Category: Blog

This rotation’s song was inspired by a conversation with a good friend. In the course of outlining why a relationship wasn’t working, and she used the phrase “I just want us to align to a purpose.” I immediately thought, well shoot, there we go—I’ve never heard that phrase in a song. I started writing it largely attacking myself, with a much more personal, Dashboard Confessional-type feel to it…slower, and more biting lyrics. I ultimately sped it up some, cut out two versus and, hopefully, wound up with a better song.

I took off “Lift” this week. Once again, welcome to the new folks. Let us know what you think…

Five years ago, this thing was a mess –I totally forgot I’d written it, it was too long and lyrically inconsistent, and I only stumbled on it trying to find another song. That said, I felt like there was something there. It wound up being the first song I overhauled in my massive song restoration process, and it’s now the first song I’ll post as I exit that phase of my life.

The lyrics are about cutting the chord, escaping toxicity, and trying to move forward. In retrospect, I now see it as a song about cleaning up your life, with a tune that had to be cleaned up itself, which was re-written and recorded in a time period I was focused on cleaning up my life. It’s a living symbol of the times.

Lyrically, I wish I could’ve executed better on the concept of the last line (I can’t bend). I initially attempted to hit on the concept that constantly bending to the will of others, and not straightening out your own life, led to the circles. A few edits later (which I liked)…the reference now just kind of sits there alone. Oh well. Songwriting is hard.

I took off “I’ll Blame You.”

 

 

I was always torn on how much song craft to apply here. I fought myself over two things: one, whether I should leave the lyrics as what they were at the time; and two, the speed. I ultimately left the lyrics alone, and I compromised on speed by not using a click track (this is a live recording straight through, with varying speeds).

We took off “21 Days to Kick the Habit” this week. Thanks for listening.

This one is obviously about competing with someone and acknowledging you don’t measure up to the other person. “Let him win” is a little disingenuous because the narrator actually lost, but that’s part of how they’re protecting themselves.

I think this is one of my better crafted songs, and it got a decent response when it was posted as one of the first 10 at the launch of the site.

We took off “Stolen Time” this week. Thanks for listening.

This one was hard to write. It’s one of my favorite chord structures, but there aren’t a lot of syllables in the tune, and it was hard to cram everything in that I wanted to get in. I’ve poked at it a few times over the last 10 years or so, and I think I got to something I can live with.

We took off “Symmetry” this week. Thanks for listening.