There is Love
There is Love - And No Compromise
I worked on a project a while back called the Wills session. I recently booked a show with Leslie Wills in Estes Park Colorado and even though I'm promoting a new album, I've found myself pouring over these many unfinished recordings we made for the Wills Session that were halted when my wife came home.
we reached a place, maybe a place found only in surrender, where we both embrace our pasts and the other's pasts. We can celebrate each other's old journeys in love. It's strange to me, I don't really know how we did that. But, I know it's real when I walk into the house and hear my wife playing the wills session. It's some of her favorite songs.___
There Is Love (Slightly Live)
Oh, don't get me wrong. My wife did not halt the release of anything. What happened I've written about several times but in short—we had split. It was all over; custody had been all hashed out and the only thing left was to sign the divorce papers which we just never got around to.
But she came back.
I had started the wills session duet project as medicine to heal from the pains of the divorce. To hash out a lot of emotions I was having, as I sometimes do with my music.
When my wife came back, and we decided to continue to travel this world together, it was just too hard to be on the road with another woman. She actually was fine with it, I was fine with it, we all were.. it just well.. do I really need to explain? it was difficult, painful. Leslie was a friend that went all the way back to the beginning. She was my first bandmate when I was a wee teen.
In my marital breakup, we had both moved on. There was no question that it was final, so we both went out into the world and started looking for 'love' ... again. But, I suspect we were not looking for love—for 'comfort' more like.
I did realize that fans/listeners whatever you may call them, like the perceived story behind the songs just as much, if not more, than the songs themselves. I'm a long time regional artist, so I know my fans, they know my wife and some know my kids. We're close. When things got all awkward with the relationship, so did my fans with the Wills Session music. They really didn't want to see that 'story' playing out anymore. It was too awkward, too painful maybe to their own ideas of what the songs meant to them. But, I'm only guessing.
There is Love, even in the past
Luckily, my wife is my best friend and a very cool person. 'Luckily,' because, I've had relationships where the old music, for old lovers had to go. It was forever banned from the house, the studio and the stage. It was not allowed! Now, I do have to add here, the wills session songs were about my wife for the most part.
But, we reached a place, maybe a place found only in surrender, where we both embrace our pasts and the other's pasts. We can celebrate each other's old journeys in love. It's strange to me, I don't really know how we did that. But, I know it's real when I walk into the house and hear my wife playing the wills session. It's some of her favorite songs.
Songs are my biography
I've had so many times when I have been asked to change lyrics, sometimes in ritzy hotel rooms with the pressure turned up to 10 & sometimes in more mundane bandmate situations. I've lost some big deals and music partners because I refused in any way to compromise one word of my songs.
There is a reason for both why I've been asked to change lyrics, and why I won't change them. The reason I'm usually asked to change them is that (this song is not a good example) I tend to put very personalized themes in my songs, so personalized that there can be no other interpretation; which is needed for a wider audience sometimes. I also cuss a lot in my songs. I'm told sometimes I ruin good songs with my lyrics.
The reason that I will not change them is because they are my very personal life story. I don't know, and I have never known if anything of consequence will come from my music... I'd rather not lose a chapter in my life story just to please a wider audience. I know people who have done that... now, decades later, they have a bunch of songs that were compromised in some way. Maybe they made some dough even, but I feel like at least, no matter what, I will have the songs I was meant to write. I will have my story in the end.
I actually have a song that I changed the lyrics for a LA producer years ago. They poured on the pressure to do so. I was just a kid, I gave in finally. What I learned from that is that I used to love that song. I think I still would love it, but here decades later, I can't even listen to it. The small 'tweak' in the lyrics made it a song about something else.. I don't even know who it is about because I changed it after the spirit of the song was laid to rest. Once that spirit is laid to rest, that's it.. no more changes. It's like a dangerous voodoo ceremony to raise the dead.
When is a song laid to rest?
I don't really know. It's usually in the first few days after writing. It's just something I know when it's done. When I need to close the book on it. The song tells me.
Funny enough though, I also do have some recorded released songs where I sang the wrong lyric and never corrected it .. that's another thing. Had a lot to do with how drunk I was in those days. Those I can live with... little accidents.
Another thing you learn after doing this for a long time is that it is very rare that you get another chance to re-record something. Maybe on a live album, but there is always something else in line that wants the studio first... so it's best to do it right the first time.
This song is a good example of that.. this is a live recording that I added a band to later. I did so as a demo, but here I am years later; I have three albums cooking right now, when exactly will I get to actually finishing this one in the studio... ?probably never.
Aim for your heart, you'll hit other's hearts
I'm not completely selfish in my decisions, I feel like the more personal I make my songs, the more they might reach the right person. The person who gets the story so well, that the song becomes their friend, their personal friend on the journey in life.
That is what I want, that is what I think all songwriters want.
Anyway.. I just had some thoughts about this one. I'm going to be digging in these for awhile until the show, so maybe I'll find some unreleased gems to put up here.
Thanks for reading RESTEEMING and UPVOTING! @ezravancil
ezravancil.com
@OriginalWorks
Really nice song. I resteemed it.