4th July
I left Nashville on Thursday and that was a trip. I met some fantastic writers and I hope we wrote some good songs. The one thing I'll remember 'bout Nashville is that it’s the only place I know that heats up when the rain starts!!! But it was amazing all the same.
So now I’m in NYC finishing off my writing sessions, and we never realised that the 4th July is like the biggest deal next to Xmas and Thanksgiving. I knew it was a big event but being a Brit, I clean forgot all 'bout it. I feel like Carrie "sex in the city" sitting at my mac in NYC, a few subtle differences though, I prefer flat shoes with ma gucci spandex hot pants! hehe
I’ve been out of Manhattan as well for a bit and as soon as you get off the island the pace changes, quite dramatically. So it's been good to see some other places I would never have seen otherwise.
I had to take a bus as the people I was working with lived out of town and because it was the 4th the bus was the only way to get there. I was gonna take a cab but because of the holiday it was costing $125 as opposed to a 12 buck bus ride. It was nice not knowing where I was getting off having never been there by bus, asking the crazy bus driver to let me know when he gets to my stop, unfortunately he couldn’t understand a word I was saying, even though I was trying to speak in an USA accent... that usually ends up somewhere between a Irish lilt and a Glaswegian Indian, with a bit of Australian thrown in....Anyways I got there despite everything.
It has been an interesting couple of weeks, writing songs out here is quite different from writing back home, and I don’t think it will necessarily make you a better writer, it might make you a quicker writer, as you have to be fast over here, so its been productive I guess.
I subscribe to the Lenny Cohen School of Writing, that if you persevere with the idea, the song will eventually endure, and I can’t short cut that songwriting process, I have to wait for them to drop. It makes me smile when Gary Barlow says “I wrote that in an hour", I always think "yeh but its the 20 years of sitting at a piano that allows you to write a song in an hour. I’m not having a pop at Gaz as you have to tip your hat to someone who superbly paraphrased the chords to ‘Love Is All Around’ with ‘Back for Good’! Only joking people....... :) We had the title ‘Somewhere Somehow’ for a long time until it fell into that chord sequence, probably 2 years, so theoretically it took us over 2yrs to write, even though it came together in an afternoon.
Enough enough, I've written enough for the time being but I'll be back when I’m back home...
Y'all keep comin’ back ye hear,
love graeme c
x