For the moment I think I need to just leave this song here. I wait and see how it lands. In the meantime have a look at the image above. What do you see?I'll Be There Verse 1: ’ll be there when you need meI’ll be there at the sourceOf strength and hope in the faceOf sorrow and remorseI’ll be there in those momentsWhen all you feel is painAnd even if I’ve been beforeI’ll return again. Verse 2: When the day is getting darkerAnd all there is is...

Missing People Verse 1: Streets wind their way through places I called homeI didn't give them a second thought as I walked those streets aloneI'd register what and who I saw everywhere I'd goIf anyone ever noticed me I'd swear I didn't know Verse 2: For the longest time I couldn't tell what it was that seemed so strangeSomething seemed to be missing but I didn't know what had changedAs years go by I'm becoming more invisible day by dayLosing a...

if you find this song to be mysterious, simply put "Boxing Day Tsunami 2004" in Google. This is the first new song I've written in over a year.  Over the last year I discovered recording.  It's become my latest obsession.  It's extremely time consuming and there is an impossible amount to learn.  So lack of available time is one of the reasons for no new songs.  I've got plenty of old ones to record.  They'll keep me going for probably another...

Early in 2021, when I was first experimenting with GarageBand, I recorded a version of this song. It was a terrible recording. My singing was never close to the note I intended and it didn't even maintain a consistent tempo. The song wasn't ready to be recorded and I didn't know enough to do it justice. Most of the lyrics have been re-written. Hopefully improved. I'm not sure why but the production took a very long time to complete, and even...

If you've listened to The Best this song will be familiar. The Best was arranged and produced by John Vallins. John heard it as a ballad with a killer sax solo. He did a fabulous job that I can't hope to match. This version is closer to what I had in my head when I wrote the song. It's more folk-rock and includes the bridge that was left out of John's version. It's not an attempt to make a better recording, it's simply a different approach. I...

I had the idea of writing a song that actually didn't have a lot of words. Too Many Words seemed like a good title.  It was going to be simple.  It was not going to be wordy or too long.  But then I found myself scribbling down some words.  They suggested a simple story.  The story took on a life of its own as stories have a tendency to do. Once started I needed to find a way to finish it.  Eventually the song was no longer proof that I could...

What to when there's nothing to do.  I suppose I could write a song. When people ask me if I write the lyrics first or the music I will answer "yes", but 'yes' doesn't really tell the story. Sometimes I write some lyrics and then find some chord progressions and work out a melody. Other times I've got a bit of melody and need to wait for some words to fit. And sometimes the two happen simultaneously. But invariably the melody will lead to...

5 March 2023.I've done a remix of this song.  While I haven't re-recorded the vocals I've worked on them in Logic Pro to make them clearer and more present.  Previously they sounded a bit like I was singing through a megaphone.  I think this mix is better balanced and the lyrics are easier to understand. ===================================================== The phrase "perfect is the enemy of good" is an aphorism commonly attributed to Voltaire...

This is the song referenced in "Blue Book", the story song I released a few days ago. I found the lyrics in a fifty year old travel journal. I tried to find Patrick Dietsch, the composer of the original song, but I was too late. He died in May 2021. When I found the lyrics my memory of tune sort of came back. I was pretty sure about how the first line went and the first two or three chords, but I was unable to recover the rest of the song. So I...

This song is simply a story, all of it true. It's about a another song called "Freely Flowing". The original music for "Freely Flowing" was written by Patrick Dietsch, a French guitarist I met at the end of 1972 somewhere in Mexico. He was travelling with another guitarist and they would pick up some travelling money by playing at whatever venues they could find. I only knew him for a week or two. The last time I saw him he was performing at a...

Last October I wrote on this blog for the first time in 8 years.  I had great plans. I was going to post multiple times a week and build up a large enthusiastic audience for this blog.  I couldn't have been more mistaken.  (Which is the longer title for the song that is linked below.) I was going to direct my blogging energies towards music.  As pretty much anyone who is likely to encounter this post will be aware, I've been writing songs for a...

I'm not a performer, a singer, a musician, an arranger, a producer. I'm just not. I do what I can but I dream about what it might be like to work with someone who could do the things I can't do, which is quite a lot. Wouldn't it be great to have a collaborator?  Collaborator Verse 1: Last night I had a dreamI dreamt about a beautiful songThe words were deeply movingAnd the melody was strongI got up right awayI picked up my guitarI tried to...

The picture attached to this track is from my 1972 passport. I was heading towards South America via Mexico and other parts of Central America. I knew that certain hairstyles were frowned upon at various borders. Rather than doing anything drastic, like cutting my hair, I purchase a $15 dollar short hair wig and wore it for my passport photo. That's me in my wig hat. That wig hat served me well across a number of borders. I actually wrote the...

=====Annette was re-mixed and re-mastered in September 2022===== When a line of a melody occurs to me I try to record and save it on my phone to be considered later. Sometime the melody is already attached to some words but often it occurs to me without any context. When that happens I try to fit some words to the melody so that I can identify it later. In 2015 Eve and I were travelling through Queensland and stopped for a night at a remote...

=====Twenty-two was re-mastered in September 2022===== This song began as an anniversary present to my wife, Eve. I started it on the day of our 22nd anniversary and finished it by our next anniversary. We've recently celebrated our 28th anniversary. When i perform this song it often follows "Love Song Kind of Guy". I leave it to the listener to decide which of the contradictory songs is actually autobiographical. This song, for some reason, is...