There are some days when a song drops out of the heavens. Bang! I remember specifically walking in my bedroom to get something and the entire melody of a song popped in my head. One time I was in the kitchen, babysitting the entire eating machine Harden brood during dinner, and an idea and a melody popped in my head. I wrote it with a friend of mine, Kevin “Swine” Grantt in about 2 hours the next week.
The very first cut I ever got was a song called “Sleeping With the Telephone,” which Reba cut on her Duets record.
We were putting an addition on the house, I was working full time doing session work, touring on Reba’s gig, and literally putting every spare minute into doing about 85% of the work to build this addition myself. So one night my wife saw that I had just collapsed after working on the house, and she said, “honey, can we pleeeeeze go down to the studio and write?”
Now at that particular minute, I would have rather set myself on fire than have to get up and go down to the studio and try to write a song. My creative tank was on “E”. Actually, the yellow warning light was on. But being the good husband I am, I said “sure honey!!,” with a fake plastic smile on my face!!!!
We sat down, I pulled out the guitar, and I had just learned this new tuning called DADGAD, so I tuned the guitar and literally started playing this melody from top to bottom. It literally fell out. A celestial heavenly window opened and plop, here’s your melody.
Now my wife, Lorrie has a unique gift. She can hear one of my melodies and tell me exactly what that melody is in a song form. In my mind, this melody was a very alty, young, indie band kind of song. She proceeds to say “no, it’s a Reba song, it’s a duet between a soldier’s wife and a policeman’s wife.” I picked up my jaw off the floor, and said, “really!!???” I’d never heard of this put in a song before, so I called a good friend and genius lyricist, Don Rollins, who in a few days came over and we had the song written in 2 hours. He really is amazing to watch.
We demo’d it the next day, and in 3 weeks Reba cut it. See how easy it was!!!!!! I say that uber facetiously, with a slight edge of bitterness and a crusty dose of cynicism in my voice because right now, it’s darn near impossible to get a song cut. In fact right now, it’s easier to take over a small country with an army of 2nd graders than it is to get a song cut. But laughingly, I digress!!!
The whole purpose of this blog post is this. The things in life that come easy are the exceptions and not the rule. Most of the time when I write, it takes time. You have to “prime the pump,” like the old timey wells, you’d pump and pump with no water coming out, then suddenly whoosh!
Writing is the same way. Some days, you have to work hard to get anything, and some days it falls out. The trick is, being there for either scenario. I once heard a quote that said, “the art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair” (Mary Heaton Vorse (1874-1966). I love this quote!!! It’s that silly discipline thingy that keeps popping it’s ugly head up, like the ground hog in Caddyshack.
The days that you really have to work hard totally make you appreciate the ones where it falls out. And lemme tell you, just like when I play golf and hit a straight, down the middle, beautiful drive, it don’t happen often enough! But it happens just enough that it makes me want to come back and try it again. Wait a minute, golf…I remember that game! Oh yeah! That’s a game that people with a life play!!! Oops, crusty cynicism again…sorry folks.
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