Gman Blues - CHICAGO-- Acoustic Rock 'n Blues - NEWS/JOURNAL
Haunting Dream - November 28, 2006
Ok so I'm driving down the highway. A song pops into my head; the road is where I get most of my ideas for songs. Most of the time I carry a tiny recorder so that I can remember and revisit the idea later. Sometimes I don't have a way to capture the thought and it fades like a dream. I can remember things about the song, but not its essence--the thing that makes it special.
This day though I don't want to remember this particular song. For some unknown reason, a COWBOY song pops into my head--and I like it. It has an infectious, mesmerizing melody. It is rich with tonal colors. It appears to have endless possibilities. But in the end it is a freakin' cowboy song. It won't fit into a gman Blues set, nor will it mesh with anything on G-force. It is a REBEL song defying who I am and what I do. So I take no action--the song will fade like a dream.
Two weeks later up pops that damn cowboy song again! This time it is wealthier in sound, and now I'm singing a melody to the bridge for it. Every time the song popped back into my head it was larger and more evolved. I love this melody, but I've got to find a way to shake this song!
Well as you might guess the song kept coming back--it wouldn't let me go. After a couple of months I came to the unfortunate conclusion that my writing was parked behind that damn cowboy song! Traffic jam of the very spirit! I was going nowhere until I acted on that thing; it quickly beginning to have a life of its own in my creative inner self. Still I tried to resist, knowing that there wasn't a home for it on stage, in the internet, or on store shelves. What was I to do?
I had an idea and a good one. The idea was this. Attempt to put the song into physical form and when I fail (and I will) it will be done with forever. It has to happen--after all I play blues and rock right? What do I know about playing a damn cowboy song? I've GOT to FAIL….
So I got the TAK out, sat down at the kitchen table and started to try and figure out the song but something extremely weird happened--I didn't have to figure it out. I knew instinctively how to play it beginning to end… Like I was born to play this song; like this song has been stalking me for months waiting for me to give it form, taunting me, possessing me. This was a song that I knew extremely well, yet it was the first time that the notes had actually rippled air.
And I loved it. It sounded richer in the world than it did in my mind. I didn't hear the subtle warm tones that the TAK had given the song or the ambience that the room had offered it. It was like visiting a place that you might have seen in a dream and for the first time were able to walk around it and see it in three dimensions--from another angle perhaps. Have you ever done that?
I played it through the first time I tried--it just doesn't happen that way. The song was writing me….
The song had me now and I was a puppet in its grip. I went into the studio to put down a sandbox version. One take later I had it. I added a one take bass, congas (like the clomping of horse hoofs), and the jingling reins of a tambourine. To me the thing just kept getting more real.
In my mind now the song had evolved too. I now heard a polished, compressed, aurally excited, mixed and mastered version. Right now I'm hearing my harp in it too and although I haven't tried to play harp to it I know in my heart that I can play this part as well.
I really want to post this all over the internet. Don't ask me why; I may be the only person that likes the song. The song may even be so out of place that it is comical. I don't know, but I'm resisting the urge right now because I want to present it the way I have dreamt it in my psyche. It's possible.
The final piece to the puzzle of course will be the lyrics. I still have a chance to crash and burn this piece. I do have a pretty good idea however as you might have guessed. I'll just keep that under my hat so to speak for now.
This day though I don't want to remember this particular song. For some unknown reason, a COWBOY song pops into my head--and I like it. It has an infectious, mesmerizing melody. It is rich with tonal colors. It appears to have endless possibilities. But in the end it is a freakin' cowboy song. It won't fit into a gman Blues set, nor will it mesh with anything on G-force. It is a REBEL song defying who I am and what I do. So I take no action--the song will fade like a dream.
Two weeks later up pops that damn cowboy song again! This time it is wealthier in sound, and now I'm singing a melody to the bridge for it. Every time the song popped back into my head it was larger and more evolved. I love this melody, but I've got to find a way to shake this song!
Well as you might guess the song kept coming back--it wouldn't let me go. After a couple of months I came to the unfortunate conclusion that my writing was parked behind that damn cowboy song! Traffic jam of the very spirit! I was going nowhere until I acted on that thing; it quickly beginning to have a life of its own in my creative inner self. Still I tried to resist, knowing that there wasn't a home for it on stage, in the internet, or on store shelves. What was I to do?
I had an idea and a good one. The idea was this. Attempt to put the song into physical form and when I fail (and I will) it will be done with forever. It has to happen--after all I play blues and rock right? What do I know about playing a damn cowboy song? I've GOT to FAIL….
So I got the TAK out, sat down at the kitchen table and started to try and figure out the song but something extremely weird happened--I didn't have to figure it out. I knew instinctively how to play it beginning to end… Like I was born to play this song; like this song has been stalking me for months waiting for me to give it form, taunting me, possessing me. This was a song that I knew extremely well, yet it was the first time that the notes had actually rippled air.
And I loved it. It sounded richer in the world than it did in my mind. I didn't hear the subtle warm tones that the TAK had given the song or the ambience that the room had offered it. It was like visiting a place that you might have seen in a dream and for the first time were able to walk around it and see it in three dimensions--from another angle perhaps. Have you ever done that?
I played it through the first time I tried--it just doesn't happen that way. The song was writing me….
The song had me now and I was a puppet in its grip. I went into the studio to put down a sandbox version. One take later I had it. I added a one take bass, congas (like the clomping of horse hoofs), and the jingling reins of a tambourine. To me the thing just kept getting more real.
In my mind now the song had evolved too. I now heard a polished, compressed, aurally excited, mixed and mastered version. Right now I'm hearing my harp in it too and although I haven't tried to play harp to it I know in my heart that I can play this part as well.
I really want to post this all over the internet. Don't ask me why; I may be the only person that likes the song. The song may even be so out of place that it is comical. I don't know, but I'm resisting the urge right now because I want to present it the way I have dreamt it in my psyche. It's possible.
The final piece to the puzzle of course will be the lyrics. I still have a chance to crash and burn this piece. I do have a pretty good idea however as you might have guessed. I'll just keep that under my hat so to speak for now.
posted by Gary Wesselhoff @ 11:39 AM
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