Sunday, March 21, 2010

Nation in the Darkness















I decided to post this song now, while hockey season is still on. The snow is gone and it’s getting warm but I for one am still reeling about Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal at the Olympics. Could it be that this is the new , “Where were you in 1972 when Canada beat the Russians”?

When CBC had the super fun contest of coming up with a new theme for Hockey Night in Canada, I composed a couple of entries and that is how this song started.

Talking with songwriters over the years, it's obvious that song writing is an individualized process, - and not even the same process for individuals each time. Somehow this song started off as what I hoped could be a theme for Hockey Night in Canada, but very quickly found it taking a direction of it’s own.

I find that writing songs is fun that way. You have an idea, or a feeling you want to put out there, but you are never sure what you are going to end up with, or if it is an acurate representation of what you set out to express.

This is a song that just happened, - I was surprised when I finished it -Canadian, cold and dark, romance and hockey.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Jack Daniels





Many years ago, my friend Phil and I took a trip to Texas because we had never been there before. What a trip. At the airport duty free shop on the way home I bought a huge bottle of Jack Daniels - I think it was some crazy Texas size. I was proud to display that bottle for a while until one night it had to be opened.

The song is pretty much accurate, - a party until we ran out of beer, - just a few of us left and I went to get my giant sized bottle of Jack. The rest of the story is embellished a bit, but not much! It is true that my buddy Naill got the lions share of it that night (no one could keep up with him) but the few of us there all enjoyed much more than we needed. The bottle was started, and finished on that wonderful night so long ago in the Rockies.

Monday, March 8, 2010

The Next Chapter


I figure that this is a great song to start with. It's a new one, about Carmen, me and our kids. I guess it's about wherever life will take us. It's called The Next Chapter, - looking at life as a book, there are lots of adventures, and pages yet to read. You never know where you'll be in a few years.

Now it is January 2011 and we are living 'The Next Chapter.' I remeber writing this song on our deck in Vaudreuil almost as a message to The Universe that we would make the move to Ontario, for our carrers and the all the opportunity it could offer our children.

Well the Universe listened and I am now teaching in Ontario and two out of three of the kids have started school. Awsome.

Thanks for listening Universe. Here is to 'The Next Chapter'