Writing Songs

In songwriting, there are morning sunrises and night skies. There are rural scenes and city lights. There are winters, falls and summers of. The song is spring. It hails, it rains, it pours, it shines like no tomorrow. Words flow manically happy and sad. On the edge, they create new soundscapes. Stories layer memories with sounds. It scares you at one turn, you burst out laughing next. That lyrical river captures moments freely as they stream by. It takes you on a journey where you never expected to be. Many faces or isolated, you see a person, a crowd or you are alone.

Someone Else's Bucket

When I grow up
I want to be Bob Dylan
I want to be the first President of my kind
I want to play lead in The Godfather

When I grow up
I want to be editor of the New York Times
I want to have a #1 single in America
I want to play in the NHL

When I grow up
I want my name to mean
I can read English
Any name like mine
In someone else's dreams

I am all grown up now
Seeing things I couldn’t do
Wondering if my kid can one day do –
Took 12 years to see someone like her in a movie
Very little had changed

In grade school, I once dreamed of being a janitor
This is true -
My bucket list was empty
I wanted to carry a bucket
To clean someone else's house

Chronicling dreams
Looking without touching
Seeing without doing
Polishing someone else's story
And I wonder what my kid can dream

Dylanesque

Whose purpose was purposeless content
To distract you from being content

Written with bitters
Put into my drink

Two people set their sights
On two different things

Whose self-directed determination
Was only self-minded

We parted ways
Or were kept on guard

Ignorant of what’s here
Ignorant of what’s there

Don’t wanna stand in your shadows
Don’t want you to stand in mine

When the might is only fight
No one knows what’s right

Intellect without courage is stupidity’s muse
Like calling someone stupid without even thinking

Ideas without nerve
They are nervous ideals

Your psychology, my bills
Too heavy to pull away from

Don’t want membership in your club
Don’t want to pay any monthly price

No more green lights on glass screens
No facing the face

When you’re suddenly left
With only the ones you don’t burn.

You only see a mirror
And there are no more turns

On The Radar

Theses lights that shine on

There's nothing gone

These things that you see

There's nothing to fear

These symbols that show

What was just tomorrow

Is just yesterday

In just one day

These quotable lines

Are what we define

These nights that are long

Are where we belong

These things you make haste

Become a time of waste

There's a darkness on the radar

To lose a star

From a stolen car

To the end of the bar

One day it hits you in the head

One day you can see what's ahead

There's a time that makes haste

There's a time that makes waste