold air and a writing binge

It's no surprise that after weeks and weeks of mild weather, it's now freezing cold in the Midwest. Sunny and 8 degrees. Though it gets to a point when you can no longer feel how cold it is. It's just cold and there's no determining what the current temp or wind chill is as I found this morning having to take the dog out. It was just cold.

Things got off to a slow start this morning. My only plans were to re-record a piano and vocal track for a wedding-themed song I wrote with a guy in NY. I was attempting to record to a click track (like a metronome), a droning constant that never wanders. Let's just say, I need to spend more time practicing to a click, but that's not really any fun, which is why I never do it. At any rate, I was struggling with a couple sections of the song so I decided to record an old song "Unrelenting" and then come back to the piano track. Well, during Unrelenting, I was looking for a synth pad and found this cool pulsating noise that spurred on a whole new idea. So I recorded that and tried to write lyrics for it, but they were really lame. So, then I read my email and got something from another co-writer in Austin. She had some great ideas for a chorus of a song I've been trying to re-work into a country tune. But in trying to help her with the back story for the song, I came up with another idea. I remembered that I had this little piano piece that I recorded back in September...an hour later it was mostly done. And it was fun.

I've been pulling my hair out over songs that I'm trying to make sound commercial and not for my use (yet no one else seems to really get what i'm trying to say, so it's probably all for naught) and then God totally drops this one in my lap. I'm thrilled to be able to add it to my collection of songs that I get to sing for all of you. I won't tell you the name, but it's a story about a girl. Yep, that's all I can tell you right now. I'm a little uncertain about 2 lines, but other than that, I think it's finished. I'll see how I feel in the morning though. More cold and snow is expected. I don't know for certain if all the creativity today was because I didn't really want to have to go outside or not. But I'm guessing that it didn't hurt.

So, did you watch 24? Why would they ever allow Jack's father to be alone in the room with someone who is essentially a prisoner? I don't care if it is his son. grrrr.

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