Despite some adventures (more on those in a minute) I’m still technically on track with February Album-Writing Month, having written four songs so far. I posted about the first two, so here’s some background on songs three and four. The third song I completed might more properly count as my “half” song (since we’re supposed to do 14.5 songs for leap year), since I started it in 2007. (Songs uploaded to the site only count as full songs, so for now I’m keeping it mentally in tat category.) I’d been unable to figure out what to do with it over the years (despite several efforts in the subsequent years), so I decided that I would finally focus on it this month, and finish it for good. And I’m pretty pleased with how it ended up:

Lyrics here: (Ignore the performance part; I’m just trying to get these songs recorded and posted so I’m going for “good enough so that you can hear what the song is. This one is due for some interesting arranging at some point.) The fourth song feels like the one most true to the FAWM spirit, for a couple reasons. First, it is the only one that didn’t have some aspect of its genesis (even if only a phrase or two) before this month. Second, it happened entirely because of a FAWM challenge. The FAWM twitter feed sends out a couple of different songwriting suggestions each day. A couple days ago the suggestion was “write a love song . . . to a pet.” That suggestion was quite timely. At that point I was sitting at home with my dog, Sophie, who had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. So I was definitely thinking about how much I love her, and I was terrified about losing her. I didn’t think I’d be able to take up that challenge – to close, too raw; I didn’t have any idea how to do it. But I let my mind wander, both before bed and upon waking up in the morning (my two most creative times), and jotted down some notes. The spark that made it work was when I came up the phrase “you remind me,” and started fitting the things I’d written down into that framework. A couple other things about the song. First, I decided if I was going to write this song that it had to be really about/inspired by Sophie, and have things in it that were specifically about her. I wanted people who know her (not least of them me!) to recognize her in the song. But at the same time, I didn’t want it to be a “love song to a pet” in a clearly identifiable way. I wanted it, at least plausibly, or when you first encounter it, to be about/to anyone who helps you be a better person. What’s interesting is that the second verse, which is the one I think most people are most likely to attribute to a dog (since it talks about the joy of walks and meals and playtime and spending time outside) could have been written exactly as is about my spouse. I’m curious what people who have know idea of the genesis of the song will think about it. Second, I wrote this song without touching a guitar or any other instrument, which is unique in my songwriting experience. Usually I start with a phrase, put a piece of melody to it and grow the song from there, writing down the notes so I don’t forget them, and playing the guitar so I can hear how the song works as it builds. (It’s often when playing a set of lines I have that the next line will come to me.) But I started this song on Monday afternoon, the day before Sophie’s surgery, when she was snuggling next to me on the papasan chair. There’s no way I was going to interrupt that to get an instrument. So I wrote the melody in my head and it stuck there, without having to write it down. I got the structure of the song and its melody that afternoon and evening. And then after we dropped Sophie off Tuesday morning for surgery we went off to a café we happened upon on our way home, and I took out my notebook and finished the song, never having played or even sung it out loud. When I got home, I turned on the video recorder to record it (I knew I had to record it before she got out of surgery) and picked up the guitar and played and sang it perfectly, despite never having heard or played it, except in my head. I knew exactly how it went. Here’s what I came up with: Lyrics here:
Sophe came through the surgery well; I’m hoping to be able to pick her up tonight. And all of these events are why I’m both surprised and impressed that I haven’t fallen completely behind schedule on my month of songwriting. Stay tuned to see what the next song is – no one will be more surprised about that than I will be!