A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.
- Abraham Maslow
All in all is all we are.
- Kurt Cobain
Since I’ve started playing the guitar in March, I’ve kept a notebook with me to write down thoughts as they occur to me. Mostly it’s just various and assorted disparate thoughts, nothing really coherent, but one of my goals is to be able to write songs. I figured that anything along those lines is a ways down the road, but all things in due time, eh? I’ve never even written poetry, but then what is music but poetry with an accompaniment? I’m a good writer, but I’ve always seen poetry as a different animal altogether, one that I’m not familiar enough with to do anything worthwhile. Never did I expect what happened yesterday.
I came back early yesterday afternoon from running some errands and looked at my notebook without really even having a clear idea of what I was looking for. I sat down in front of my laptop, and before I knew it, I’d written the lyrics to an entire song in about 45 minutes. Later in the afternoon, a friend came by to help me arrange it (that’s still a fair piece above my skill set at the moment), and within about an hour and a half I had a complete song on my hands. I’m still shocked, but it’s a pretty amazing thing to consider. The song- “Invitation to a Restraining Order” is nowhere near complete, but I can play it and sing it from start to finish, which is what I plan to work on over the next few days. The mp3 is a ways down the road, and it will be a good long time before I have enough material for an album…but hey, who knows?
I had fun with the lyrics, and I’m discovering why and how music can be a force for healing. More than anything, though, I just had fun with it…though anyone hearing it for the first time is going to think I’ve got some SERIOUS problems. Here’s a portion of the lyrics:
You really do look great these days
I think you’ve lost some weight
So who’s the whiny loser
You were with on last night’s date?In my mind we’re still together
Lovin’ just the way we did
‘cept for that damn shotgun
You keep pointing at my head
OK, so I’m not exactly Elvis Costello when it comes to writing lyrics, but a guy’s gotta start somewhere, right?? By the time I finish tweaking it, I might just have something interesting on my hands. I doubt it will ever win a Grammy, but it might just win a restraining order.
