Songs

I just finished listening to the final mixes of the 13 songs that will be on "Musical Moonshine", and I had an interesting experience: I wanted to hear them again. There's much less musicial polish on these songs (all of them were recorded at home with one mic, no mic preamp, three guitars and a mandolin - no other instruments), but they sparkle to me. What's surprising is that these songs have been with me for a while, some of them for anywhere from 3 to 7 years. I have performed them dozens of times, and I haven't gotten tired of them.

There was a real sense of pride in these songs for me. I think they represent the best songwriting I've ever done. Some of them are experimental, while others are very straightforward, but they all work for me on some level.

I also have a better handle on the relationship between song and songwriter this time. I have always felt that songs were like children: you raise them up, and then let them go into the world, hopefully to touch other lives in a positive way. But this set, more than any other, feels like they are a part of me, maybe even a part I didn't know existed. I listen to One-Time Lover, a song about a rambling lothario and realize that - even tho I'm not a rambling lothario - there's a part of me in that cad. Or Washing Away, a stream of consciousness song that I realized yesterday is based in an experience I had four years ago. And the songs that are based on my relationship with Lynda are as simultaneously autobiographical and universal as I think any songs can be.

So it's almost time for me to send these children out to the world. But this batch is perhaps a little more mature and ready for the world than any I've done before, and they make me a very proud papa.