Does anybody read these?

The songwriter post

The other day I was reading one of my regular blogs, and there was mention of this new "ABC Poem" craze. Apparently it's all the rage among bloggers to write these poems on a certain topic where the beginning of each subsequent word follows the alphabet kind of like this:

A boy, Chester
danced each Friday...

That's all you get, just to give you an example. I tried to write one (that's not it, though, and you'll never get to see it, so don't ask!), but I'm not a poet. Nowhere close. Although I have a half-finished novel somewhere in my possession (I'm going to start working on it again this week; I have Saturday off, and no one loves me.), my area of expertise is non-fiction prose. Straight-forward, just-the-facts, reporting. That's what I was trained to do, and that's how I roll. (Ironically, my first published work was a fiction book when I was nine years old. I'm sure it was semi-autobiographical, although it's been so long ago I barely remember it, and it's in my mama's keepsakes somewhere.)

Often when I'm out and about I see observations that I jot down. When I think I can see lines of stories. I jotted down little notes at the wedding I covered for work on Sunday. More than once I've gotten ideas for this blog just walking through my ordinary day. Somedays you see them, somedays you don't.

I have a soft spot in my heart for songwriters. My brother is a very talented songwriter. I have met some great folks since I got here to town. Before I got here, I knew a few folks who wrote some pretty great songs. (My friend Eric's song "Hey Murphy" is running through my head right now.) I love a great song, and I admire the men and women who have the talent to write them.

I'll never forget the first time I saw my brother write a song. He's always had the knack to think in music and he's been pulling impromptu melodies and lyrics out for years. But to see someone sit with a guitar or at a piano and have it all fall into place -- music and lyric -- impresses me beyond belief. What is an ordinary observation for most of us becomes a beautiful song to a songwriter.

The other night, my roommates and I hung out with one of our friends. He's not a songwriter, but it's safe to say that he comes from a musical family. Somehow we got to listening to some music from his family and my roommate Carol said, "How do people do that? How do they put the words and the music together and make a song? How do they think like that?"

I think that those of us who can't do it, don't get it. That's what makes songwriters special. I think it would be really cool if I could write a song for a special occasion. My brother has written so many songs for milestones in his life and even stupid stuff he sees from day to day. I am sure that he's working on the perfect song to sing at his wedding in June. In fact, I'll be disappointed if he's not.

I've always said that I'd love for someone to write a song about me or for me. The example I always give is "Little Moments" by Brad Paisley. If I had a man in my life who loved me enough to write a song like that he'd pretty much be able to mold me like putty in his hands. Of course, Brad had to trump himself with "She's Everything," but that just shows he loves his wife as much now as he did a few years ago.

Living here in Nashville can be dangerous for someone who has a thing for songwriters and boys with guitars. I could spend all my time watching all the up-and-coming artists around here. I've also gone to some pretty big concerts since I got here. I'm a huge John Rich fan. I love Bob Seger and still can't believe I sat in the front row at his show in December. You'll often find me hanging out at the bars and clubs in town checking out the writers around town. And it's really cool when one of your friends ends up getting a song recorded by a huge artist.

And, I'm pleased to announce that I'm getting closer to my goal of getting a song written for me. The other night I e-mailed my friend Bryan to tell him I was too drunk to blog (I'm sure I told him other things, but my memory's quite fuzzy) and he told me that he was going to have to write a song using the line "I've got whiskey running through my veins."

So, that's a start. I'll be curious to see the finished product.

Song of the Day: "Tennessee Flat Top Box" by Johnny Cash.

posted by Laura at 12:35 AM