Sticky, Sweet, & A Little Overdressed

I missed the CMA Awards show last night. We were going to go work out and watch the show on the cardio theater TVs, but my knees started hurting and I didn’t feel up to it. Now that I’m reading the press release about it, I’m so bummed to have missed Randy Travis singing “Sunday Morning Coming Down” in a tribute to Kris Kristofferson. That is one of my favorite songs of all time, and Randy Travis has the perfect voice for it.

On the other hand, I’m a little glad I missed “Live Like You Were Dying” winning song of the year. I’m thrilled for Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman, who write incredible songs and truly deserve this kind of recognition, but if I’d seen them winning, I’d have lost it. In this press release, Tim McGraw is quoted as saying backstage, “The song came to me around Thanksgiving. That’s when we sort of learned that Tug [Kate's note: that's his late father] didn’t have a chance. We cut the song three weeks later and it wasn’t sad. It was something special.” I have a hard enough time listening to that song without crying; now it’ll be waterworks every time I hear it.

The real upside to having missed the show is that by staying home I was able to focus on writing, and I wrote not one, but two songs. One of them was kind of a throw-away piece of dreck, but as soon as I finished it I started on the second one and it was much sharper for having sort of “warmed up” on the first one. I read the second one to Karsten when I was done, and he said it had real presence. So yay! That makes five songs total this month, and at least two of them are real possibilities for serious development.

Five down, 25 to go.

Every time I see that meme with all the “would you… go out with me? let me kiss you? etc” questions and how it ends with “would you come pick me up at 3 AM…”, I get an earworm of the Ryan Adams’ song “Come Pick Me Up.” I love that song, but with that simple melody repeating so many times through the chorus, it’s a damn sticky earworm.

Come pick me up
Take me out
Fuck me up
Steal my records
Screw all my friends
They’re all full of shit
With a smile on your face
And then do it again
I wish you would

I was flipping radio stations while driving home this evening and came across “Live Like You Were Dying” so I stopped and listened for a while. Man! Not only does that song pack a particularly powerful punch in my life at the moment, what with my dad’s situation, but it’s just airtight, musically and lyrically. Great production, great performance by Tim McGraw. I felt overcome with envy. So that got me thinking about other songs I wish I’d written, and I decided to start listing them. After all, I can always refer to this list when I need inspiration.

I also decided to limit the list to songs which were probably written in Nashville, and probably intended for the country market, since that’s where we’re aiming and I sometimes find it so stifling that it’ll be a good reminder to see a list of great songs that stayed within the “safe” limits of country radio acceptability.

So this is the beginning of it…

Live Like You Were Dying
(James Nichols / Craig Wiseman)

I Hope You Dance
(Mark Sanders / Tia Sillers)

A Little Past Little Rock
(James Brown / Brett Jones / Tony Lane)

You’ll Think Of Me
(Darrell Brown / Ty Lacy / Dennis Matkosky)

Bring On The Rain
(Helen Darling / Billy Montana)

[Edit: additions since original post]
Every Light In The House
(Kent Robbins)

K&K out at Commodore Lounge to see Rob Wolf play. That guy is a fantastic performer! If you ever have the chance to see and hear him, don’t miss it.

“Everybody always laughs at love
but what they want is to be proven wrong”
- Allen/Hall/Oates, “Did It in a Minute”

It isn’t just that this is a great lyric (though I certainly think it is). It’s the way they wrote the prechorus/build melody to go with it: drawn-out, punctuated, really driving home the meaning by making the listener wait for it. That must have been one hell of a cowriting session. I would love to have been a fly on the wall.

It’s tougher, in some ways, to write lyrics in a void. Sure, I always have a working melody while I’m writing lyrics, but it rarely ends up being anything like the melody we end up using for the song (thank goodness). Something like the Hall & Oates example above would be nearly impossible to achieve in the kind of writing arrangement we primarily use.

But there are advantages to our arrangement, of course: I’m unconstrained by any existing melody as I write the lyrics, which leaves me limitless room to move and turn around, change my mind, scrap whole sections, and invent new structures. Of course, when I do the latter, as I recently did, I make it very challenging for Karsten. But hey, that’s what he’s good at, so I’m comfortable leaving that to him.

And we do the real-time co-writing thing every once in a while. Enough to remind us that it’s not the way we prefer to work. I think we learn a lot from each other and from the experience whenever we do, and I hope we never stop doing it, but I never plan for it to be more than an occasional change of pace.

So perhaps the greatness of the above example of collaboration will forever elude us. Or maybe we’ll find our own ways to attain greatness. Maybe we’re already finding them, and they just need enough repetition to produce quality results. To paraphrase the line, everybody always laughs at Hall & Oates, but what they forget is the 6 #1 singles, more than a dozen top 40 singles, and 19 gold and platinum albums. I’d like to be that laughable.

Writers’ Night hosted by Don Ellis
[Don Ellis is a great guy and very entertaining host. We highly recommend his writers' nights if only so you can hear him do a spot-on impersonation of Neil Diamond, Tom Jones, Kenny Rogers, or Lee Greenwood.]
Cocktails Bar & Grill
[Cocktails is the lower level of Anthony's Showplace, which is a little strange. Only in Nashvegas do some of the hottest songwriters on the radio play a live show at a bar attached to a strip joint.]
408 George L. Davis Blvd. (Charlotte Ave. & I-40)
One block from NES downtown.
Phone number is 256-1130
8:00 to 10:00 PM No cover & free parking

This week’s lineup:

• Andy Childs: In the last couple years, has been the lead singer for Warner Brothers’ Recording artists Sixwire, also recorded a solo album on RCA. A great singer songwriter.
• Clint Daniels: This Universal South Recording artist has a big future ahead of him. See him up close and personal with his great original music. Has already penned hit songs like “Broken Heartsville” for Joe Nichols.
• Greg Holland: This former Asylum Recording artist has been busy writing new songs for his future project. Hear him debut some of those songs. [We've heard Greg play. He's great. Not to be missed.]

K&K at Don Ellis’ writers night. Saw Michael Peterson play.

K&K out to see Dani Carroll at the Bluebird Cafe with Reese Wilson and friends. Fantastic show!

K&K have lunch with Bob Osgood and Sam Cornett, two songwriters visiting from Chicago.

We met them at a meeting of the Chicago chapter of NSAI before we moved to Nashville. These guys are the greatest. We have every confidence that they have big things in store for them.

K&K out at Don Ellis’ writers night at Cocktails Bar & Grill.

K&K at Don Ellis’ writers night at Cocktails Bar & Grill. Saw Dani Carroll play again — we used to see her a lot at the Broken Spoke. Talked with her for a while afterwards, and she mentioned an upcoming show at the Bluebird. We’ll be there for sure!

K&K at Don Ellis’ writers night at Graham Central Station.

K&K met up with Joe Hendricks for coffee tonight at Fido to talk songwriting and networking in the music business. Joe is a wonderful performer and looks like he’s headed for great things.

K&K at Don Ellis’ writers night at Graham Central Station.

I had such a blast Tuesday night. Some songwriting friends from Chicago were in town, and we went to see a round at Caffeine that included Marc Alan Barnette, who always puts on a lively show with songs like “There’s Too Much Blood In My Alcohol Level.” After the show, our friends were chatting with Marc Alan, and he invited us all to join him next door at Tin Roof for a beer.

I’ve met Marc Alan several times, but had not hung out with him — he’s a total nut, and had us all in stitches. He knew everybody in the bar, it seemed, and he introduced us to several hit writers who happened to walk by, including Don Rollins, who co-wrote “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.”

One of Marc Alan’s friends who hung out with us was Brian Haner, a phenomenal guitarist from L.A. who used to play in Frank Zappa’s band and has done session work for the likes of Paul Simon. He was a great conversationalist — I hope to hang out with him again next time he’s in town.

K&K are headed out with Bob Osgood and Sam Cornett to Caffeine to see Marc-Alan Barnett. MAB is a mad dog on stage. If you ever have a chance to see him, go! If you’re there tonight, introduce yourself!

K&K at Don Ellis’ writers night at Graham Central Station.

K&K at Don Ellis’ writers night at Graham Central Station.

I spent a good chunk of time this morning updating honeybowtie.com, and specifically linked several demos to the Songs page. Since I mentioned to some folks I saw a few weeks ago that I would be sure to send a link to some MP3s of our Nashville demos, I thought I’d go ahead and post it here.I only got three songs added (one was already there), so here’s what’s up there right now:

• Get It Wrong, a pop-py tune we co-wrote with our friend Lair Morgan. The demo is sung by Dawn Martin.
• Traces of You, a slow- to mid-tempo ballad. Demo sung by the lovely and incredibly talented Wendy Jans, who is also a wonderful songwriter.
• You’ve Lost Me, a sorta raucous country-bluesy tune. Sung by Susan Clinton, who happens to manage Bayou Studio — where we recorded the demo.

And there’s also Mango Sun, which is a reggae tune we demo’ed in Chicago last year and pitched last August for a film placement. Nothing ever came of it, but some of our friends have told us stories of waiting more than 18 months to hear news on a pitch, being sure it was dead, and then getting a cut. So I guess ya never know.

From the AP - Long before his days as billionaire premier, Silvio Berlusconi used to croon on a cruise ship. Now, Italy’s leader is coming out with an album of love songs.

My favorite part is the lyrical excerpt:

“One verse penned by the premier goes: ‘With my heart in my mouth/Because your love is everything to me/I know you may make me suffer/But I’ll never let you go/Even if I have to fight/I will love you until the end.’ ”

Gee, he should write boy band songs.

Last week, our friend Lair invited us to a Halloween party. Yesterday he told us he’d canceled it and that he’d be playing a writers’ round that night, and that everyone would be in costume anyway. Good thing, too, since already got his costume together and I’d hate to see it go to waste. He’s going as a “country & western hockey player.” Hey, absurd is his middle name. Well, actually, it’s Ocelot, but it should have been Absurd.

Me, I’m going as a naughty school girl. Yeah, I know, it’s so Britney and so done, but according to my sources, these kinds of things are still shocking in Nashville and I can’t resist something with that kind of shock value.

At the Bluebird Cafe tonight cheering on Randy Barber and Matt Ramsey.

K&K were back in the studio today recording a demo of “Traces of You.” K&K were excited to work with Wendy Jans for the vocals. Wendy recorded lush, exquisite vocals with superhuman speed and accuracy. The end result is much richer for it. Thanks, Wendy.

Two more great demo experiences with “Get It Wrong” (sung by Dawn Martin) and “It Works” (sung by Kim Parent). They were both fabulous. Thank you, Dawn and Kim.

K&K recorded their first demo in Nashville at Bayou Recording Studio. Susan Clinton recorded the vocals for “You’ve Lost Me” and did a wonderful job. Thanks, Susan.