My husband, Randy, and I have been playing music together since we met at a concert in 1999. I was 17 years old and it was my first show. I was the opening act for his band. Within 5 minutes of saying hello, we were sitting out back, practicing a song to sing together. The songs for these writing prompts are a few of our original tunes. It makes me really happy to find a space in my course to share a few of these songs with you. All of the songs I ever wrote started on the pages of my journals.
Song #1 is called Winter Love Song. In the recording for this prompt, I am sitting on my squeaky piano bench in my living room, and near the end you can hear my seven-year old running up the basement steps and slamming the door… (No detail is too unimportant to record, right?) This song was inspired by a walk to town with Randy on one achingly beautiful winter day back in 2006. The lyrics start:
The combination of your new shirt
And the color of your beard
Were nearly unbearable
While we walking down Spring St.
If you want me to sing it to you, you can listen to the original recording from our album, Home, below. It has Randy playing upright bass and Irish whistles and singing harmonies with me.
Song #2 is the recording from this same album, and it is called Nellie’s Waltz. My husband wrote and recorded this song for me. He is playing guitar and the Irish whistle. We have both forgotten why he calls me Nellie.
Song #3 is from my first recording of piano songs, released in 2003. This song is called Song of Sixpence, and is a modern nursery rhyme. The whole song was born out of an image I saw when I was sitting out on the front lawn of a private school up in northeast GA, where I saw a boy with a june bug tied to a string. I thought it was a bumblebee. And I thought it was funny. And it sparked this song. The lyrics start:
A boy was walking his bumblebee
He tied it to a string
The sky was lit up with violet light
A bird began to sing a song of sixpence
You can hear this song (and the entire album) below! I play piano, accordion, and sing, and Randy plays the electric bass. It’s a fun one.
Song #4 is called The Thundering Hoofbeats, and it is written and recorded by Randy. He plays Irish whistle, guitar, and the bodhran. I love this song. I imagine you got some exciting imagery on this one!
Thanks for taking a minute to listen to our music. It is fun for me to share this side of my innermost with you. All of my creative life–writing, music, art–is connected to my journaling life.
If you want to know hear more of our music, you can listen and/or purchase our albums through our STORE page. You can also see videos of us performing some of these songs live, as well as a fun music video of Song of Sixpence, on our youtube channels, which you can access through our LINKS page.
Thanks for taking this little detour with me! You can click below to return to the course.