Stealthily, did I make up a new word again–dictionaries, look out! I’m writing again! If I were writing a song, and not a blog post, Stealthily might Rhyme with healthily, but songwriting never waxed me wealthily, so here I am again, working on putting out a story behind one of my songs.
I’d like to make a new album, and organize my audio files on my computer, and clean my house better, and on and on ad nauseam…Right now I should paint my nails and go to bed because crew scheduling could be calling me and giving me only a mere 90 minutes to rise from being dead asleep to having my mind and body fully ready to perform the duties of my day job. So, quickly, before I lose my current and fleeting steam, I am going to quietly release a song. It’s a terrible way to do business, in the business of songwriting, but I honestly do not have time anymore to navel gaze long enough to figure out some “right way,” anymore, if there even is one, there is just no time, and no hope of having time–it is what it is.
Way back in 2011…
wait a minute—Lemme back-up…I already wrote a blog post about this…I must be losing my mind…Let’s just use that content right now, so I can get to sleep!
Imposters ALL !!! (A headline within a headline)
There has been much talk about imposter syndrome. Defined as occurring when a capable or accomplished person feels like a fraud but just like so many trendy diagnoses, the words become overused and loses meaning and context.
While I do believe Imposter Syndrome as defined is real, and wreaking havoc, I also think in the over-use it has been tossed around like when I was in high school, and we girls thought and said we were fat, even though our BMI was well within normal range. With the ability to constantly self-publish, it is very easy to only put out there a cleaned-up and photo-shopped version of ourselves, which we could never live up to in real life. Now, should you have some very good photos taken, that captures your essence, and put you in the best light possible? YES!!! A Resounding Yes! But, if regularly we are angling and editing to promote a version of ourselves that is truly unattainable, and does not exist in reality, then we do no one any favors, especially ourselves. Even thought I wrote it with insecurities in mine, and perhaps deception, including self-deception, but also, I was thinking about those who hide behind a screen seeking whom they may devour, in the form of a nasty comment that they might never speak as freely if in person, lest they be given a knuckle sandwich! What a mess this self-publishing world we live in. The blustering and bullying, peeping with dubious motives rooted in jealous malcontent…Sad…so very sad…
Switching gears, I will tell the back story of the mechanics of the making of this song:
Back in about 2011, an invitation circulated among a songwriter group that I was in, regarding a collaborative songwriting project, in which none of the participants saw each other. One person would add a beat, another a twangy guitar, another an interesting baseline, and so on. Hearing one of these songs, and intrigued by the project, I started penning a melody line and lyric which began:
“I have never seen your face
I hear the music that you play
and wonder if you really do exist…”
“Can I make myself look fine?
Brother can you spare a dime
To rescue me from who I claim to be?”
“Ooo Are we any relation
to our own imagination?”
“Mirror Mirror on the wall!
Do we know ourselves at all?”
It was one of those times that the lyrics and vocal melody rolled off my pen and it was done in minutes. I went to the house of the man who had orchestrated the whole project, literally, and recorded a track. Now, because it was my first official time making something that would be “out there” somewhere, I was nervous, and also did not want to tie up this young man’s time, I got in and out of there as fast as I could. I used to be very nervous in any performance- and was a stranger to the ways…
I have always had the hankering to perform, and re-record the song and add in another snippet of a song on which I also did some vocalizations, and later had an idea to fuse into the longer song as an introduction. You can find the original versions here:
The track title for the small intro is “Dramatic Musicbox” and the Whole lyrical song is “Funkadelic Slow Grow” which was named before I submitted a vocal melody and lyric layer. Prior to participation, it was agreed that whatever we created would be placed in the “Public Domain.”
So, after a decade, I called up a friend and asked if he could create a new fresh backing track for these songs so that I could take a stab at re-recording it. Not only did he take on the challenge, but also we remembered fondly a mutual friend who worked on parts of the original project, who has since passed.
In the original version there is a single voice (mine) in an empty room hollow sounding room… (Reverb) Dramatic Musc Box was mysterious and intriguing. Coming in the track list just before the song with the lyric, it was a perfect intro.
The re-make is bright and cheerful while posting a rather probing question, and the vocals have a feel of a soundtrack for a modern stage production.
The wonderful musician, writer, is from Lancaster, and has a vast library receiving radio airplay in the relaxing ambient genre, but I have enjoyed his lyrical creations as well, form all the way way back when we were in a songwriters group that met…and which I attended long before I had the courage to perform, and winced at recording. He told me back then to come on over and he would help me to get over my studio nerves—and we could work on a project… I think that offer was made in 2008 or 9… Procrastinate much? You decide…but I digress…
Releasing this song has been a painful process for me.
Since that day of recording the final vocals, I am now shouldering a day job, which has caused a delay in getting it out there, and because I am spoiled. Now, when I write a song, I feel like there has to be a music video to release it, since my opportunities for live performance have been limited due to disbanding the band even before Covid hit, and now being at the mercy of my schedule being dictated by operational need-it will be 2024 before I have enough control over my schedule to be able to plan and promote live events, not to mention finding time to practice—But I REALLY want to launch this song, and how I have been launching songs that I cannot perform live is with janky little obviously homemade videos. I can’t. This song sounds like a full stage of voices and needs some kind of visual to reflect that, yet NOT be a distraction from the probing lyric, set in a bit of a fun melody in instrumentation…What to do???
Well, I am just going to do it, here it is. The New Title is “My Imagination”
You can find it here, I guess…sitting quietly on the fringes like a wall-flower until someone invites it to dance, (or wants to dance one it–with a crowd of costumed fakers and posers…and hams. But for now, I will leave THAT to yours and
My Imagination:
{Click on the listen on Spotify Link–first 10 minutes I read the words above–with ad libs added in…last 5 minutes are the NEW Version of the song! Just released quick and Dirty-here and here alone…at least for now…G-nite…
🎼 Life Between the Lines 🎶 