Write songs, preferably some good ones & record them...

The Canadian Artist recorded the song we co-wrote for her next CD. She put $1500 of her own money into it, so I’d say chances are good it will be released. Hope so. I can hardly wait to see our first CD credit.

We played Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe last night. It was the second time we had been invited back for a Writer’s Night, and we were super-thrilled that the audience really seemed to get into our songs.

It was my first time playing there without being nervous & I think it showed. We had a good night, and even got a nibble on an artist that may want to cut another one of our songs.

No big money on the horizon yet, but we have passed a number of milestones. Last night that milestone would be that several young girls asked for our autographs on their Bluebird posters. That was so weird! Cool, but definitely weird.

ANYWAY…

... but keep trying to improve as a writer for as long as I live.

That said, this week we heard that a Canadian artist will be recording a song that we wrote with her last Fall. YAY!

Uncle Bethel’s “Shake the Blues” is being featured on American Songwriter.com (as in American Songwriter magazine) on their new song feed…

Halfway down the page on the right under “American Songspace Songs.” We’d sure appreciate it if you’d show us some love.

We only get to play three songs so we’re doing the two new ones & closing with Shake the Blues… It can’t hurt to leave them feeling happy.

Good, but not great. I mean, it’s our best score on a beginning effort so far, so I can deal.

He says brilliant concept with killer emotional content. Hits young people & their parents. A lot of the lyrics are “out of the ballpark f-ing amazing” and some are just ok. He listed five examples of the “amazing” ones. Basically, he wants me to make every line brilliant. No pressure there, right?

I decided to just start writing & have already been able to make some small improvements.

Musically, he loved he offbeat phrasing & raved over a weird line in the chorus that wasn’t so easy to work out with hubby because of the tricky timing that I wanted. I guess it was worth the effort.

On the down side, he said the groove was predictable, which kinda made us scratch our heads. Since he said that he sees this as a song for the 16-24 set, I’m thinking along the lines of Jason Mraz, while hubby is thinking either Lady Gaga or Carrie Underwood. Confusing.

Meanwhile, we can still use the current version as a performance piece because girls seem to really like it. And also, this week we record the next working demo of another sone & get it off for review.

I guess this is what it’s like to be a songwriter.

Our last two songs have been kind of slow & painful, so it was great to crank out melody & chords to another one in less than a half hour today. I already worked out had the chorus & chord progresson for for the melody on my own, so we just had to do the verses & bridge. He also raised the key a half step because I’d written it in E Flat. But it was cool because when it was right, we didn’t have to say so. We both just knew.

Two songs finished in one weekend. I think we’re going to try & knock out a coupe of throwaway songs in the nest couple of weeks – songs we won’t be taking seriously or sending for review, but just to perform & check the response. He has a couple of “stupid guy songs” that he’s been writing for awhile, and I’m going to get started with our Christmas song, which is supposed to be a kind of light-hearted lesson in love & tolerance.

We finished up the working recording tonight.

We sent a copy off to the song coach, who will doubtless have comments. There are a couple of spots that I’d like to shorten up, but hubby says send it “as is” & let the song coach do his job. :)

This one was written ‘specially for QB, and even if nobody else ever gets it, it still felt GREAT to sing it! I was feeling down & a little shaky this afternoon, had to practically DRAG myself into the studio, but I”m glad I did it. I feel so much better now.

Tonight, we went to watch a 14 year old girl/songwriter that we know. Awhile back, she demo-ed a pop version of our song, “I’ll Cheat” & ever since, she’s been asking for permission to sing it at her appearances.

She sang it tonight, and it got good applause, which is always nice. But the BEST part was when teenage girls in the audience started singing it along with her. And they knew ALL the words.

The (older male) reviewers in Nashville had told us that the song was an angry male-bashing song and that the opening lines were hard to understand:

_“Don’t put me on a shelf & bring me out to play
And don’t roll your eyes when I’ve got somethin’ to say”_

And yet, after the show, a bunch of the girls came up to us smiling & telling us how much they love the song, and even mentioned that they really like the part about how he rolls his eyes when she tries to talk to him.

I can’t tell you how great it felt to have another person on stage performing one of OUR songs, and to ave people in the audience singing along. It was an experience that even hubby, with all his years of performing, had never had before – the audience singing along with a song he wrote.

When he & I were writing the song, we both felt strongly that it would resonate with young girls. We were both shocked (& I was terribly hurt) when the reviewers said it stunk.

It turns out that we were right, after all. :)

We’ll be submitting a (solicited) demo of it to both a small publisher & to an indie label. Another writer tells us to hold out for a major artist. I don’t know about that, but it’d be really cool if somebody picked it up for something someday.

For now, I feel good that I was able to write at least a few words that young girls want to sing.

I keep waiting for hubby to work on it & he keeps putting me off, I think because he wants me to finish the melody before he puts any work into the chord structure. Since we’ve been at a standoff, I’m gonna bite the bullet & record SOME KIND of melody, although I already know that the alt melody that I’ve picked out is too slow in his opinion. Still, I’m thinking if I give him some sort of first draft it may kick us into action.