My Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Well, here goes.

I wrote a song.

I've been surrounded by music my entire life, vigilantly soundtracking every waking moment, seeing shows, sometimes partaking in critique of it, always contributing to the discussion of it, and galvanizing the creation of it.

By now, it's second nature, this music thing. But until this year, I'd never fully participated in the writing of a song. It's a fascinating process, watching something take shape from the ether like that: Wrestling with the melody until it bends to my will and begins to resemble something I'd like to sing. Wrapping my mouth around words and allowing them to dissolve into the melody until the two are intrinsically linked. Envisioning layer after layer after layer of instrumentation (or in this case, lack of) and experimenting until  the arrow is somewhat near the bullseye. It's the very process so many of my friends and musicians I admire go through on a daily basis, and now I can't help but wonder what it looks like for them. Musings for a different post, I suppose.

This is my song. I wrote it for Fauxchella but the live performance wasn't quite hitting the mark for me; it was too wild, the environment not controlled enough. It slipped and slid and eventually spiraled out from my hands, and while there's a certain thrill in watching the whole thing unfold in real time, one of the joys of being the creator of said song is that you can, in fact, create a controlled space in which your song will flourish. For me, that space was in Vacaville with my dearest Emily Weiss, herself an awe-inspiring singer/songwriter. We recorded the layers essentially in one take each, one down, two down, on to the next. By then I knew what I wanted, so it didn't take long.

Without further blathering, here's a song I wrote. It's called "My Heart Is A Lonely Hunter."

I hope you like it.