Breaking in the Lyrics

The other day I took my 13 year-old son out to buy shoes. Before finding the perfect pair, he tried on another that was almost right.

"Maybe these just need breaking in," I wondered. So we put them on hold with the saleslady, planning to come back for them if we didn't find anything better.

After looking around at several stores, we finally found a better pair: one that fit right away.

Even though the first pair might have done in a pinch (literally) and the breaking in might have helped, they still might have felt uncomfortable. That's the way it is with lyrics too.

Sometimes I write a line that looks really pretty on paper, but I try to sing it and it's just not comfortable. I stumble over it no matter how many times I sing it. When that happens, I know I have to keep looking for the phrase that truly fits, and sometimes that process (like shopping) can be maddeningly time-consuming.

But it's worth it in the end.

(This morning, my song-of-the-week for "Take5" on CIUT 89.5 fm is a historical song--a challenging form for me--about an old railway hotel being turned into a homeless shelter. Two of the lyrics, in particular, required a lot of "shopping".) Here's how the song came out! The New Edwin Hotel .

What Good Can a Song Do?

A few weeks ago, I played at a community event organized by an environmental group. I played several original songs on "green" themes, including "Bicycle Bell" and "Wind of Change" . They were very well-received by the multigenerational crowd, who were eating locally-made organic food while waiting for a talk from a well-known environmentalist.

After the talk, I gave that well-known speaker a CD. I cringe as I write this, and I'll bet you do, too.

The contact was predictably awkward. My timing was poor, and I knew it. I also knew that I'd likely never get another chance for a face-to-face connection, and this is a person who genuinely inspires me--whose work is, I feel, essential in the world today.

In the past few years, my goal in writing songs has increasingly become "to motivate and inspire" in addition to "to entertain". I genuinely hope that my songs might "do some good" in the world by raising awareness of important issues, by illuminating the human challenges we face and ultimately helping us transcend those challenges. On a personal level, I find that the songs do help me get over my fear and inertia...they energize me and help me find meaning. They seem to help others too, which gives me more reason to keep writing and singing.

It all sounds pretty earnest, I suppose, and that may be one reason why I haven't exactly had a breakthrough in the entertainment business!

But back to back to that awkward CD handoff.

On the one hand, my intentions were good. I wanted to contribute what I could to the cause, and share work that had, in part, been inspired by the ideas of the keynote speaker and others like him. On the other hand, I have to admit I was hoping for some kind of endorsement or validation. And, I felt that such an endorsement might help increase my audience. Good for me, good for the world. Maybe.

Or maybe, despite the content of the songs, there's no getting around the fact that I'm just another obscure singer-songwriter desperately seeking attention. Thank you, entertainment industry, for creating that monster (which we happily feed and care for, with our dreams of celebrity success).

Anyway, yesterday I got an e-mail from the event organizer, wondering where she could send my honorarium. After a moment's pause, I decided to donate it back to the keynote speaker's organization.

There. I did some good.

Maybe I did a small but significant amount of good, too, when I sang for the assembled grandmothers and parents and toddlers, as they ate their organic samosas while waiting for the eco-celebrity.

Maybe, in the end, that's the most our songs can do.

They can keep us going...to do what needs to be done.