Billionaire
When you hear the word "billionaire," who comes to mind?
I've got a billion dollars
I own the night
I own the skyline
Black tie and smiles
But inside I'm raging
Like I said in a previous entry on "Secret Identity," one of my goals is to write a song based on a very famous licensed character, make enough money to put my kids through college and not get sued.
Look behind the mask
There's a little boy
In a dark back alley
Two pools of blood
In the pale moonlight
Armored car and armored vest
I've got my own symbol across my chest
And I don't need a gun
To get justice done...
I've grown up with comic book culture. I don't claim to be a huge fan of any one character or title. As a kid I enjoyed the feel of the pulpy pages and exploring the issue from cover to cover: Ads promising boxes of toy soldiers for less than $2; pages showing transistor radios, acoustic guitars and other items that could be earned by selling subscriptions to stationery; way too serious letters to the editor; the always puzzling pages of T-shirts with adult messages I didn't fully understand and, my personal favorite, a solid page of cheap novelties. Oh, and sea monkeys.
At times the actual stories seemed almost secondary. Here's where I managed to borrow a few lines from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots:
Got a thousand bruises
No regrets
And no excuses
I discipline my body
Got to be strong to fight them
Most of the time superheroes fought supervillains or even other superheroes for complicated reasons. But I always felt like the best stories involved a hero coming to the aid of the defenseless against seemingly impossible odds.
I watch over the city
Hear the screams
Of innocent victims
I climb, I glide, I brawl
Driven by the need to save them all
If I had a secret life, I think I would always be on the verge of giving myself away. Especially if I met someone who seemed genuine, who seemed like she might have already guessed.
Met her at a party
Red hair, black velvet
I wondered as we were dancing
Could she understand?
Met her at a party
Black hair, red velvet
I wondered as we were dancing
Did she understand?
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy the song.
Seven Story Christmas Tree
I wrote this song last weekend and had it all ready to share on Christmas Eve Eve, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but somehow it never felt like the right time. Well, at least I'll have something for next year.
I wrote it thinking of when my wife and I were dating, that time when making my wife laugh was one of my biggest goals in life. Being silly came easy then; now it's takes work to be lighthearted. But even going to the grocery store by ourselves can seem romantic if you have the right mindset.
Just because we met today
Doesn't mean it can't last forever
The lights and the music
Didn't mean much yesterday
It's Christmas Eve, let's celebrate
I was also thinking of that scene in Elf where Buddy the elf and Jovie go out for the first time. It's one of my favorite scenes from any movie, with You Make Me Feel So Young as the background song.
It's no secret that I like your smile
And we can walk the shops together
I'll wear your mittens,
You wear my big gloves
It's Christmas Eve, let's celebrate
Christ Child and Nativity
Seven story Christmas tree
Skating and hot cocoa
Like living in a snow globe
Yesterday was dull and gray
Now the colors of your pretty face
Bring the city back to life
Now it's good-bye for tonight...
Hope you enjoy the song throughout the year.
Wendy and Peter:
My family and I were staying at the Pop Century Resort at Walt Disney World. It's on the lower end of the Disney resorts, price-wise, but some of my fondest memories are of being there together, playing in the pool or eating dinner in the cafeteria.
I had taken my ukulele instead of my guitar due to space restrictions. We had driven from Ohio to Florida in our minivan with another family.
One afternoon, we were in our room getting ready to head to the computer pool. It's a pool with a large replica of a laptop hanging from a nearby building.
I was strumming the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Scar Tissue." That song goes: F - C - Dm, but then I added A7/C7 as the last chord in the progression, which changed the feeling. A7 didn't do it. Neither did C7. It needed the combo.
The mermaids and the pirates haven't captured me so far
I've invited this invasion, you stand here by my side
With your ribbons and your thimbles and your eyes filled up with stars
I look at you with wonder, and now I realize
With your gentle hands, warm as sand,
You sooth the frightened child
Your delicate smell and your mannerisms
Threaten my untamed wild
When you come near my instinct is to run...
We had just just ridden Peter Pan's Flight, based on the 1953 Disney cartoon version of Peter Pan. That version of the story is lighthearted and full of adventure.
But it doesn't really capture the conflict that Peter feels about Wendy: he's fascinated by her and drawn to her femininity, but he has no intention of giving up his boyish wildness and freedom.
The 2003 version does capture that, along with bittersweet feeling of the unfinished bonus-feature ending, from J.M. Barrie's original book and play, where Peter comes back to the nursery to find things have changed.
Anyway, I wanted to get some of that conflict into my song. I was 30 when when my wife and I got married. A few years later, I had just bought this really cool shark kite that I planned to fly as soon as possible when my wife showed me the double lines of our pregnancy test. Clearly, I had some growing up to do.
The indians and the fairies are calling me to play
And I'm thinking up excuses for the first time in my life
In the morning you say you're leaving, inside I'm begging you to stay
But I won't grow up, you can't fill me up with your husbands and wives
With your gentle hands, warm as sand,
You sooth the frightened child
Your delicate smell and your mannerisms
Threaten my untamed wild
When you come near my instinct is to run...
Standing there in our Disney hotel room, we had two little girls and my wife was pregnant with our little boy. Like Peter looks at Wendy, I am in awe of my wife's intelligence, hard work, sweetness and thoughtfulness. I guess all of those things came together at the right time.
I needed an ending, so I borrowed one of the best ever:
Wendy, tramps like us, baby we were born to run...
Strange Perfume:
This is a fictionalized retelling of the way I met my wife.
They met at the time clock
He was starting night shift
They used the same Macintosh
At the time, we both worked for a newspaper in the production department, meaning that we put the newspapers together, both the editorial content and the ads.
She left him fortune cookies
He liked the smell of her strange perfume
They took the same day off
I was on an ad team, creating display ads for real estate agents, plant nurseries, local doctors and dentists, and so on. She worked on a different ad team and also built pages. The day shift and night shift shared computers, all Macs.
They met at the museum
They found brilliant colors everywhere
The sun shone brighter
He searched into her green eyes
They were telling him a story
Everything comes out fine
But with lots of complications...
Which is how it goes when you're falling for someone. Everything seems better, more colorful, more meaningful.
The main chord progression was my attempt to sounds like the Posies' "Dream All Day" but but without learning that song. I find that can be a good starting point for a new song.
But the break, where the song slows down, was really inspired by my brother-in-law and bandmate, Clay Justice. It's not so much that he plays in that style; it's just he had told me how much he liked songs that change tempo, get faster or slower, and so on. So I doubt I would have slowed the song down without his influence.
Plus, I was trying to sound like the Beatles.
Prayers, diapers laughter
Tears, money, mercy
They built a life together
The end, gratefully ever after...
I am grateful to God for what I have, my wife, kids, job, food, shelter, clothes, enough money to give, for his mercy and grace.
Hope you enjoy. Peace.
