This one’s going to be war and peace. Four years ago I was walking a lot. Time of covid and we had bought a house. Walked back and forth from our rental to our new house to check on the progress. And I had the beat in my feet and wrote in my head. First was “You Had To Go”. I originally felt it would be about people who ended their life… but it didn’t feel right so I just made it about people I thought had left this world too early. And the verse at the end was about my dad so now I had a contrast between celebrities who die and real people who are close to you.

Somewhere along the way was “A place like that”. I was thinking about writing about my hometown but I hate songs that include a particular place’s name. So I said “Well I don’t want to say that but I want to say a place like that” and that became it’s name. So I was thinking about all these famous things that happened in my state. Buddy Holly going down in a plane crash. Harry Chapin not making the show (because he died in a car crash) and Pat Benatar taking his place (at the state fair). Ozzy Ozbourne biting the head off a bat. CW McCall trucking the waves (he was actually born/living in the state). Bryan Adams stopped the show – my sister and I were at the same concert where he stopped the show because people were out of control. Bob Segar turned the page – listen to the song. Not where Bob was actually at but it fits anyway. The chorus made a simple song about bullying into a good song to hear.

Then we have “Goodbye Sidney” where I started writing the chorus in the shower. “I can’t tell Sydney goodbye, can’t stand to see her cry, in an old shoebox I put upon that shelf. It’s just a photograph, I’d rather see her laugh. A terrible accident would happen later that day, when Sidney went away” I ended up crafting it into a breakup song and a loss by death. There were bits and pieces that were true in the entire song. We had three people from my high school class that were lost in the first 5 years after high school and it was really about all of them. They were lost too young for sure. The accidents all happened in tragic ways. I was deeply scarred from them even after all these years. So like many of my songs, these songs were therapy. Especially my other songs from that time period. I had just lost my dad a couple years before so I wrote several songs about him. Some angry. Some sad. Some you’ll find out more about fairly soon. More recently… I’ve been trying to write relationship songs. I have only written one song that was truely positive, the others have been mostly sad. But all relationships. I have dug deep so I hope you all like what I’ve written mainly from pain. Make sure to subscribe if you would like to hear more.