Working on Final Lyrics

Lest any readers wonder if the deadline of this project will come and go, as with most 365 initiatives, fear not. With the scant free minutes peppered thither and yon, I am putting the icing on the cake, and there will be a launch in just over a month.

Steps to completion:
1) Finish rewrite of 'Commons' lyrics.
2) Re-record portions of 'Commons.'
3) Revisit final mixes; make last-minute adjustments.
4) Hire a friend (TBD) to master the recording.
5) Apply for copyrights to all songs and recordings.
6) Release this thing!

With chisel in one hand and mallet in the other, I have been buffing and polishing the chorus of 'Commons.' Here's the old:

Black hand, white hand
Gripping each other
Dance in circles
Sister and brother
Leaping, glittered splash
Underneath the fountain
Fifteen miles
A world apart
There's plenty of time
For broken hearts
Drink the moment
At the barefoot Commons

And at last, my latest (and possibly final) revision:

Black and white
A spectrum of color
Up or down
One life or the other?
Is it dark or light
Underneath the fountain?
Fifteen miles
A world away
Dawn, the tale
Of night and day
Seek the moment
At the barefoot Commons.


I think I am going to chew on that over the course of the weekend. Feedback is embraced as always.

Lyric Conundrum

Here is the chorus of the Redline Project song called Commons:

Black hand, White hand
Gripping each other
Dance in circles
Sister and brother
Leaping glittered splash
Underneath the fountain
Fifteen miles
A world apart
There's plenty of time
For broken hearts
Drink the moment
At the barefoot Commons

A handful of trusted friends all pointed out that this chorus is riddled with cliche and overused imagery. The song tells the story of two neighborhoods: a rougher part of town and the wealthy urban high rise community. The idea is that both neighborhoods have their detriments and their benefits. Neither one hell, neither one heaven.

The Commons refer to a public garden in Boston that sits under the shade of ancient willows and oaks, where people from any neighborhood may come enjoy a moment of its delights. It is the Eden of the song, and in it the only true harmony is found.

If the chorus is to describe this utopia, it ought to do so in an artistically appropriate and poetically sensitive way. I am going to take a swing at a rewrite.

Anyone have some ideas and want to chime in? If your ideas are accepted, you will get mentioned in the project's liner notes.

Thursday

Progress on the latest song has been moving along at a crawl, though I finally have something presentable to show. The verses are a bit naked as they wait for their chorus to be written, but I am going to post the mostly baked, still doughy lyrics here in the name of process.

This song has a working title of Thursday, alluding to the jarring observance of Holy Week that is once again in our midst. The phrases are not meant to become preachy or even to have any sort of message or motive. Instead, I have tried to deal with the confounding emotions present in this bewildering progression of holidays.

Loose ideas are jotted into a Microsoft Word document for the chorus, though I am only halfway satisfied with the outcome. Here is the song in progress:

Thursday

Clock says three; I can barely breathe
Words a knife; pierce me in my sleep
Broken loaf; drunk on heavy wine
Trembling fist; dipped his bread with mine

The rain must fall
Inside the garden wall

Weeping lead; sweating drops of blood
Wielding peace, fear I caused a flood
Decades fade; time has gone so fast
Tangled in fishing nets I’ve cast

The rain must fall
Inside the garden wall

Fall on my double-edged sword
Pay the price only I afford
Muscles seize; fingers start to writhe
Almost dead; barely still alive

The rain must fall
Inside the garden wall

Song Ideas

Yesterday I described the backwards process through which I am writing my latest song. Though I have composed an entire song form (melody, harmony, chord structure, and instrumentation), I am lacking lyrics. Only two lines are filled in thus far:

Clock reads three; I can barely breathe.
Words a knife; pierce me in my sleep.

How may a song flow from this concept? Is this a tale autobiographically describing any instance of sleepless, stressful nights? Do these words describe my struggle with fear? With failure? With feelings of inadequacy?

Maybe these lines are not about me at all. Perhaps they are about a buddy of mine who wonders if anyone likes him. If anyone wants to be his friend. Or is it about a youth in the Communicycle program whose dad has departed the house leaving a mother to care for three children?

What if the lines begin to describe the horror of betrayal on Maundy Thursday leading to the death of Friday?

I am slowly realizing the value of a generic lyric - one that can be bent and flexed to mean any number of things in the mind of the listener. As details fill the gaps of a story, the number of listeners able to internalize it will undoubtedly decrease.

Paradox

Do you remember when questions had one answer? Every aspect of my life was marked by right or wrong until the day I graduated college. Remember when red checkmarks peppered the pages of stapled exams? Remember bubble sheets and percentiles? Remember when two and two equaled four?

I believe good and evil war with each other. Though this is an abrasive fact of life, I am resigned to know nothing can change this reality.

Complexity is a web of sticky strands that spins thicker each day, and nothing is ever quite as it appears. On occasion, the underbelly of evil and the essence of good both cameo in the same scene, leaving spectators in a confounded haze.

By way of example, I heard a story about a young lady who was raped in an alley. In the aftermath, scars of fear permanently gnarled the woman's soul, leaving her emotionally paralyzed and unable to leave the apartment. The baby she bore as a result of the horrific incident is her greatest source of hope. Though she would never choose to relive the panic of the rape, she can not fathom life without her precious daughter.

I inked up a sheet of my sketch book in search of a song that deals with instances of this paradox. Though I am yet to find adequate words, the ideas are converging into a string of questions for which there are no answers. I can not wait to sing this song; hopefully it will take shape soon.

Jack Shivers

Around three weeks ago, someone broke into the Communicycle Co-op and stole all of our tools. Our shop is located in a ministry center where a couple of churches and other groups meet, and several of these spaces were robbed on subsequent days. Eventually the man taking from the building was caught and has found himself locked behind steel bars.

Without tools at the shop, we have been spending time with the youth participants in other ways. Tonight, we brought them all to the building's concrete basketball court, where we enjoyed a crisp spring evening shooting hoops.

One fellow became bored and started rummaging around near the building's dumpster where a miscellany of discarded construction supplies were stacked in messy piles. He returned to the concrete slab a few minutes later announcing that he found a really cool sweater that he intended to keep.

My heart sank when I saw the garment in his hands, because it was a sweater that once belonged to me. In a flash, I was transported back to a January night of record cold when a man named Jack found his way into the shop. He was looking for coffee and a place to get warm as his makeshift home behind our building offered zero protection from the freeze.

I had nothing to offer him that night except for the thin blue sweater I was wearing. I shook it gently in front of him in insistence that he accept what little warmth it might offer. After we switched the lights off and locked the door, I shuffled around town gathering sweaters and blankets from my closet, a roast beef sub from the deli, and a tall cup of joe from the convenience mart.

As I returned to the Communicycle lot, Jack's tall silhouette appeared in the shadow of my high beams. I handed the humble gifts to him, praying that he would find the warmth to make his way through the frosty night. How crestfallen I was to learn that Jack returned to the Communicycle shop a few days later, shattering glass to enter and departing with handfuls of community-owned tools and supplies.

I never anticipated laying eyes on my blue, striped sweater again, but there it was tonight, tossed aside and dusted with fragments of last autumn's brittle leaves. I felt equally discarded by the unwelcome discovery, and anger began bubbling into my throat.

My emotions would have remained through the night had it not been for the marvelous Communicycle youth. These friends rallied around me as I told them the story, sympathetically resonating with my discomfort and frustration. I am watching these teens take ownership and pride in the program we are building together, and I could not be more elated at their sense of investment.

What do these meandering paragraphs have to do with the Redline Project, or with music of any form? Everything, really.

I drove home that frigid January evening through sheets of blurry tears, and not knowing how else to process the pains and injustice unfolding before my eyes, I grabbed a pen and scratched some lyrics onto a blank journal page. I have much to consider now about the direction this song should head. Initially it was a song of observations and simple lines that stated my confusion from a disconnected stance. The subject matter has since become deeply personal, and I am more a part of the story than I ever anticipated or wished to be.

Where to go from here? I don't know.


Jack Shivers

Jack shivers in the frigid night
Blue sweater, he is not all right
Black coffee, awake till dawn
Not alive, but not quite gone

Song Solution

Yesterday's post included a verse and a chorus of what I hoped would develop into song. The lines painted a descriptive backdrop for a story about two kids living in different worlds. I was puzzled about how, or even if, the plot should unfold, and I stalled out as I attempted to compose the following verses.

24 hours ago these few lines resembled little more than a haiku; today these ideas have taken shape and are singable from beginning to end. The story propped my eyelids open as I tried to sleep last night, and the melody greeted me when I awoke this morning.

This set of lyrics represents the first collaboration in the Redline Project. Late yesterday evening, I sat with my wife Margaret, and we hammered out the concept until the shape of a story emerged. Parallel construction is the main device used in the song; each verse relates to the others with common phrases and ideas as two different pictures with striking similarities are painted for the listener.

The song is about the commonalities people have across boundaries of economic status, race, and gender. Two living situations are presented that seem so different but are both filled with intense sorrow and moments of joy. These settings are portrayed as imperfect and broken, with the only place of true harmony being the public garden that lies between them. Its a story of finding hope in despair and discovering life in the midst of death.

________________________

Barefoot Commons

v1
Little black boy from Roxbury Station
Little white girl from the high rise on the hill
It's a steamy July in Downtown Crossing
But the willows cast their shade in the garden

Chorus
Black hand, white hand gripping each other
Dance in circles, sister and brother
Leaping, glittered splash underneath the fountain
Fifteen miles, a world apart
There's plenty of time for broken hearts
Drink the moment at the barefoot Commons

v2
There's something going down in Roxbury Station
Someone's two-timing in the high rise on the hill
He's skipping the rent to feed an addiction
She's hiding hot tears behind a hollow smile

v3
Find love in the pockets of Roxbury Station
Find peace in the quiet of the high rise on the hill
The ravens weave nests in the leaves of the willows
The lilies spread their wings in the garden

The Shadows in the Room

It was one of those moments when something came together so strong, so powerful, so unexpected. I was thrown off balance.

Late last night I was attempting to add a second vocal track to a scratch recording of a song I jotted while up in the mountains this past weekend. If you read yesterday's post, and I encourage you to do so, you know that the lyrics I pieced together find their genesis in a harsh story that is all too true.

Midnight. Singing a harmony line into the mic, I forget where I am and lose myself in the truth behind the song. Glass shatters, screams, violence. The bandit snatches more from a little girl than a few valued possessions; he grabs her slumber, nabs her sense of peace and security. Through eyes that refuse to blink, she gapes at the shards on the floor, sharp fragments of life that was whole just moments ago. In time, the gripping panic will fade, leaving in its wake a dull nag that will not allow much needed sleep to come for months and months. Fear remains.

As I open my mouth to sing, I sense the shadows in my basement moving around me, whispering the evils of the world in silent groans. I tremble. A lone tear departs the corner of my eye, encouraging a flood of others to drip to the floor. I am sobbing, weeping. And the recording is lost.

Or is it? You decide.

What you will hear below is a solid distance from perfect, but it captures the essence of the song's purpose. I hope it will remind you that even in life's most fragile moments, we can find a shred of courage as we sing 'la la la' to the shadows in the room.

My friends Ruthie and Ian work with 30 kids in an adjacent community. They keep a blog telling marvelous stories of justice and mercy. If you like what you are reading here, you will enjoy visiting Refugee Arts.

Worlds Apart

Less than 24 hours ago, I was sipping coffee with friends as light snowflakes obscured a mountaintop vista of at least two states, maybe three. Calling this Appalachian palace a cabin is a bit of a misnomer. Whether cracking billiard balls in the basement, enjoying 200 channels of garbage on any of several plasma televisions, or gazing through 24 foot atrium windows at an expansive valley floor, the weekend's accommodations were luxe.

I am back at the helm of Studio Redline today, chiseling away at a smallish list of graphic design tasks and keeping a little live equation going: [5:00 pm] - [time it is currently] = [how much longer until I can get on to other things]. If you are astute, and I assume all of my readers are, you have already figured out that the post you are now absorbing was crafted during hours that should lend themselves to the day job.

Between the lines of this admission of procrastination is an emotion that is all too familiar yet somehow surprising in its intensity. No matter how relaxing, refresing, and restful a time away may be, there is never anything easy about the return to reality.

As the miles between Atlanta and me accumulated, I noticed a touch of stress melting away. With each off-ramp that faded off the edge of the rearview mirror, I smiled a little wider, my shoulders relaxed a touch more. Just like clockwork though, the tension came flooding back the moment I rounded the bend and took the sharp driveway up to our front door.

I have indulged in a fair amount of moping since returning, and I have to admit that I am draped in sweats from neck to ankle today in silent rebellion of another vacation ending. Peace and rest are commodities that can be sought this side of heaven, but like a thief in the dark, time snatches these experiences away as quickly as they are found.

So yes, I am back to the old mill, and I am not happy about it. A bright spot in this humdrum Monday is making a return to a bit of daily writing and the accompanying hope of a successful music project in the making.

I spent hours picking away on the guitar this weekend, gazing at the bare trees as I pulled thin melodies from the brass strings. The Appalachian landscape lent a generous spark of creativity (as I hoped), and I managed to scratch a few songs into my spiral maroon notebook.

One song, my favorite product of these few days, gleans from a true situation happening less than five miles from my home. I know some youth from my work at the Communicycle co-op who live in constant fear of physical violence. Several have only one parent at home, usually a mother, who often work two or three jobs to put groceries in the cabinet. One girl tells the story of a night months ago when a man broke into her apartment and performed acts of violence against her mother.

Before this harsh tragedy occurred, this young girl would put herself to sleep and her mother would return from work a few hours later. Now stricken with sharp panic and dull, persistent fear, she keeps herself up until her mother returns from the third shift. Always sleepy, she struggles to focus in school and is falling behind in her studies.

There is medicine to swallow here. This youth (and many who live in her neighborhood) never get to experience the peace that is mine on an average Monday, let alone the elated sort of joy that comes from cozying up in the sheer wonder of mountaintop luxury for a long weekend.

The outskirts of Atlanta may not offer the euphoric bliss that comes from a decadent holiday, but compared to the pain and sadness that robs peace from the daily lives of many neighbors and friends, my charmed life is a taste of heaven itself.

There is much for which we should have deep gratitude.

Here are the lyrics that came from this pondering. I intend to track this in Logic tonight and hope to have another scratch recording posted here in the next day or two.

________________________

SING SILENTLY

v1:
Sing silently
Sing silently
'Till the bluebird mama can make it home
'Till the bluebird mama can make it home

v2:
Tread tenderly
Tread tenderly
'Till the blackbird papa can make it home
'Till the blackbird papa can make it home

Chorus:
Sing la la la
To the shadows in the room
Keep singing la la la
To the shadows in the room
________________________

Looking to the Mountains

I am heading up 575 after work to the mountain town of Ellijay. This humble north Georgia locale has sharp peaks, a few apple orchards, and not much else. Among other things, I am seeking the sort of quiet that will get the creative smoothies blended and lend a sense of direction to the recorded product of the Redline Project.

I have a guitar and a notebook, and I intend to use both extensively. My fingers are crossed that the same mountains offering inspiration to writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, and poets over many centuries will cast a similar spell on me. I can almost smell my pen burning the paper as I tear up the sheets with a blaze of lyric writing.

Though there will not be new posts to this blog until the first of February, I promise several stabs at new songs when I return.

I will be away from the internet through the weekend, so these humble paragraphs serve as the conclusion to a wild first month of the Redline Project music madness. It blows the mind to think that a twelfth of 2010 has already breezed by. I am hopeful that momentum will continue to grow and the music will continue to get heard.

Ring Ring Ring

Life is structured to take us away from anything important. Work shifts us from our families, scheduled obligations keep us from hiking trail, and our handheld devices beep and squeak until we are up to our ears in voicemails.

What began as song lyrics a few hours ago mostly ended up in the digital recycle bin. The sole salvage: a two-line bridge. Hopefully you will find it as catchy and addictive as I do.

The music posted below is as much a public service announcement as it is a scratch recording.

When your thumbs are purple from your Blackberry and you have killed more than a few minutes checking the latest twitches (or whatever they are callled), take a moment to reflect on the good food you ate for supper, the blankets that will help you forget the January chills as you sleep tonight, and the rest that will be yours when you wake tomorrow. Even when life is not so good, it is so good.

From Out of Somewhere

To say that something came out of nowhere is an existential impossibility. I do not make any claims to be a philosopher, but I am certain that all things germinate from other things. Tree to seed to sapling, water to cloud to rain, human giving birth to human. That's the way it goes.

Consider the sobering words from the book of Ecclesiastes (1:9)

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

If you have been following along, you are aware that songwriting daunts me. As I sat down yesterday evening for another wrestling match with the empty page, I remembered a conversation with an old friend and fine musician, Jake Armerding.

He composed a brilliant song titled Color You In that uses the names of various crayon shades to paint a picture (as it were) portraying a young, vibrant love. It is one of those tracks that makes you mash the repeat button twice so you can listen carefully 31 times. Right around repeat number 24 I knew I had Jake pegged. I could rattle off the entire story of a delicious youthful romance set in the backdrops of quaint New England townships.

No more than a week later, I inquired about the deeper meanings behind the song, to verify that my interpretation was on the money. "What did you mean by the words of this song?" I took the nonchalant angle. He thought about it, "I just wanted to do something with the colors... that's what I came up with."

Like a once-inflated piece of grape Bazooka, all the meaning I superimposed onto the track splattered to the floor with an alomst-audible 'pop.'

So there the truth was. His idea did come from somewhere, but a much simpler 'somewhere' than I had imagined.

I contemplated this as the cursor dared me yet again to type. So I thumbed my nose at the blinking demon, conjured up a relatively simple concept, and got to work. (I think I deserve some bonus points too for squeezing the word 'redline' into a verse.) Enjoy this first official attempt at lyric writing and the scratch recording that follows.

If you want to check out Jake Armerding's music, follow this link:
www.jakearmerding.com

Can you figure out the idea behind my first song? (Don't overthink it.)

________________________

SLIPS AWAY

v1
Footbridge over river
Sidewalk into square
Down to the basement diner
Thought you were waiting there

v2
Found a wallet in the back booth
With a card that held your sign
The only thing to do was chase after you
Had a time and a telephone line

v3
Red line to the garden
Green line to the shore
Blue line to the airport
Take the line to the end of the line

Chorus
Jamaica Plain is the name of the game
That you play with your fierce green open eyes
Say it’s luck of the draw that calls off the war
It slips away, it all slips away.

Blinking Cursors of Fury

Radio songs are beloved for a variety of reasons. In most cases, a cherished track earns its way into the hearts of its listeners by being relatable, telling a story, painting a picture. Maybe a lyric resonates with a current situation, or perhaps it evokes a daydream that enables an escape from the doldrums.

I am fascinated by lyrics and often get lost in the middle of one, reflecting myself into its message and considering the lesson it aims to communicate. Check this verse by John Mayer:

We see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it,
We feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it.

It's not that we don't care,
We just know that the fight ain't fair.
We keep on waiting,
Waiting on the world to change.

I love this catchy song, the bouncy rhythms, the pop of the guitar overdrive - perfect for a road trip on a sunny afternoon. But I keep coming back to it, thanks not only to its irresistible groove, but because it succinctly expresses a sentiment that I feel every day.

What can we actually do when we are frustrated by systemic injustices? Write a congressperson? Sign a petition? Sip java and grumble about it with similarly helpless friends? The song is widely embraced because it voices a relatable message.

Music can operate like a virus. Initially infectious, it may eventually burrow to the soul, inspiring contemplation and perhaps even life change. While compositions can be heady, esoteric, and inaccessible, lyrics are an open door through which music's consumers can enter.

I believe in the importance of a musician connecting with a listener. For precisely this reason, I am trembling in my socks today.

Last night, I took three swings at putting together a few verses. Over and again, the blasted cursor blinked fury from its stationary spot in the upper left hand corner of an extremely blank screen. The backspace button fired away like a semi-automatic weapon, and the two hour search for something worth keeping ended with hands empty and brows furrowed.

I like the article on WikiHow that describes the songwriting process. It goes something like this:

First, select a cool topic that everyone will like. Second, write a few verses about the topic. It can rhyme, or it doesn't have to. Up to you. Then write a chorus. This is an important part of the song because it is repeated two or three times. After that, you will want to write a bridge. Something catchy is good here because your listeners will like it. Once you have all of that written down, you should record it. Then take the recording to the local record shop and have them give it a listen. If they like it, and they probably will, they will submit it to some agencies because they know many famous people in the music industry. The last step is that you or someone else famous sings your song on the radio. La chaim!

I wish I were kidding.

Needless to say, articles like these are not moving my would-be songwriter career in a positive direction. So what will? How do I get a handle on this important topic? More to follow.

The Importance of Song

From my first days sitting at a piano, with my kindergarten-sized legs swinging around unable to reach the pedals, I have always been moved by the sounds of the different instruments. As this fascination developed into a love, I became continually more serious about studying instrumental music. Matter of fact, I did not stop until I had a bachelors degree hanging on the wall and a masters degree tied in a neat roll on the counter.

A quick tangent and a true story worth telling: It was not more than a few days after I received my official masters degree from Fedex that I left the house to run a brief errand. When I returned 20 minutes later, I found a guilty-looking beagle, my pooch Daisy, slunk across her pillow. When she wouldn't look me in the eye, I knew it was time to survey the damage. Sure enough, I found what remained of my diploma on the floor. Daisy had consumed most of it, including the official school seal and the presidential signatures. Pffft.

For every moment I am working on these posts or researching musical gear, I am finding at least five more to contemplate my approach to creating an album of music.

The main problem: I can't sing. Not an underestimation, I know how I want the emanations of my mouth to sound, but my vocal chords refuse to cooperate. My voice is wispy and feeble, and hardly ever squarely on pitch. Hence the instrumental bent I suppose. It only follows that I have no experience writing lyrics or composing song structures.

A quick jostle through the radio dial reveals the truth anyone could have guessed: music that connects with most people has lyrics, tells a story, is sung.

Big questions loom. As I begin to put together an approach to the product of this project, will I somehow include singing and songwriting? Stick with my instrumental comfort zone? Some combination of the two? And even larger, what is the story I am trying to tell here? What is the picture I am trying to paint?

Just for giggles I sat with the blinking cursor yesterday and scribbled out a few verses. Instead of my custom of being embarrassed, I am going to make a practice of putting my scratches out there for everyone to dissect. If there are any poets or lyricists out there, feel free to dig your nails in.

Who are you? Lost around the world.

Without a face. Without a trace.

A lonely space echoes back the silence.

Years slip by without a word.

Lost into the past.

Just dial tone on the telephone.

The mailbox rattles in the wind.

Come home. Who are you?

On a lighter and much more trendy note, the Redline Project is on Facebook and Twitter now.

Facebook: The Redline Project

Twitter: @RedlineProject