There's a definite feeling of relief getting into the last week of this.  It feels familiar.   I've written seven songs in seven days before.   No problem.   The lyrics for this song were actually generated about halfway through last week but I wasn't quite sure how to put them all together.  Necessity being the mother of invention, when I was feeling completely dry last night and tired of writing meta songs about the process of writing 28 songs in 28 days, I dug this out. 
Remembering Elizabeth Gilbert's talk on inspiration last night--I posted it here Saturday evening on--had me smiling last night as I worked through the process.  Maybe my genius is just kind of lame today.  I even ventured to mention to my muse that I was doing my best to show up so if she didn't feel like it I wasn't taking full responsibility for whatever came out.   

Vagabonds and troubadors
Nerds and geeks and worlds or war
Crossword puzzlers and scrabble Scores
We are the Ghosts in the Cafes

Sunday papers magazines
Savage loves and train-scenes
Outcasts as well as beauty queens
We are the Ghosts in the Cafes

A moan of lonlieness
or sketch of love
We write our words in notebooks
Look for thoughts up above

Nannies, moms and scarey men
Critics with their poison pens
Folks like us and lots of them
We are the Ghosts in the Cafes

A moan of lonlieness
or sketch of love
We write our words in notebooks
Look for thoughts up above

Quiet men and bashful girls
Pastries filled with cream chese swirls
Every table it’s own world
We are the Ghosts in the Cafes

      The title pretty much says it on this one.  Here's the interesting thing I find about this whole process.  This is a song I'm not likely to pursue much further but there are a lot of bits in it I like.  
      I like the disonance of the intro.   That's fun for me.   I like the hook a bit too.  I feel like there's something to it that I might explore later in a different song.   The thing I really like though is the rising chromatic chords in the last line of the verses.  (We'll talk about the vocals over it another time). 
       So what do I gain by writing this song?  If you choose to look at it through the filter of will I ever play it again/ will people like it... maybe not much.  If you choose to look at it through the filter of I got to goof around with some fun chord changes and stretch my boundaries a little, quite a bit actually.

It’s too late to do this right
I don’t have the time anymore

I’ve mapped out all my thinking
I’ve laid the best of plans
I’ve avoided sex and drinking
It’s done nothing for me man

I’ve invited all your weird friends
We’re going to write a song
About paper glued to beard ends
And a laughing swan

The ghosts that hide in cupboards
The ghosts that iron shirts
The ghosts that floats in star wars
Are learning from this hurt

I've been rediscovering the wonders of caffeine addiction as I'm writing and singing my way through the month.   So I was in Diesel Cafe when I started to try to find some lyrics today.  My process seems to go like this.  Buy coffee.  (Cookie optional).   Sit down.   Do a crossword.  (This hoping to introduce some new ideas into my head).   Start writing.  At this point I generally have no idea what I'm about to write about.   Last night the red velvet curtains at the Lizard Lounge caught my attention.   I thought I might write about that today.  Here's some of the verbal doodling I did on the word curtain:

There's a curtain going done [sic] on the stage/ there's a glint off the page/ of a novel in the dark/ why doesn't it work together?  

Yup, I don't know what it means either. 

And it doesn't matter, I'm just groping around in the dark until I find something solid to grab onto.   So I carry on and try a new approach.  The other evening, struggling to put together a song, I took three relatively random words from a crossword and decided those three words were going to inspire my verses.  The words were salt, moonlight and cayotes.   Thus "New Songs" was born.   I thought I'd try that approach again.   I used the words.  Ghost, Stone and Coffee.  

Nothing doing.  

Or not much.  

This was acutally like finding a wall and knowing a light switch had to be near after groping around in the dark for a while.   I decided I needed to introduce my nouns to some verbs so something would happen.   (Back to the crossword).  The first words that met each other was Shaving and Stones.   Now that felt like something!  

After wriitng out the first verse a game occurred to me.   What would happen if I just tried rearranging the words in each verse and create new verses.   This is what I got:

You and I we used to be so close together
How and why we’d ask sometimes but the answer didn’t matter
Conversations never seemed to end we’d just be apart for a while
Now the river bed is dry

Shaving a Stone
Shaving a Stone
All we are doing
Is shaving a Stone

I asked sometimes what’s the matter, you’d say why?
Endings were our conversations we’d just be together and dry
I’ve never felt so far apart so close in one bed
Well, the rivers running now

How is it you matter now you’re so closed
Why is I ever felt so dry while we were apart
Sometimes I wished we were a river, now I just want it to end
It won’t be the same again

Questioning; "What in tarnation I am I going to write about today?" in my Facebook status today turned to be exactly what I was going to write about today.  Does that make sense?   One friend commented back "I hope you use the word Tarnation."  Another said; "Make it rhyme."   Um... Ok, here you go.   Sometimes in my improv comedy class our teacher would point out that we had made a scene more about the game than the scene.   This song is definitely more about the game than the song.  But it's a fun game.

Obama spells innovation
At least that was our postulation
Now we want our vindication
Through some righteous legislation

Was Economic stimulation
cash flow misapplication
If it was infuriation
We need the dough not corporations

What in the tartnation

Micheal Phelps’ Celebration
Suddenly humiliation
Smoking pot for recreation
Why’s that mean incarceration?

TV news an indication
Of our countries retardation
Looking for real information
Why not try Colbert Nation

What in the Tarnation

Everywhere there’s degradation
People flushed with indignation
Mad at tiny provocations
While preaching peace not propigation

When I need some mitigation
I search out good libations
Or prescription medication
And if I’m still ennuciatin’

I Say what in the Tarnation

It occurs to me that  the muse doesn't really seem to have much pride in terms of where she finds her inspiration.   She may have sent me half a dozen song ideas through the day that I wouldn't listen too or maybe was just too busy to listen to.  In the end, around the 11th hour (which is two in the morning where I live) she sent me this song.  And I took it.  

Set off on your boat
I’ll let you go
I have advice
But you won’t listen
We have to make
Our own mistakes
We have to learn our own lessons

I’ll Be Here
For you
For you

I have a map
I’ve marked my path
It worked for me
I hope you’ll take it
I don’t know
If it will work for you
So molds are made
So you can break them

I’m scared For today
Of sharing this
I’m not so young
I’m not so spry
It’s hard to walk
Where we may fall
We don’t want to fall
We have our pride.

Some days the muse plays coy with me.   Actually, almost always on the second day of these things she does.  Or especially when I can distract myself with other things most of the day since I don't have much else to do.   So, I spent the day writing sporadically and sometimes assiduously even.  The important thing is inspiration doesn't seem to be hitting is to just keep trying.  A few lines that dribbled out but seemed to mean nothing to me today:
There was a rabbit in a field.
There was a wolf at the door
There was a turtle in the road
There was football to score.  
I think I was playing around with fables and ideas of innocence vs. things that hunt with teeth until my mind swerved towards the Superbowl there for a moment.    In the end though some of those ideas still found their way into the song tonight.  Ultimately it came down to picking up the guitar and letting myself sing a little.  I was tired by that point... The words "Oh My heart" just jumped out.  I liked 'em.   I stuck with them.   Here's what happened more or less after that.

Oh my heart, my heart
Doesn’t seem to know it’s part
Doesn’t seem to know it’s part
Anymore
Oh my heart, my heart
Doesn’t seem to know it’s part
Doesn’t seem to know
What to look for.

Thinking beauty is kind
It kissed a pretty girl
My heart thought it had had its day
But wearing skin just like a sheep
Beauty left its marks fang deep
And my heart, it just barely got away.

Thinking eyes were it’s goal
It found a pair true blue
My heart thought is had set it’s ship to sea
But when storm clouds overcast
It was too lost to drop the mast
And my heart, It barely clung to the debris

Thinking it could use some space
It went up to the sky
And found an angel next to the moon
But she had her own harp to play
So no music did they make
And my heart, it was left to singing it’s own tune