Songs 1999

I wrote Krythe for Jason Cole Smith after our first date.  Following dinner out, we ended up in the mountains as the most fabulous fog climbed the slope of the ravine to the road.  It enveloped us in a thick white mist, cold in the January night.   Love came in a similar way, climbing slowly up the slope of my heart and closing it in, shielding my eyesight.  It was all around and undeniable, and it was good.   We had known each other in High School, but after I returned from college we reunited.  But it ended up being nothing more than a strong friendship.  In the end, our views on things like religion and children clashed so much that we couldn't continue the relationship.  I pray he finds all the blessings he deserves in this life.

Stranger is Ember's song for Meredith.  It is entirely hers, I just helped her with the lyrics a bit.  It is the most beautiful piece I think we've done, with both a lovely melody and intricate music.  This is just a moment in the brevity of life, brilliantly simple yet so moving.  It is something I think everyone will be able to connect to, that "what if?" feeling.  This was a result of pondering the "what ifs" until three in the morning.

My poor friend Brandon had been watching Ember and I have all this fun songwriting and he wanted to play too.  Accomplished in his own right, he asked me to assist him in writing the song for his recently ended engagement to Fernando.  My method was the only way I knew how to begin, and I put Brandon through the mill on this one.  It was therapeutic for both of us, I think.  I can't just write lyrics cold, I needed the emotion and the story; then I make the song touch me through my own experience.  But while he was relating the words of his own situation, I ended up dredging up some of my past to sprinkle as dark angel dust throughout the song.  I hadn't a clue until The Dream Won't Walk Away was completed, but Joshua Dale Amsden resides in this song in places, hiding in the corners.  Curious, that.

Find the Strength was written one week before my friend Brandon left for Ft. Collins.  He had doubts about the move and needed reassurance and empowerment.  And nothing reassures like a song.  When you strip away the veneer of influence, everything comes down to your inner-self.  If you believe you can, you can do anything.

I realized at some point during my collaborations with Ember and Brandon that something was missing.  I was telling their stories through my eyes, with much gratitude from them.  But who was writing my stories?  I had never been good at writing about myself, at least not directly.  It was time I at least attempted to place some of my own thoughts to music.  I Am is the result of that attempt.

After a bit of a hiatus, Ember and I found each other again in a park in Colorado Springs, sitting by a brook, attempting to write.  She had found herself in a relationship which brought out some powerful lyrics.  I jotted them down as she played, and in a few minutes we had a song.  It felt good to have something completed so quickly.  Safe Harbor is for Deb.

Zac entered my life in the middle of 1999.  I had recently relocated to a tiny northern Colorado college town to find myself and eventually go to school.  I had sworn off men, relationships in general, until I got my head on straight.  But as Fate would have it, Zac would have none of it.  Fortunate for me as he brought laughter and love back into my dreary existence and showed me a future I had all but forgotten.  Possibly unfortunate for him as he will be putting up with me until our time in these bodies expires...and maybe beyond.  Nocturne is a lullaby.

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