Day 13: Love Songs And Donated Body Parts

Teaching today in my hometown of Sutton in Ashfield.
In my old school.
Practice room 5.
The very room that I first picked up a guitar.

Boy, there's nothing to make you're feel you're going nowhere in your musical career like ending up back in the exact same spot that you first started.

That's also where I decided to play right handed, based on the law of supply and demand. I demanded a left handed guitar and they failed to supply one!

This town has a totally different vibe to a city. In the 10 seconds it took me to purchase a diet coke I'd been called 'Flower', 'duck', 'darling' and 'sweetheart' by the lady with all the tattoos in Arden News.

Being in school over here means I have a little time to write when kids don't turn up and I get to rock a Casio CTK 651 or even one of the upright pianos.

Today I'm working on the song variously know as Brother Cow, Brother Bull, Promises & Dreams or The Courting Song. It's all there bar the final bridge/coda which again I haven't planned out in advance. In my defence planning in advance wasn't easy as the song started out as a weird concept of asking animals to donate body parts, and then turned into a love song for my wife.

I'm really excited about this one. If no one else likes it I'm hoping my wife will. My guess is she'll point out various factual errors, such as the colour of her eyes or the number of rings she wears, before being quietly pleased and appreciative. We'll see.

By the way – SHE DOESN'T KNOW YET – DON'T TELL HER!!!!

I know Billy Joel can knock out one multiplatinum hit single for every woman he marries, but it's taken me 25 years to write a love song for my wife. I never felt able to sum up all that she is and means to me and as the years go by it's getting harder. But one day I realised it's like writing a song about God (which I've done a lot). You just pick one attribute, one aspect of his character, one phrase, one day in the life and write about that. That really helped me. Who knows, maybe this will be the first of many?

More tackling the bridge lyrics on the tram home, and half an hour at Shabby Road to work on the music.

BTW - just to be clear I've still been writing every day. Just not posting. O Lamb Of God is finished. This song is nearly there.

Standing in the kebab shop afterwards I understood a little of what the Bible means when it says that God looked at his creation and saw that it was good.There are things in the world that weren't there before. Creating things is awesome. Thank you God.

Download The Soundcheck Song - for free
Other free songs by Matt Blick