I’m A Musical Hermit!

My March deadline for the next album is sprinting towards me, and I’m scrambling to meet it. The LP is entitled A Wild Little Hope, and has twelve songs. I’ve only got three left to finish editing, but it’s still a lot to do.

Songwriting is sometimes a tedious process. Melodies and chords come first, and then it’s the search to find the words to fit the tone. Almost all of my songs undergo anywhere from three to six rewrites in pursuit of their lyrics. The prize for the most crumpled up rough drafts belongs to the song O Love, Don’t Leave, at the lovely number of seven (and it’s still not done). And when I’ve found the right lyrics, they never seem to come from exactly the same place. Sometimes the right words have been staring me in the face from poetry I wrote days before, or perhaps lyrics from another song that fit better, and sometimes it just slips out when I sit down with my guitar and iPhone. (Thank you Apple for the Voice Memo app!)

I never want to waste a melody. I want an honest expression of life or myself in a song, and therefore I turn in to a bit of a perfectionist. I used to play the piano to express all of the thoughts and emotions I couldn’t put into words, and the hardest challenge of learning to be a singer-songwriter is trying to catch those words out of thin air and string them on top of a handful of notes.

One song doesn’t even have a name yet, the other two are A Thousand Birds, and O Love, Don’t Leave. They are the last ones left, before I can say nearly done. (When I’ve brushed up a little more on my violin and have a little less squeaking, then I think I’ll call myself done.)

I’ve got one week, and a wild little hope that I’ll finish it all.