Tour Diary: Day 6 Toes and Tunes

All I am saying is that dipping your toes in the water doesn't do the same thing as submerging your whole self all the way.  Some of it...maybe.  The coolness--or is it the dryness, which do you feel more.  Is it just the contrast of cool/warm, wet/dry, happy/sad, awake/tired, Republican/Democrat that allows us understanding?

Toes in the water, the foot's sole and heel, used to the rough sturdiness of the ground, the grass, the gravel; or itchy, damp socks, worn in-soles now feel a sudden coolness yielding to its entirety.  Oh my sole!  Finally, a perfect fit.  The nerves connecting skin and brain, at first shocked with sensation, become more comfortable, relaxed. The wet and dry line inches up and a small tickle of electricity slips its way around the calf and up the leg... to your spine long before the water meets the waist. 

All this feeling is perceived and anticipated.  It is also all contrast. I don't know if it's a bad thing or not.  But, the difference is what helps us categorize and those categorizations push organization which becomes a vehicle for understanding.  This new understanding brings us to another contrast: love and loss.

For years, I've said, "This is a song about love" and that's always been true, but that's only true because I have experienced loss.  Worse, I have created loss.  Reality.

When I started teaching I was really into the American romantic writers... people like Hawthorne and the transcendentalists:  Emerson and Thoreau.  And like a gang of thugs, the realist/naturalists came in and called "bullshit" on the "justice of nature" or the supernatural "everything will resolve itself" quasi hopefulness of humans that seem to permeate the romantic gospel.  It was true rock-n-roll.  Pretty cool.  London and Crane in particular... what made it different was because they lived it. They experienced the stories they told... I know Thoreau went out to the woods, I read that memo... but London and Crane were searching for something different and perhaps brutal.  Experience. 

Where is this going?  FAWM.  I have yet to start on the FAWM just yet... I may get to it by Saturday... that will be the first time that I'll have a chance to get there... but I think this year will be more fruitful than past few years.

When I sit down to write... especially for FAWM... I usually start with chords and drum beats.  I try to fashion something that sounds sing-able and at a minimum... not annoying.  There is a period of layering guitars and keyboard sounds... then the last layer is the lyrics.  Which start with rough/rude word associations and melody construction... listening for the contrasts... for the combinations that shoot sparks... tickle their way up... and I feel submerged.

Okay... I gotta run... update on the 7":  Songs have been mixed.. now waiting on the masters... artwork has been started...

Track Listing:

You're Still Here
Almost Home
Way Off  (digital release)
Nothing Else  (digital release)
Swerve (digital release)

Grimm