Inspirations

 You  never now where and why inspiration will strike!   The typical places would be in the shower, where your paper and pen will get too wet... while driving which is actually worse than texting..... praying, c'mon, you're in a zone and don't want to come back to earth;    and ... sleeping, and who wants to wake up and chase a song that you hear with lyrics, strings, pianos, harmonies, all of which will be gone by the time you stumble across the bedroom into the bathroom and brush your teeth, etc..  

But I woke up nice and early yesterday with a very busy day in front of me...  and there was this song idea running through me head that I just had to chase.  You see, I've been booking a lot of original, songwriter gigs lately, in new places where I don't have an established audience.  And so I have been studying what successful songwriters do to get, and keep the attention of their shiny new audence.  You can't count someone like Richard Shindell since his music and arrangements are just mesmorizing and he hardly says a word.. nor does he have to.   Also not fair to consider someone like Amy Speace, a really talented songwriter and Singer... but add to that the fact that she is just beautiful with big green eyes....   let's just say that I can't count on that kind of attention!

In the performing songwriter circles I have been taught that when you are introduced, you get up and burst right into your first song... maybe two, before you start yapping about whatever it is you yap about.  But to me, that has always created an awkward and tense few moments in which something ought to be happening to break the ice...  I mean really, mostly the audience does not know you and here you are acting like the juke box at the next table in the diner playing music that you didn't choose.  What if they don't like it!!!  

But the other side of that is some artists, Shawn Colvin, John Gorka, launch right into a 10 minute yap fest about, god knows what..  and it usually gets to the point where you are looking at your watch wondering if they will ever play you some music.   But the key, of course, is to be engaging, funny or interesting, and to set up the song so the  audience has a vested interest in listening.  (By the way, both John and Shawn do that very well)

Well, this song that grabbed me the other morning was about just that first awkward moment standing there naked in front of all those strangers.  It's my way of saying hello, this is me, I can write music, lyrics.. I can be funny, I can sing, I can play.... "You Know Me"!!!  I doubt it will ever show up on a recording but, for now, I am going to try it out and see if it doesn't break the ice just nicely and set up a platform from which I can present my other more serious efforts at songwriting and entertainment.

So I hope you make it to one or more of my upcoming shows and give me the opportunity to play this new song for you   : )
Peace
Jim

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