I really need to get back on the blogging ball. I have been unusually busy of late, but hope things will calm down over the next week or so. I especially need to blog about the spring break Habitat for Humanity trip that Mer and I went on with students a couple of weeks ago. But, it is currently late in Matt-time, so that rather lengthy entry will have to wait for a few days.
About a month or so ago, I started taking Dobro (resonator guitar) lessons. I wanted accountability, and lessons make me practice. I am super-pleased with how things are going. I’m able to play most chords in songs that I like (think Fake Books, where you get the words and chords). I’ve learned three different right-hand picking patterns. My teacher has been impressed, and for whatever reason decided that my “assignment” for this week should be to write a song. I have played around with writing songs before, with little luck (I’ve managed a chorus or two, but never a whole song). I figured I’d give it a go. Last Friday, I was making calzones and listening to John Gorka. Gorka loves to write songs with double/multiple meanings, so it got me thinking. I started thinking about the idea of losing your life in the busy seconds that can make up a day, so I wrote down phrases that I thought would communicate that. Then, on Saturday, with the help of a rhyming dictionary, I put the ideas into verse form. Finally, today, I set everything up to a few chords. It is far from a masterpiece, but I’m happy with it for a music lesson assignment. Here is the text (and chords) of the song:
In This for Life
G C
Don’t want to die in the seconds
D G
Living on the edge of time’s knife
G Am
Much more meaning beckons
D G
‘Cause I’m in this for life
G D
Why do I wake up alarmed?
C D
Got a full day and schedule
G D
With my work I am armed
Am D
Extra time’s just residual
G
D
I always want all that’s due
C D
Staying busy is the key
G D
Just looking for things to do
Am D
Instead of things to be
G C
Don’t want to die in the seconds
D G
Living on the edge of time’s knife
G Am
Much more meaning beckons
D G
‘Cause I’m in this for life
G
D
No direction – I’m a rover
C D
Think everything comes by the sweat of my brow
G
D
I don’t want to be left over
Am D
Lose the future in the now
G
D
I’m not looking for a mean
C D
Grasping life is ethereal
G D
Don’t want simple scene after scene
Am
D
Life is more than a serial
G C
Don’t want to die in the seconds
D G
Living on the edge of time’s knife
G Am
Much more meaning beckons
D G
‘Cause I’m in this for life
G C
Don’t want to die in the seconds
D G
Living on the edge of time’s knife
G Am
Much more meaning beckons
D G
‘Cause I’m in this for life
Whoo! That was great…and thanks for sharing it with us. It takes a lot to put an inside part of yourself like that out there. Do you think you’ll ever play in front of people? Maybe a home-made folk festival??
YEAhhh…I took up your offer to borrow a movie or two while I was cat/house sitting, and my Browncoat recruit status is new but secure. I managed to find a copy of Serenity last week, and though I wish I could have seen “Firefly” run its course, it was QUITE a satisfying ending/beginning.
Very nice!
It is shame you chose John Gorka when you could have consulted my go-to muse, Men At Work.
Here is a fine example of their skillful lyric craft:
Traveling in a fried-out combie
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
Oh, Oh…And she said,
Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.
Buying bread from a man in brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich