Category: Song Writing

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Elvis Week Album Song Writing The Ballad of the Pennsylvania Swiss Cheese Man

The Story Behind The Ballad of the Pennsylvania Swiss Cheese Man

I was on a business trip and the passenger in a car being driven by a very aggressive driver back in early 2014. I was surfing the internet on my phone to keep me distracted from the driving and I read a story about someone they called the Pennsylvania Swiss Cheese pervert.  In the suburbs of Philadelphia, there was a man pulling up to traffic lights offering money to women that would help him do nasty things to him with slices of Swiss cheese. There were pictures of a suspect sitting in a car, naked from the waist down and dangling slices of Swiss cheese in the air. In some of the reports they said this person also fit the description of someone in the area that had been reported to be on dating sites with similar interest in cheese. On the Facebook page for the town watch group for the neighborhood where he had been spotted, they referred to him as the Pennsylvania Swiss Cheese Pervert.

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Elvis Week Album Lucy Song Writing

The Story Behind Lucy

The song Lucy is based on some of my experiences from the first grade. I started first grade in 1968. Kids in my school would usually wear nice clothes to school every day. Occasionally, the girls would wear dresses. One day some of the boys in the class were talking about a specific girl that wore a dress and she had a hole in her panties. One of the guys claimed to have actually seen it. This discussion started while we had some free time in the class. It was suggested that we start crawling under the table to look. Someone even said we should crawl between the legs of the chair. The chairs in our classroom looked much like the one in the picture below. It would be impossible for the smallest kid in our class to successfully do this and go undetected. Needless to say, no one ever crawled under the table or the chair. We never confirmed this rumor.

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Elvis Week Album Footprints Song Writing

The Story Behind Footprints

Footprints is a song that might benefit from explanation.  It is based on a dream that I had as a child. I don’t remember how young I was when I had this dream. I also don’t remember if it was a recurring dream or one that made a huge stamp on my memory. It is a dream that I have shared many times over the years and seemed like it was a perfect subject for a song.

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Elvis Week Album Hulk Hogan Goes To Court Song Writing

Writing Hulk Hogan Goes To Court

It was early March of this year and I had decided to release a set of songs. This group of songs would be called Elvis Week and I planned to release it in July. I still needed to record a few of them but I had a good idea of what I wanted to do with all of them except one.  I was in our bedroom getting dressed before going to work. The television was on and we were watching “Good Morning America”. The show was about to go to a commercial break and they had a brief promotion about a story they were going to cover when they came back. That story was about a court case involving professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. Hogan had sued a website called Gawker for posting a sex video of him and his best friend’s wife. I really wasn’t that interested the details about the lawsuit. On the screen, GMA was showing footage of Hogan on the stand in the courtroom. They also had a graphic that said, “Hulk Hogan Goes To Court”.  As I went back into our master bathroom to continue getting ready for work, I sang the phrase, “Hulk Hogan Goes to Court”. My wife was in the bathroom and laughed. I continued to repeat the phrase. Soon my wife became annoyed. Then I sang the phrase “Swearin’ to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothin’ but the truth!”

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Elvis Week Album Elvis Week Song Song Writing

Writing Elvis Week

You probably already know that I go to the candlelight vigil at Graceland on August 15 every year. I started going back in 2002 and have gone every year since then.  People-watching is the primary reason for my trips. While I am an Elvis fan, I don’t think I am the typical fan that you run into yearly at Elvis Week. Over the years, I have become more of a fan of the candlelight vigil and Elvis Week than I am an actual Elvis fan. I enjoy meeting people from around the world, talking to them and hearing their Elvis stories, and seeing how the event has changed over the years. Living an hour away makes it possible for me to easily do this each year. When I was getting ready to go on the trip last year, my wife challenged me to write a song about my trips. She has never gone with me, but seems to enjoy the stories that I bring home. She felt that they were interesting enough to write a song that would generate wide interest.

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Arkansas Song Don't Cry For Me When I'm Gone Song Writing The Prodigal Son The Tree of Life

Songwriting and Technology

Several years ago, I had an opportunity to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One of the things that I enjoyed seeing is the notebooks that the songwriters used when they were working on their songs. It made me think about the different methods that I use when I’m writing songs.  I wish I would have written all of my songs in a journal but that’s not the way that I’ve worked. I do have some journals that I have used to write a few songs. I also use the journals to write a few of the ideas that I have for songs and the earliest threads of ideas for songs. Most of the time, these ideas are transferred to Word files. I keep those files on a jump drive that I have with me most of the time. I carry the drive to work just in case I get an idea and I want to get a record of it before I forget it. The unfortunate thing about the files is that they are edited.  I move words and phrases around with little to no traceability of the evolution of the song from one form to another. It’s really convenient for creating but bad for documenting the creative process.

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25 Years Ago Song Writing

Writing 25 Year Ago

I’m writing this a day after the 30th anniversary of marrying my wife, Andrea.  A little over five years ago, our anniversary was approaching and I came up with the idea of writing a song in recognition of our anniversary.  I started with the idea of just describing some of the things that were normal at that time with wedding ceremonies. I soon moved to describing the fact that a lot of people thought that we were perfectly suited for one another. I think the part of the song that everyone enjoys the most are where I talk about our insecurity about the relationship over the years. Most “love songs” aren’t honest enough to go there. I tried to wrap up the song saying that we were just as foolish as we were when we got married.

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Creation Song Writing

Reflections on Creation: Day 7 – Rest

This is the last in a series of seven posts where I share my thoughts about my song Creation and the story in the first chapter of Genesis.                            

“This story tells God had a plan
And an order before He even started on man
So the seventh day God took a rest
Because He’d gone and done His best
And the sixth day God made the beast of land
He made the woman and he made the man
And the fifth day God made the fish and bird
He made them all with His Holy word
And the fourth day God filled the sky with lights
The sun for day and the moon for nights
And the third day God made the plants and trees
He made dry ground and He made the seas
And the second day God made the sky
The water split so the firmament’s dry
And the first day God made the heavens and earth
Split the dark and light in the universe
And to mark the time there was morning and evening
And He saw that it was good”

God rests on the seventh day.  I think the next mention of a Sabbath as a thing for God’s people is when they are given the 10 Commandments.  I believe it’s very likely that the observance of the Sabbath was something common well before it was established as the law given to Moses.  Nevertheless, this part of the creation story is here to establish a reason for this to be a thing for God’s people.  Is there a good reason that we would observe a Sabbath?  A scientific reason to do this?  A reason other than a religious reason?  I don’t think so.  We do it because we believe in a power higher than us.  A power that was able to create all of this.  We pause in awe of God.  We pause to acknowledge his presence in our world.

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Creation Song Writing

Reflections on Creation: Day 6 – Land Animals and Man

This is the sixth in a series of seven posts where I share my thoughts about my song Creation and the story in the first chapter of Genesis.

“On the sixth day God made the beast of land 
And to watch it all, He created man
Woman and man He created them
In an image that was just like Him
So the sixth day God made the beast of land
He made the woman and he made the man
And the fifth day God made the fish and bird
He made them all with His Holy word
And the fourth day God filled the sky with lights
The sun for day and the moon for nights
And the third day God made the plants and trees
He made dry ground and He made the seas
And the second day God made the sky
The water split so the firmament’s dry
And the first day God made the heavens and earth
Split the dark and light in the universe
And to mark the time there was morning and evening
And He saw that it was good”

This is the first story of Creation of man.  There is no Adam and Eve. It just says that he created them male and female. There is no mention of woman being made from the rib of a man.  It doesn’t say how many he created.  We have to wait for a second creation story in the second chapter of Genesis to get those details.  Again, some people would argue that there are differences in the creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis somehow proving that this story is not accurate.  Other people would deny that these are separate stories at all and turn a blind eye to any differences.  I see these as two different stories intended to show us different aspects of God’s relationship with his creation.  In this story in chapter one, God creates mankind in his image making man special.  He also puts mankind as the caretaker of his creation.  This story is telling us that man is different from the rest of creation and establishes his relationship with that creation.

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Creation Song Writing

Reflections on Creation: Day 5 – Fish and Bird

This is the fifth in a series of seven posts where I share my thoughts about my song Creation and the story in the first chapter of Genesis.

“On the fifth day God filled the sea and sky
With creatures that could swim and fly
He blessed each one as they passed His eye
That they’d be fruitful and multiply
So the fifth day God made the fish and bird
He made them all with His Holy word
And the fourth day God filled the sky with lights
The sun for day and the moon for nights
And the third day God made the plants and trees
He made dry ground and He made the seas
And the second day God made the sky
The water split so the firmament’s dry
And the first day God made the heavens and earth
Split the dark and light in the universe
And to mark the time there was morning and evening
And He saw that it was good”

The first animals are created by God on the fifth day.  Again there is an order to this process.  God chooses to fill the sky and the sea with animals before the earth is populated.  I believe that this is more about showing order instead of trying to coordinate with any scientific explanation.  God’s hand is present as His creation begins to fill with animals.  This is evident in the story when tells them to be fruitful and multiply.   The animals of the land would have to wait until day six.