Yesterday I played through the songs Come By Here, Just As I Am and Awake My Soul for Mitch The Producer. We did what the A&R guy had suggested and added a line to the chorus of Awake My Soul. And Come By Here got some new chords and an extra half chorus. Just As I Am…well, it’s bombastic now with an entirely new section at the end that didn’t exist before: “Hallelujah! God is with us…God is for us.”

Today it’s on to three or four more songs. Same process. I play. Mitch listens, asks hard questions and programs drum loops for me to record rough drafts to.

And I stare off a lot, playing music in my mind, trying on chords and words in my imagination before sharing them with Mitch out loud. I’m barely human during the recording process. I’m just a rhyming dictionary and theory textbook with skin on. No fun to be around.

So my wife and kids are taking off. By now they’re halfway to Texas where they’ll hide out for a few days seeing Becky’s grandparents until I’m human again…or more human anyway.

But I’m not alone for the week. It’s me and my guitar and pages of scribbled on lyric sheets. And Mitch. Mitch is stuck with me.

Thank you for all the encouragement and prayers this week. And I do apologize for writing so much about music and music making right now. I hate that this here slice of the interwebs has become an “artist blog.” Tragic. I promise, when the recording is over I’ll get back to adoption or parenting mishaps or post more pictures of my kids giving the bird. Hang in there.