I’m doing an awful lot of writing right now. The book deal is almost signed, which means a deadline is on the horizon. I’ve taken my first steps toward the goal of getting a song or two into the country market. And of course I have an album I’d like to record in December, an album I have several partial songs written for, and no completed ones.
So I’m busy writing and having a hard time saving anything for the blog. Any good ideas I have get dumped into one of these three receptacles. And there are other drawbacks to writing so much so often. I’m having a hard time sleeping. My brain buzzes into the early hours morning, churning on phrases, twisting ideas into possible choruses, searching for synonyms and antonyms and rhymes.
I don’t write often but when I do I wrote in tremendous volumes. A song a day. A chapter a day. All at once. It’s a scary thing a lot like child birth but without the epidural and the stirrups and the doctor and the blood and…OK, it’s only similar in that a baby gestates for months and then finally, when it’s a nice ripe painful size, pushes its way into the world. Usually this happens at an inconvenient time. 3 AM. Or while at a nice restaurant having dinner with friends you’ve just met.
I’m giving birth to triplets while touring more than I have in five years. No complaints though. The process is inconvenient and somewhat painful at times but when the frenzy is over I’ll have something worth waiting all this time for. Three somethings. A book. A record. And a big fat country radio hit. I hope.
Bear with me in the meantime. It’s hard to blog and go into labor at the same time.
.
Country? COUNTRY??!!
Does that mean you’re going to have to stop using your joke about “Need you More?”
Absolutely not.
We actually talked before we began writing yesterday, about how I don’t like country music these days.
My grandfather took me to rodeos a few times, taught me how to lasso, wear my boots right and bought me a cowboy hat. I’m more country than a lot of country artists? Keith Urban? Does he look like he’s ever been on a horse?
But I likes country music in the last seventies and eighties. I was on a Randy Travis kick for a while in high school and who doesn’t like “Coward of the County?” There’s a lot of great songwriting in country music history – just not a lot I like right now. It sounds like pop music with a little slide guitar. Rascal Flats is just Mercy Me with a fiddle in the mix.
So, I like old country. I like pop music.. What I don’t like is pop music masquerading as country.
Pop-country is what sells though–it’s close enough to the middle to be palatable to the most people (same theory that political candidates ascribe to: aim for center).
Pop-country artists are beautiful and friendly to their fans, their songs and videos are bigger than life and the genre’s all about having fun, being a survivor and getting even with who done ya wrong, all wrapped in an American flag.
And hey, anybody can go country. Bon Jovi’s all over CMT. Come on now, they’re from JERSEY. Jon? Richie? Guys can you hear me? Come back. The Boss and I miss you.
This wounds me deeply as a Jersey girl, but I’ll survive. And it’ll make me stronger. Maybe I’ll write me a song about it…
Nancy, what I found most interesting about my writing session yesterday was hearing these two writers talk about Country radio.
Apparently, according to them, some artists have been “banned” for being too sentimental and sappy. Too female-friendly. I was actually told to be “less positive!” That’s a new one – me, the positive guy.
And my wife will be very disappointed to learn that her beloved Jon Bon has switched teams. Yikes.
Oooh, keep writing about this. I am SO interested in hearing what you’re learning in this country venture–and what parallels/differences you’re running into in country vs Christian music.
I feel like the new country is aiming at empowering women in a revenge sort of way (thinking about Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” and that other video…who was the country chick who poured and lit the gasoline in her video???)
Console Becky with the knowledge that Jon still has great hair. It’s my one comfort right now. *sniff*
“It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright,
It’s alright, it’s alright.”
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/nettles-jennifer/who-says-you-cant-go-home-17011.html
I think this is a great idea! If it works for Jon Bon it can also work for another rock star with great hair! Shaun, I’ll spot you some lyrics to get you started. “It’s alright” (repeat 21x)