Songwriters On Songwriting



Self Explanatory

Yesterday, the skies opened up and it rained for a good portion of the day. I took refuge in the library, where I logged on to weather underground, and saw on their radar image that the rain was moving onward, to menace the homeless in Montgomery, and we would soon be rid of it. This made me abandon my plan to spend my first night at the Waterfront Rescue Mission, where John The Street Preacher has been holing up these past few cold days, and which has been assessed by him as being "clean."

Instead, I went to the Shell, bought an

Earthquake High Gravity Lager, and then sat in one of the trolleys, consuming it, and waiting a half hour for nightfall. It became pretty cold, enough so that I kept an eye out for musk oxen, because of their unpredictability.

Under the cover of darkness, and fortified by the Earthquake, I crawled under the trolley and, noticing that the ground where I had been sleeping had been encroached upon by a puddle, I grabbed an extra sweatshirt and my sleeping bag and managed to remove them without letting my body dip down low enough to encounter the puddle. It was like doing a one handed push up, the kind the Marines are required to master. I was glad that I had retained enough of my conditioning, from having worked as a laborer 3 years ago, to have accomplished the feat.

I tied my bag onto my other bag and then went into town, where I sat down and played for about an hour, and was only thrown some change by one of the few people milling about.
I walked back to the Shell for another beer on my way to Terry's former sleeping spot, in the back of a U-Haul van, which is "in moth balls," and has a mattress in it. Terry has moved on to a garage at a friends house, and I congratulate him, I'm not envious; my time will come...


Musk Oxen; Looking For Someone To Mess With

I slept pretty well, but had a dream that I broke a guitar string. The dream was so vivid, that I opened my case in the morning to see if I had a broken string.

Today was spent for the most part at this library. I found a book entitled "Songwriters On Songwriting," and spent 3 hours reading what Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson and Randy Newman had to divulge about their craft. Dylan said that Hank Williams was the greatest songwriter, Simon said that Dylan was, even though he is "impenetrable," Brian Wilson said that Paul McCartney was, and expressed surprise over the fact that Paul cited him (Wilson) as a big influence, and Randy Newman raved about Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, even though he couldn't understand what Simon's "Hearts And Bones" was about, nor what 90% of Dylan was about. He said that it is harder to write a song that has a clear meaning, rather than writing about crystalline apparitions in deep space, or words to that effect.

It is now almost 7 pm. I haven't played a note. Tonight is the first night in a month that Serda's Songwriter's Open Mic Night resumes being what it was before the contest.

I am going to refresh my memory of my lyrics by poring over some of them, and then I might go and play. I am down to $1.35, which is about "par for the course" on a typical Wednesday night. Serda's must be wondering if I will EVER buy a cup of coffee from them.

I am thinking of doing The Bum Song, but, knowing myself, I fear that I will get up there and be unable to resist the temptation to make something up on the spot about crystalline apparitions in deep space.