New York’s ignoring me
With her bright lights shining I’m in shadows
That don’t even turn to see
New New York’s Ignoring me

New York’s Ignoring me
When she smiles you know she’s not faking
Except when she’s paid to get taken
But New York’s ignoring me

She’s in love with these men who’ve never got time
Never got time
They scream and they yell
And they curse her to hell
But she loves them
Like she loves a good time

And New York’s ignoring me
The cabbies drive by with their fares full
And the beggars go mute if they see me
Yes New York’s ignoring me.

I think writing a song about drinking was our assingment for the song writing group I go to about once a month.   I've written drinking songs before.   Named my first EP 'Pick ME UP' after one even.  In way this song is an update on that song.
'Pick Me up' was a story song that I wrote because I wanted to write a song about drinking.   This songs reflects a lot more of my ambivalence towards booze these days.   These days booze mostly seems to make me headachy and sleepy.  In it's defense, it still tastes good and can be fun but mostly it makes me feel kind of stupid.   
So I stole the personification from the original song I wrote about drinking and made the person talking in the song me, or mostly me at least.  

Here's the first page I scrawled out on drinking from my notebook.



And here are the lyrics I had in front of my when I sat down, pressed record and started inventing a melody. 

I met out last night with my friends
I met out last night
We seemed to keep It on the mend

And I don’t know if I like how you talk to me
And I don’t know if I like how you make me feel
Yet here I am again with you

I never had a problem that’s I’d admit
I never had to give you up
No not for a bit

And I don’t know if I like how you talk to me
And I don’t know if I like how you make me feel
Yet here I am again with you

But when it’s bad it’s really bad
And when It hurts it really hurts
And when the mornings they sneak up on me
That’s the worst.

I’ve seen you leave people looking dog faced and old
And I’ve seen you leaving people
Face down in the cold

And I don’t know if I like how you talk through me
And I don’t know if I like the ways you make me feel
Yet here I am again with you

Rather than wax profound at 3:30 in the morning I think I'll let this song do it's own talking mostly.   This one was definitely a bit of a game in places.   How many times can I get away with using the words old and new?  How about Black and Blue?  I guess we sort of found out.

He wrote in black ink
About his old loves
And blue about the ones
That weren’t old yet
It was old joke
That made him chuckle a bit
Every Time love left him a wreck

Black and blue, Blue and blue
Loves aim is always true
And love always leaves him
Black and blue

He met a new girl
At a new bar
In a part of town that
He’d never been
But when her friend
Told her husband
He found himself
In that old shape once again

But there a smile looking down when he came too
And the waitress with the ice blacked out all his blues

He wrote in blue ink
About his new girl
But she never left him
Bruised or in pain
So he bought a black suit
And some blue shoes
And put ‘em on to ask
If she’d take his name

       Here's my song for today.  The attentive among you will notice that the curtains from the other day showed up after all.  Inspiration is a funny thing.   I spent most of the day out and about.   Worked this morning.  Did trivia this evening.   I wrote a bit on the Subway in hopes that I might trip upon some ideas before starting to enjoy beverages with my old roommates.  There was a beautiful sunset crossing over the Charles River.  I wrote out, "Can I capture the colours of the sun setting into a frozen thawing river/ with the fingers of the a hundred barren trees reaching up into the sky/ black against pink and orange/ like they might stain their hands with Easter if they were to catch it."   Not quite a song.  
       Dennis one of my old roommates is a trivia whiz.   He had answers before the questions were asked.  By the end of the evening I was calling him our Peter Lafluer (Dodge Ball reference), the charismatic leader our ragtag trivia team that had the heart to win.   Later as I as futzed and procrastinated through starts and stops of writing my eyes eventually dropped down onto the name Peter scrawled in my notebook.  And that my friends is what inspiration is apparently.  
        A friend pointed out I seem to start most of my songs with the Lyrics first.  This is pretty close to true.   And certainly true in so much as I can only think of one time that I found I melody I specifically wanted to write lyrics too first, then wrote the lyrics.   A lot of times I feel like the lyrics and melody show up pretty much concurrently.   Often enough so that I'll start trying to find the chords I want and they won't sound right until I get the right key.   Anyhoo.  Finding a melody first is a good suggestion.   Tomorrow's song? 

The curtains closing in
I may be taking my last gasp
The world is getting brighter
And at the same time fading fast
I’ve fallen from the garden
And still can’t escape the sin

MMm Hmmm Mmm Hmmm
Peter let me in.

I fought once for my country
It was duty that I served
I made it through the trenches
It’s more than I deserved
I had to fire my gun there
But don’t know if I hit him

10,000 petty slights and lies
I made along my way
May not be as bad as
Things I didn’t do or say
I’d try to be a good man
If I did it again

So last week's challenge on FAWM.com was to write a song about a photograph.   Here's my answer to the challenge.   I'll write a bit more later.  For now I have to go down to the Lizard Lounge and make some music!

I kept a girl once in a picture frame
Now I’m angry just to say her name.
She was on that myspace kissing other guys
And that’s just one more reason why

I don’t take photographs
No more
What good are they for?
Don’t need my memories hanging around
They only show me folks who’ve let me down.

I was doing 80 our on 90 west
In my review I saw I had a guest
I’d been drinking so he took me in
He snapped the flashbulb that’s when I told him

I’ve got a picture from when I was cute
Dressed for Sunday in a starched down suit
I’d see God then at least once a week
Always wondered when he’d visit me

I was driving home from my parents tonight while NPR reviewed the movie "Fan Boy."  I found myself thinking; "I never truly embraced my inner fanboy when I was young."   The other night this was confirmed by my utter mystification while my new roommate and another local songwriter talked TNG--"The Next Generation"**   It seemed like a loss in a way, like I was a social outcast even among Trekkies.  Poor Me.   So what did I do?  Go to the Deisel Cafe and unwittingly confirmed what a complete nerd I am.  

Have you watched the movie WordPlay? 

I saw it two years ago.   By the end of the movie I was a crossword convert.   John Stewart does crosswords.  So does Bill Clinton.  But I got hooked because the Indigo Girls went on about how much crosswords have in common with songwriting.   Sadly, I'm both finicky  and only moderately bright.   I fell in love with the cleverness of the NY Times Crossword but could only make any headway on Monday puzzles.  The first few months of my infatuation I was jittery waiting for Mondays to role around so I could work on another puzzle with moderate success. 
Then this January I finally caved and just subscribed to the online crossword archive at the Times.   Now I get all the Monday puzzles I can handle.   Sometimes I even finish them.   Sometimes I use them as a jumping off place for songs as well.   Thus the song "Don't Cross Your Words" was born.  This song is the apotheosis of that--and oh how my inner nerd is jumping around doing the PeeWee Herman dance having created it.    

**If you're wondering; "the next generation of what?" then you don't have inner fanboy.

The Crossword.  Nov 10th is my sister's birthday by the way.



The Notebook Page:


The Lyrics:

Wearing a suede suit
Yawning in his boots
Rene swung into town
On Misty his horse
Won in divorce
From a wife who never frowned

He had a cheese clothe heart
Was a yes sir sort
Was born in Salem, Oregon
It was Gman Pete
On whom his wife got Sweet
And made the Drama for this song

Cross your T’s boys
Dot your I’s
Hold firm a sturdy alibi
Lovers and fighters
Sheath your swords
If you cross your hearts
Don’t Cross your words

Now Gman Pete
Was a shade Efete
He lived in a chalet
So when Rene’s Wife
Sewed at Pete’s one night
He said, “Yes sir!” That man’s gay.

But Rene’s Friend Dan
Was suspicious man
He hid with a camera outside pete’s spot
And through a window he taped
While his mouth was gaped
A problem much deeper than he had thought

Now Rene’s a man
Of simple plans
He knew how he’d atone
His role was cast
And he acted fast
When he saw pete’s Onion Dome

So he hired Seth
A sage of death
Who worked with a nail file
And the story ends
With the point he sends
Don’t you skid after walking down the aisle

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.

Leonard Cohen says that writing songs is a matter of blackening pages.   You start off with a blank page, and run your hand from left to right with a pen and, viola!  A blackened page.  
I started reading the Artist's Way again today and two quotes from Julia Cameron stuck out for me.  "For me, the trick [of writing] was always getting past the fear and onto the page."  And "Writing became more like eavesdropping and less like inventing a nuclear bomb."  
At it's best, song a days are like both those things.  Outrunning fear and eavesdropping at the same time.   Maybe it's a bit like taking a jog while listening to an Ipod.  There's definitely a lot of trust in the process when things go well.   I was waiting for that to happen all day while blackening pages this afternoon. 

Here's what a blank page looks like for me on GarageBand:



My friend Steven just moved into our Apt for the next month this afternoon and for a couple of hours I let him distract me from the task of songwriting this afternoon.   I was pretty much in 'stare at the screen/page' mode anyway.  Process, process, process.   We ended up grabbing dinner at the Burren and then I wandered over to Diesel around 8:00 to sit down write something I could put a melody too.   I found a seat in the back where a group of code geeks and crossdressers was gathered.   They struck me as looking a bit circus like.   The song I wanted to write, but couldn't quite get my mind around this evening, would have used the circus as a metaphor for the insecurities we all carry, making the circus folk the heros because they've turned their insecurites into assets.   That song may still be in coming some day.   In the meantime, here's what showed up:

They came into town
In harlequin red
Riding on Elephants, horses and bears
I bought my ticket
Into the fun house
And the bearded lady, she caught me there

I’ve got to escape
I’ve got to escape
I”ve got to escape
From the Circus

On the Road now
For forty days
The puts me in the cannon act
They keep me in chains
As the wild mans child
Until I hear the cannon wheels crack

My old friend bill
He found me there
The had a plan to set me free
We’ll pack in the gun powder
Tight as a purse
And aim the cannon out to sea.

Here's what a blackened page looks like on GarageBand, woo hoo!

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