Gif me a Break.

I would like to point out once and for all that "gif" is pronounced with a hard g sound as in "Graphic Image File.

This may not seem like a huge deal to most, but I confess that when I hear someone pronounce it "jif", a little piece of my soul dies.

To make my point as clear as possible, and at the suggestion of some friends, I did what any other bluegrass musician would've done: I wrote a protest song.

As far as protest songs go, this is my first one. However, I hope that it possibly makes people think and I hope that it really shows the "jif" people the error of their ways.

Please share if you pronounce gif the correct way! The Internet community needs you. Badly.

What does that even mean?

Writing songs is a tricky thing.  Some people make it look so easy, but there is a world of things that have to work together just right in order to have a smashing hit.  One big problem is lyrics.  Sure, it seems like a simple task to write something that has meter and rhymes, but unfortunately, it also has to make sense.  Songwriters everywhere know what I'm talking about.

Among all the songs I've penned, the ones that did the best (sold less than a million copies and went plywood!) was the ones that made the most sense to my listeners.  A song tells a story. 9 times out of 10, it is based on true life.  99 times out of 10, the lyrics are meant to be listened to.  999 times out of 10, if the lyrics make no sense, the song becomes the subject of much laughter in it's long and glorious life.

You want examples, I sense. Examples I shall give you:

Ever listen to the Bee Gees?  Listen to the words of "I Started a Joke".  Very pretty melody, you'll find.... but let's just say we're still waiting for the punchline!  The words are a smidgen on the nonsensical side.  Bee Gees fans will argue that you're supposed to interpret the lyrics however you like.  I don't know about you, but that seems like too much work to me.

When I write lyrics, I always check, re-check, and double check what I say.  How many times have I written lyrics that nobody knows what they're supposed to mean?  Lots.  Lots and lots. Check this out.

You find a smile of the greatest degree
in the strangest of places, but at least its for free.

Ok. This is Exhibit A of songwriting on sleepless nights.  But when I wrote it I was indeed smiling.  Don't ask me what it means, I don't quite remember what I was thinking. It probably doesn't matter either.

Now read the lyrics to "Gentle on My Mind".  Hey, THAT'S good writing there.  All lyricists wish they could write as good. Myself included.
I'll leave you now with this small snippet of a song I'm working on as inspiration:

I'm feeling so good
from eating, I'll yell
but my girth is expanding
like the Liberty Bell

If you can figure out what this means, I sure hope you'll explain it to me, too.

A songwriter's sad tale.

Here I am.  With the most poetic thoughts in the world flowing from my mind, to the paper in front of me.  You might say I'm on a roll.  I can just hear the next #1 hit freely leaping about in my brain.  This is gonna be a good one!

All of a sudden, there's silence.  Something has clogged the path from my head to my paper, and that magnificent piece of musical genius dies within me.  Try though I may to revive the once spirited, buoyant, life of a would-be-winner, its too late.  We'll never know how the song would've ended, nor will we hear that wonderful, catchy chorus everybody would've loved to join in on.  A songwriter's tear falls from my eye in mourning of the passing of something that never became anything.

But thus is the life of a songwriter.

When I listen to music in my spare time, I listen to songs that have a lot of oomph in them.  This musically correct term means that the melody and lyrics work together to make a song worth singing.  I spend a lot of time studying musician's word choice and melody patterns in hopes that I too someday might write the next tear-jerker, or raise-your-hands-gospel song, or rambler ballad, whatever the case may be.  I've tried to, believe me!  The closest I got was what I consider my biggest hit: A Few Miles Down The Road.  You haven't heard of it?  Not many people have.  Those who have heard it told me they liked it and some even learned the words to sing it!  That is the biggest compliment any songwriter could get.

Ever listen to Celtic music?  Some of the world's greatest lyricists are Celtic music writers.  Bluegrassers are the same way.  Folk music has its moments of glory as well.  Just being in the crowd doesn't make me a good writer.  I have to 1.) Start writing  2.) Keep writing  and 3.) Write some more.  Eventually, I may be able to do what so many songwriters are capable of doing.

But there's still the little problem of originality.  "There's a girl on my mind I can't get over/ Yeah I'm dreaming about my Mary Ann/" Wait...have I heard this song before, or did I just write a good one?

Until then, I'll keep trying to put pen to paper and tell the world about life, hope, sorrow, and other such subjects.  I'll write that song about a Civil War Battle (that I actually have to do research for).  I'll write that song about my crush on Jennifer Willis (but I doubt she'll hear it, cause she doesn't know me from Adam's cat).  I'll write that song about the '64 Cadillac I don't really have (but I'll write about it anyway in case the folks at Cadillac give me a free one).

Well, gotta go!  There are songs to be written.  Stay creative, my friends!