I’ve been trying to concentrate on my next novel and doing some blog posts and a few newspaper columns and suchlike, but the music has been pestering me for an outlet, so I guess it’s time I made a new page for it so it will leave me alone.
I’ve been singing and playing guitar in an incredibly amateur fashion for most of my life, keeping myself amused and seldom bothering others with it…except for that short period when I’d get all the beer I could drink (the fee for that was actually just $2, anyway), at the bar where the submariners hung out on the Navy base, if I sang “Sunshine On My Shoulders” for Roger, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. I’ve been writing songs for around 25 years, but not prolifically and never really intended for the public. Come to think of it, everything I’ve written was very personal and written to tell somebody “I love you.”
But really, all good writing, of any kind, comes from a very personal place, with a deep meaning to the author even if not to Everybody Out There. Some other people may find that meaning, too, and if that’s not a giant throng of humanity, so what? If it enriches one other person’s life in some way, then it’s had a positive effect on the universe. Miniscule, perhaps, but every little positive helps. Maybe it’s a good thing to add every positive you can, because I think it’s everybody’s job to make the universe just a little better off than it was when you found it. Maybe that’s what humanity is all about.
Recently I read a quote by a smart lady named Glennon Doyle: “If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or sing, please refuse to worry about whether you’re good enough. Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world that no one else can offer: yourself. “
I’ve always been too much of an introvert to say, “Hey, universe! Look what I did!” So I reckon I’m not cut out to be a performer…but writers gotta write. My songs were just meant to make someone smile and know how I felt. Gifts. But it’s possible that somebody else out there might hear one someday and smile, too, and the universe might do a miniscule quiver…a tiny little happy dance. So maybe it’s time to let some of them just swirl around the electronosphere a little, and spread a smile or two on the off chance somebody stumbles across them one of these days, and just maybe I’ll feel that little quiver all the way back to me, and I’ll smile, too.
So maybe from time to time I can manage to record one of these little gifts and post it. It couldn’t hurt too much, could it? And maybe George Strait will stumble across one and come out of retirement just to record such an awesome, wondrous song. Maybe Darius Rucker and Garth Brooks will arm-wrestle over the opportunity to sing one of them. Let’s not hold our breath, but if you’re gonna dream, dream big!
And best of all, this just might get somebody else to say, “Heck…I can write better than THAT!” And they’ll write and sing and give gifts to the universe and make it a happier place. Big dreams or miniscule happy dances or inspiration…it’s all good.
Look out, universe!
So to start out, here’s a song I wrote earlier this year for my wife, Sugar Babe, for our 20th anniversary, called “Legendary Love.” Just written to say “I love you” and make her smile, and it was a resounding songwriting success in that one way. Maybe it’ll get somebody else to smile, and that would double my success, so here goes! If it makes you smile, I’ll be all tickled and flutterated and the world will have warmed up a notch. Can’t beat that.
In A Tale-Spin 