In the spring of last year I spent a lot of time with my sister because I had recently moved back to Albany after a breakup. I do a lot of reflecting aloud with the wise and wonderful women of my family and my girl Sarah heard music in my words before I did and encouraged me to write lyrics. I bought a notebook expressly for this purpose. Several months later I wrote down my first seed of an idea. That seed is still germinating: "I get a feeling I can wait to hold on to you." It hasn't become a song yet but others have blossomed - perhaps this one will take shape as well.
Many seeds later one took root and there was a span of about six months between writing the first verse and the chorus and finding the other two verses and reworking what I had already written. That song - Broken - opened the floodgates. Seeds get planted more often now and more and more of them are taking root. I'm still in the early stages but I've written lyrics and melody for four songs and I'm working on lyrics for a fifth and have tons of other ideas waiting to turn to song.
I'm collaborating with a friend to add instrumentation. I was singing Home, a song I had completed only moments before showing it to him. The images that inspired the final lines of the second verse were still so fresh that while the moment in my life they reference happened years ago I felt transported. I made it through the song but cried as soon as I was done - and laughed moments later. I gave voice to old pains and pleasures and in doing so was able to be with those feelings, give them space, and let a little more go. I hope to find a place in a song for these lines but I wrote:
The pain is in the song now
And not in me
And that's where it's supposed to be
