Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where a song comes from.  I hear singers talk about something that happened in their life that lead to them sitting down and writing a song about it.  Sometimes the stories about the song are involved and elaborate.  That sort of thing is rare for me, probably because it takes me so long to write a song.  

This song, like most of mine, started life as a snippet.  A short phase that includes a few words and, perhaps, a few notes for them to sit on.  In this case it was no more than “once in a while”.  The thing that made it memorable for me was the way the words and melody would hold back for a measure and then pop out, the “and then… once in a while”.  

I wrote at least half a dozen sets of lyrics around “once in a while”.  
There weren’t many restrictions on where those words could lead.  Some bits of the song came from each of those versions.  After all that I had most of the melody but still no lyrics I liked.  I started over the 7th time and this song came out.  It resonates with my life experience and feels right to me.  It took a while but now it’s a song.  I wish I could sing well enough to do it justice, but I’ve got to work with what I’ve got.