It all started when I got a job at a golf course a couple years ago. At ten-to-six, I’m driving by a farm with a hill close to the highway, and I got to like seeing the cows, which sometimes congregate on the hill. I listen to Sabbath and Metallica but can’t even play air guitar, so it’s weird but I started singing a single little line: “Cows on the hill,” country-style, with ‘cows’ extended and ‘hill’ has two syllables, going up and coming down, and it’s extended. Exuberantly. Sometime the next year, it’s ten-to-six and I can’t see the cows so I’m looking behind at the farm searching, and, oh my gosh, there are…horses in the field. I instantly knew it was something. I sang it: “Cows on the hill; horses in the field,” with the second line a bit higher with ‘horses’ not extended but ‘field’ two syllables up and down. And the second line sounds like it’s leading to another. I kept singing it, about 700 times. “I’ve got a song!” Amazed. But I had no idea what to do. I started scoping out the farm going by and wrote eight excruciatingly hard lines, including those two, centred around the break of day. And I could sing them. And that was it.
Luckily I suffered a severe depression. I had no idea that’s what people meant when they’ve had a depression. You’re not sure you’re going to make it. I was so whacked out. At some point I remembered those eight lines and decided to become a songwriter as a survival strategy. I actually didn’t write that song but another one about being depressed called Opting Out of Today. (Then I think I started writing a Broadway musical.) I did write Cows on the Hill, and have a video in my head when I sing it. It still needs work though.
Writing is so hard and songs almost all start out so awfully, so don’t give up if you think you might have one. It definitely helps to be mental. Most of my songs are determined by a musical phrase I’ll start to sing that sets up how it sounds. Work to it and go from there. I don’t know music or play an instrument so it’s just la-la-la. I often wonder if it’s all stolen. I have 20 songs now and feel for some reason that when I get to 41 I’ll be a real songwriter. I’m going for it. Writing songs feels like a purpose and I’m really thankful I found out I could do it. The website is to show how the songs sound and I hope really good singers who sell tons of songs want mine, or they get used in a play or movie or something. Dreamer.
