Okay, so perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the picture. I love to write music. It's kind of a passion of mine. And my other passion is my faith in Christ. So it only seemed natural for me to combine those passions into one giant mega-passion called becoming a singer-songwriter for the glory of the aforementioned Christ. And so starting in high school and ending hopefully not until I've breathed my last I have devoted a portion of my time to coming up with melodies, lyrics, chords, rhythms, and blues that went to the praise of Jesus.
My aim with this blog is to let you all, who I consider "True Fans," or at least "Fans Who Can Use a Computer," in on the stories, explanations, inspirations, and strange hamster-sacrificing rituals that go into writing each of my songs. I feel like some of them are pretty straightforward: "I rearranged some of Paul's words to make them rhyme and played a C chord or whatever..." while others are more intricate and involved: "I rearranged some of Peter's words to make them rhyme and played a C minor chord or whatever..."
I don't know who will want to read this, or even if I'll keep doing it past the first couple installments, but I do know the general idea is that you, the reader, would know a little more about me, the man who can control your thoughts and actions on a whim, I mean, the humble songwriter. So in this introduction I mostly just want to lay out the format these blogs will take...
First, I'll reproduce the lyrics (as best I can remember) from one of my songs, and tell you when exactly I wrote it. Then I will, to the best of my ability, tell you my purpose, where in the Bible I took some of the ideas from, what I was going through when I wrote it, maybe who I wrote it for, if that's applicable, and any other tidbits of information you'd like to hear. (I'm a really big fan of tidbits.... If you catch my drift....) Then I'll give a link to either a YouTube video of me singing the described song, or a link to the album version on Soundcloud, or both, or neither, depending on my mood, I guess.
So to illustrate that order, I thought I'd provide a template with a song I certainly did NOT write, and I'm quite honestly not sure WHO wrote it, but I'm sure they were under the influence of several heavy amphetamines, "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." The blog for this song would go as follows:
Welcome to the latest installment of "Thoughts from a Small-Town Songwriter," thanks for joining me today, let's take a look at one of my favorite songs I've ever written (I will most likely describe every song as my favorite) "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." Here are the lyrics:
Old MacDonald had a farm,
Ee-Ay-Ee-Ay-O!
And on this farm he had a pig,
Ee-Ay-Ee-Ay-O!
With an oink oink here, and an oink oink there,
Here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink, oink,
Old MacDonald had a farm,
Ee-Ay-Ee-Ay-O!
(Etc. I would go on, but I always forget what sound the stinkin' chicken makes, "cluck," maybe?)
Now many people have been asking if the inspiration for this song was growing up on an actual farm. Of course, there are multitudes of actual farms in Jarrettsville, but it is a little known fact that not every square inch of this town is, in fact, a farm. I was actually not born in a stable and laid in a manger, as many have surmised, but in a hospital, where I was presumably slapped by a doctor. My actual inspiration for this song was this one time where I stubbed my middle toe on my left foot (which protrudes quite profoundly) and, being the good Baptist who never uses a curse word that I am, exclaimed "EE-AY-EE-AY-OOOOOOOOHHHHH!" and several of my relatives who were in earshot said, "That Justin, always thinking up classic children's songs..." And the rest, as they say, is history. I named the farmer Old MacDonald because I was watching those McDonald's commercials where they claim to use actual real food in their supposedly edible products, and I thought it would be ironic or whatever, you know, because I'm an artist. Then all I had to do was come up with various farm animals and the noises that they would make "here, there, and everywhere," because if you've ever been to a farm, the two things you notice are the smell (which would not be an especially savory thing to sing about in a children's song) and the noise (which is what most children's songs have to do with, because children are naturally great noise-makers). As for the melody, I think I ripped off some old folk ballad, but that's pretty much what all children's songs do, so I don't feel very bad about it.
(Here, I would usually produce a link to one of the songs I've written, in either YouTube or Soundcloud format, but instead I'll post a childlike picture of Jason and I, in which you could imagine us singing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm...")
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| Old MacDonald sure was a busy farmer.... |
See you hopefully next Saturday, when I kick things off with a song that is very near and dear to my heart, but is definitely not "Old MacDonald Had a Farm..."
Stay snappy, music lovers...
Singing off, (har)
Justin Samuel Manry
