You Can(’t) Sing...

A friend on social media commented today: "Just listened to your CD, 'Peace Country Woman' again, and it really holds up."

Another friend had produced the CD for me as a wedding gift to my wife back in 2005. The title song is pretty much the only "commercially viable love song" I have ever written, because I came up as a prog rocker and writer of mostly strange songs. But when I landed in the "Peace Country" of NW Alberta, it wasn't much of a leap to add "Woman" and have a Neil Young-style song title. Once I had the title, the song wrote itself. To my friend, I replied:

"Thank you for the heartening words, brother. A songwriter / singer I respect once told me, after listening to the song 'Peace Country Woman': 'You are an awkward songwriter.' I thought it was a little high-handed, seeing as he'd only heard ONE of my songs. But because I held this person in high regard as an artist, it still made me wonder if somehow I actually SUCK as a singer / songwriter and just don't know it--kind of like Barney Fife. Jesus, no singer wants to be a Barney!

Other musicians have since told me "Well, 'PCW' is in 4 / 4 time, hard to fuck *that* up, and you didn't." Plus, the woman I wrote it for liked it, which is all that matters...

Those who DON'T want me singing should be warned that I just changed my guitar strings and have been practicing daily...

I started with no calluses on my fingertips at all; been over a year since I played guitar regularly. First week, a blister on my middle finger got infected; I squeezed out the pus and (though grimacing frequently) kept playing:

"Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen (easy to play, but you must, like a baseball pitcher, throw every last ounce of your body and heart into singing it or it doesn't work),

"Father and Son" by Cat Stevens (even more meaningful to me now that I am both a father and a son),

"Across the Universe", (written by Lennon, played by the Beatles, covered by Bowie). My 5-year old twin sons love to join me on the chorus...

...and yes, I'm even working to remember some of my own older songs. Amazing how we can forget our own stuff; it seems especially easy to forget the really simple ones, the 2-chord wonders. (Then again, "Eleanor Rigby" has only two chords).

Before I die, I'd like to re-cut the song "Peace Country Woman" with some harmony on the chorus and some sort of musical solo--guitar, harp (harmonica), or what have you. If only I had a personal studio...

But WAIT! I own a Tascam Superstudio with 8 tracks! Bought it some years ago, been in the closet all this time. Now it's all set up with mics and etc., but the tech manual made no sense to me even before I lost it. Time to go on line for tutorials...

My 'comeback plan' is this: Play every day for a year, THEN start thinking about recording..."