July 2024

Miracles of Gratitude

By |2024-07-13T15:15:50+00:00July 12th, 2024|Uncategorized|

In my high school years, I became friends with an older kid by maybe 2 or 3 years…  his name is Joe Soliz.  He played guitar in a rival band, and we started hanging out together, just jamming and trading licks in the ol’ Quad Cities in Illinois.

A brief time had passed, and the next thing I knew Joe moved to Southern California.

I, on the other hand was experiencing the effects of smoking too much weed, failing high school, no job, no girl… basically feeling like the biggest loser on the planet.  I was overweight, breaking out in my face from so much junk food, and so low in self-esteem I couldn’t take looking at myself in the mirror anymore. A re-invention was needed.  No idea how to do it, but knew something had to give.

I reached out to Joe and asked if I could come visit him for a month to see how I liked it.  He graciously agreed, so I sold my car to buy my very first plane flight to Los Angeles.  Never forget it was a prop plane that brought me those two thousand miles.  A loud flight it was!

When I arrived, he and his roommate had a kind of spare room they’d throw clothes and old towels in, and I got to sleep in there… probably on the floor.  I honestly don’t recall.  What I do recall was the taste of freedom.  The taste of California climate.  The sun, the palm trees, the girls…  I’d walk down the street in the early afternoons, always barefoot, to a place called Licorice Pizza and shuffle through all the new releases and listen to music through my new So Cal set of ears.

The first album I bought was Dixie Dregs ‘What If’.  Steve Morse’s guitar work was just incredible, and still being a fan of the band Kansas, they sounded a bit like an instrumental version.  Next was Karla Bonoff’s first record.

Both of these were playing in-store and I had to buy them immediately after hearing.  I have both copies to this day, and though the Dregs have kind of been abandoned by my musical taste as an older man, I will hold Karla’s record as a lifer.  Whenever it comes back into rotation it’s like hearing it again for the first time.

Anyway, I was enjoying California just for the sheer presence of it.  Loving beyond words a brief month I got to feel like I had no past… no definitions of who I was.  Literally soaking up and sucking up any sunshine and air I could get, I was happy to be alive for the first time in a long time.  As silly as it may sound every living thing… even a palm tree in the middle of a street median… would make me think ‘wow… that’s a California tree… it looks so different and cool’.  I was almost jealous of the tree!  That’s how much I loved it here.  That kind of feeling is absolutely priceless.

My mind started to work overtime as to how I might be able to make a go of it here.  What would I do?  Joe’s roommate played in Vegas on weekends and was always saying the casinos paid really well if you could get a gig.  So I set out to do that.  My days were spent soaking up the California dream, and the nights were spent playing guitar with Joe and talking about how we could get gigs.

One day Joe got a call from a service he belonged to called The Musician’s Contact Service.  It was a way for musicians to meet other musicians and form bands, find players etc.  On this particular evening I could hear Joe pick up the phone.  “Hi, yeah I play guitar.  What’s that?  No, no sorry man I don’t sing… but you know what?  Let me pass the phone over to a friend of mine who’s visiting.  He sings really good and can play too”.

As he passed the phone to me he whispered  ‘Jude this guy says he has a record deal but listen man, most of these people are full of shit so beware’.

I took the phone as a quick-study-street-smart imposter and said “Hi” (almost disbelieving before even giving him a chance)
The guy on the other end of the phone very nicely said “Hey! My name’s Moon and I have an album out on Capitol Records.  I’m looking for guys to be in my band for some upcoming tours.”  “So I hear you can play and sing really well?”

“Yes I can do that”

“Well, what do you sound like… or I mean, can you give me a description of your voice?”

“Hmm… let me put it this way.  I can sing anything Paul McCartney can sing, ok?”

“Haha, wow that’s pretty confident.  I guess I’ll have to hear you now!”

So to make a long story short, he sent a friend down to Anaheim to pick me up, take me to Sun Valley where he was renting a house, I auditioned for him in his living room,  then spent the next 3 years of my life on the road, traveling every city of the US and 2-3 times a year to Europe.

This was a Godsend.  I couldn’t have worked it out better if someone gave me a ‘blueprint your future kit’.  For someone like me, an untrained musician who grew up on radio and rock & roll, to get this kind of experience… let me put it this way.  I’ve heard we have angels in life, and I believe Joe Soliz was one of mine.

My life forever changed.

So the point of this very personal story? Sometimes we need to experience the edge.  We also need to put ourselves in a place where we appreciate every small thing.  Then we have to give our troubles up to God, the Universe, or whoever you happen to pray to or believe in.  We think worrying will help, but it doesn’t.  It only begets more worrying.  Miracles lie in faith, gratitude and appreciation for this life.

So next time you’re in a tight spot, know there’s a way through… and one that’s better than you could ever design yourself.

And thank you Joe Soliz, Moon Martin… and quite a few other angels that have been there along my yellow brick road.

Love, Jude

The War On Truth

By |2024-07-09T23:52:33+00:00July 9th, 2024|Uncategorized|

Have you reached a place in life where literally nothing we were ever taught rings true anymore?  From what’s in our water to what they feel they must put in our blood seconds after birth.  Education they usurped then decimated.  The war on drugs?  Frequencies changed or eliminated.  World wars and ‘necessary’ invasions.  The stock market.  Medicine.   Moon landing.  Mars?  Mass shootings, 9/11, magic bullets, magic passports, farming and food in general… even baby food.  All consumer products.  CIA, DEA, FBI, NASA, NSA, DOJ, IMF, WEF, JDL, IRS, OPEC, DHS, CFR, Trilateral Commission, The Catholic Church and Vatican, Hollywood, The Music Business, Ivy Leagues and secret societies, Google, Facebook, X, Spotify, Amazon, … where does it stop?  Seemingly, it doesn’t.

Maybe Santa Claus and Disney movies were designed to get us used to fairy tales.  If you are NOT here, then I don’t blame you and even kind of envy you.  However, if you ARE here, we can be friends 🙂

Outer. Space.

By |2024-07-03T20:09:25+00:00July 3rd, 2024|Uncategorized|

It’s fun to think outside the box we live in.

You can’t go throwing stones at Flat Earth believers just for thinking differently than you do.  For starters, what you think is ‘proof’ is NASA telling you what is fact.  Are they honest?  I don’t believe so.  To many, NASA is scientific fact, while to others now, a cult.  You can believe what you like.  I don’t find either worthy of shame for believing or not… but I would defend the point that almost all our beliefs have been taught to us, not something we eye-witnessed or experienced first hand.

Also, we’ve been lied to on such a massive scale and for so long that many like myself are re-evaluating all we’ve learned, from The Big Bang theory to Evolution … from gravity to how our bodies work, teachers, news, TV’s in general, priests, pastors, gurus, doctors & scientists…  everything!  It seems there’s agenda lurking behind every fact or opinion out there.  Nearly everyone’s on the take.  You simply have to do your own research and come to your own conclusions, and rely on instinct.

With religion, we have instincts and faith. To go preaching with authority is just so… snake oily?  You don’t know, and it would be better if you started your sermons with that disclaimer.  Faith could then be what it is,  a choice to believe. An opinion, not a fact..

Anyway, this map stirs my imagination.  As a dreamer/songwriter, I love it regardless of whether it’s fact or not.

Convinced there’s much more to Earth than we know… wondering what all these ‘They Live’ characters are doing constantly visiting Antarctica while we aren’t allowed to travel there, building bunkers, buying luxury yachts and even submarines, giant cave cities like the ones we’ve seen in Arkansas… it would make sense that there are secret society elites that know things they aren’t sharing.  Details of what’s coming and where to go to avoid the events.

Perhaps the world isn’t flat, but 100 times the size we’ve been told?

Beyond that, it would lend some logic to their willingness to destroy all that we have.  THEY have somewhere else to go.  WE have to stay here and deal.

Remember those dodge-balls back in the 70’s?  Some of them had a flat point at the top of the sphere, while it didn’t affect the shape or action of the ball.  What if Earth is like this, and the world as we know it is top center, with much land and water beyond the ice walls they call Antarctica, and multi-layered walls at that?

It’s not an original thought.  This has been a topic of discussion with antique maps, some self proclaimed eye-witness explorers, even times when men were tortured and killed for believing the Earth was round!

So maybe we are on a sphere, but the sphere has a flat point.  Maybe we’re not traveling through space at light speed spinning at 1000 mph but there are things spinning around us.  It’s a plausible argument.

And why would they lie?

When you understand the power and control they have over us at this point already, and look down the road a few decades, it becomes more of a real concept to digest.

June 2024

(S)election

By |2024-06-29T00:03:40+00:00June 28th, 2024|Uncategorized|

Are we supposed to pretend last night’s debate wasn’t a pre-planned side-show to usher in a new nominee and VP?  My guess- Michelle Obama & Gavin Newsome.  Michelle for one term or less, then Gavin for the kill.

CNN is such a puppet show you could tell by the way Van Jones was talking they were preparing to say it was a disaster before it even started.  I watched on Peacock, the first time I’ve seen CNN in at least 5 years.  Fox same.  Literally the second it was over, they were all shockingly in lock-step to say ol’ crazy Joe needed to resign.

The first dead giveaway… no audience.  If Joe Biden is as popular as they say, winning the presidency with 81 million votes and conveniently needing to fence off the inauguration due to a Jan 6 event of ‘storming the capitol building’, then surely they’d want to capture that national enthusiasm on air for all to witness.  There’s nothing more contagious than success.  But no.  Because Joe Biden has no audience.  He’s the J Lo tour of presidential campaigns.  Always has been.

Secondly, they’ve gone from Trump = Hitler to a softer, gentler, ‘well I don’t like much of what he says, but…’

And while we’re all down here fixated on the jugglers and contortionists, the important stuff passes right through the walls like Vapo-Man, regardless of which party you favor.  The wars, 5g towers, Vax, HAARP or whatever they’re calling it these days, chemtrails or whatever they’re calling it these days… none of these life-altering things do we even get to vote for.  It’s just mandated in.

So enjoy the show.  Pick up some feces and throw.  iI’s time for a good ol’ civil war… Planet Of The Apes style!

AI is 1984

By |2024-06-23T05:25:57+00:00June 22nd, 2024|Uncategorized|

‘Metropolis’ 1927

In the 1948 George Orwell novel ‘1984’, totalitarianism is the warning.  A lot of people have been comparing what’s happening in our world now to both this book, and another 1931 novel by Aldous Huxley titled ‘Brave New World’.

In 1984, we live in a Godless society.  Life is all for the political party.  It’s always watching, always sending messages.  To achieve it’s total control we are subjected to lives of isolation, solitude and fear of the state.

At one point in the story, the protagonist, Winston, has a pencil and a notepad but has to write so softly as not to alert the sensors that he’s actually having an original thought, or that he even owns a pencil and paper.

This seemed funny to me at the time.  I remember reading it, thinking ‘ok… this is a little farfetched’.

But, just like someone in Italy who once told me back in the 90’s we would soon be doing everything inside our cell phones, with me scratching my head wondering how in the world that could ever come to pass, these out-of-focus notions have a way of un-blurring pixel by pixel with each passing day.  Eventually we have an ‘aha’ moment where we see it.  The problem is, by then it’s too late.

Remember when the internet became a thing you had to have?  AOL and all that…  It took a 14.4 modem, and you had to pay by the minute just like the old-timey phone calls.  I remember in 1996 getting my first AOL bill for 225.00 for the month!  The next month was similar, until I just accepted it as part of life having internet and a new Mac Performa.

But it was the wild west of a digital world.  You were free to say what you wanted, go where you wanted, and with each new week more information was available at our fingertips.  Oh yes, it took some discernment and cross-referencing to find out if what we were reading had any truth to it… but the research was ours to pursue as we chose.

The biggest selling point of the internet- it’s educational and it’s fun!  Look at this hysterical video!  Check out this photo of a guy in Walmart!  Did you know the pyramid of Giza had numbers significant to the universe?  That can’t be a coincidence.  The Incas, Mayans and Egyptians knew something!

The words ‘viral’ and ‘trending’ became part of our culture.  Laughing at others rose to a new level.  Cyber-bullying became a real thing in chat rooms.  Acceptance and humiliation became a carrot & stick of conforming how we thought to the way we publicly shared our views.  ‘Virtue signaling’ became another word for ‘politically correct’.  Translation?  You’re full of shit, but i’m going to ‘like’ this anyway.

Very much like Napster, they use this as a reason they ‘must control’ the environment.

So, ultimately here we are.  We’re afraid to call someone a man or a woman.  We’re afraid to say anything about any government, unless that government has been approved by the totalitarian power as permissible to criticize i.e. Russia, North Korea and Iran.  We don’t want to dress out of step, speak out of step or even think out of step.

We think we’re thinking originally, but in most cases our thoughts align perfectly with the state.  To speak otherwise is a fate most of us could never publicly handle… to be shamed, ridiculed, doxxed, fired and potentially killed for our thought crimes.

So now it’s 2024 and in rolls AI.  Stocks go wild.

And it’s fun!  Look, I can ask it anything and it gives me the answer in milliseconds.  Check out this drawing it created!  Hear this new, never written Beatles song!

And while we’re having fun with AI’s magic tricks, our eyes are not on the ball of what it’s actual mission is. The ubiquitous screen in 1984, sending constant messages to conform and never step out of the state’s groupthink.  Monitoring our keystrokes, our words, or beliefs…

AI is the sensor that will detect a pencil on a notepad suggesting you might be having your own original thought.

AI will hear everything, see everything.  Every apartment or cubicle we’re allowed to live in will have this ‘internet of things’ literally everywhere.  It will meld and sculpt us all into the exact slave it desires, extracting God and spirit from each and every one of us.  All in the name of convenience and fun.

One day we’re having a private conversation in our cars about some conspiracy that’s probably true, and the next minute the car pulls itself over to the side of the road, doors lock, and we wait for a Chinese style government to arrive and take us to a re-education camp for alignment.  3 strikes and we are expunged.

Please think about what you support.  It’s hard.  We have to support our families.  We work for a company that’s owned by a bigger company and so we just can’t go voicing our free opinions.  I get that.  So start with cash.  When a place of business says ‘sorry we don’t accept cash’… let this be the last time you shop there.

Support things that support human life.  Freedom of speech.  Freedom of thought.  We’re literally about to lose it all.  And the irony of it is, so are they. But they don’t care.  I won’t share the “scorpion and frog” joke, but you can look it up if you haven’t heard it before.  Killing themselves doesn’t really figure.  They’re already dead.

Oh, oh, oh…

By |2024-06-11T18:15:54+00:00June 11th, 2024|Uncategorized|

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2024/06/ozempic-effect-magic-pill-johann-hari

Going to say the same thing about Ozempic as I did the MRNA Shot.  Don’t.

Deep In The Hole

By |2024-06-10T20:50:44+00:00June 10th, 2024|Uncategorized|

Waking up to how the world really works, which is impossible unless you’re ‘in the club’… but to the matrix in which we live anyway, is really a stepladder that starts way down in a deep hole.

The phenomenon in western culture is, when we’ve at some point worked our way up to the first rung of the ladder, we look around at others who don’t see what we see and shout ‘WAKE UP!’ at the top of our lungs… and it’s the first rung.

Similar to Hollywood b-listers who want to share their horror stories (in a new book of course) of addiction to help save us… while a year later they’re back in rehab.  We’re monkeys.  We need to show-and-tell everything.

After 17 years of searching for some semblance of truth to life on earth, the awakening process has left me humbled with almost no one to talk to about it.  It’s not a democrat vs. republican thing.  It may be a Luciferian vs. rest-of-world thing, but hard to know.  One thing I can tell you is that they believe wholeheartedly in Lucifer and feel no shame in symbolizing it in nearly every photo, video or event possible.

This grid we’re on with it’s cities, financial structure and news narratives didn’t just happen through ingenuity and hard work.  The news doesn’t uncover some truth or crime, then innocently rush to the studio and put it on air to inform us.

Laws of conspiracy or even responsibility don’t apply to behemoth companies like DuPont who’ve poisoned lakes, rivers, streams… killing and/or maiming hundreds of thousands.  No, instead they’re out there preaching to us to throw away the straws and beware of white Christian nationalists.

I recall people comparing the film The Truman Show to real life, and thinking that was funny but preposterous. Now, I don’t think the film went far enough.

One clue I’ve learned is, those who are the loudest, angriest, most self-righteous about some news-of-the-day distraction are either in the club, paying homage to the club, or the farthest down in the hole.  The awake process humbles, like trying to make it out of a pitch black, rat infested New York tunnel in the middle of  an apocalypse.

I remember this joke in the pre-PC days of the ’70’s… one they called a ‘polack joke’.  I didn’t invent this term, but it was widely used.  My sincere apologies to any Polish people out there… it’s just the way it was 🙂

So a ‘man’ gets stopped by a police officer.  The police officer, realizing the man’s a (of Polish descent) pulls him out of the car, takes a piece of chalk, draws a circle on the sidewalk and demands the man stand in the circle and not move.  While the man is standing in the circle, the policeman takes a baseball bat and starts beating his car.  He puts a huge dent in the front door and smashes the side-mirror.  He looks over to the man and sees him giggling.  “What a moron”, thinks the policeman.  He then proceeds to put a giant dent in his hood, smash both headlights, then bends his antenna beyond repair.  Again he looks over at the man, and this time he’s cracking up.  Both puzzled and frustrated, the policeman commits to finishing the job.  He smashes the windshield, beats every panel of the body and throws the bat to the ground.  At this point the man is literally rolling on the ground in tears of laughter.  The cop’s had enough.  He walks up to the man and screams ‘what the hell is wrong with you, i’ve just ruined your car you idiot!  What’s so funny!?’  The man manages to compose himself finally and responds, ‘I know, but I stepped out of the circle 3 times while you weren’t looking!’.

This is the new world order.  They are rolling on the ground laughing at all the lies we buy.  They never tire of it.  You’d think by now with all the money, key resources, valuable land and property, war machine, agencies, freedoms… at this point you’d think they’d have gotten bored.  But they’re not.  They’re dying of laughter like the man in the circle.  Good for you NWO, good for you!

Remember, one giveaway you haven’t reached the first rung is allowing a Morning Joe & Mika or a Sean Hannity to make you fighting mad with some cosmetic, superficial distraction.  The other giveaway is laughing at half the country as though you’re smarter, because Jon Oliver or Jimmy Kimmel has worked the NWO agenda into a monologue or joke.  I’d give you the same example of a conservative late-night host, but there aren’t any.

But if there were, it’d be the same … screams of laughter from deep in the hole.  Do your research and don’t google it.  And look to the stories beyond the first 50 to 100.  Then use cross-referencing and your own logic, common sense and discernment to evaluate what’s actually going on.

Peace (which is probably a psyop itself)
Jude

The Hypocrisy Of Life Online

By |2024-06-04T23:47:50+00:00June 4th, 2024|Uncategorized|

This site is to share music, video, communicate, not preach… but to share whatever might be on my mind on that day.  I care about the world.  I care about people.  I’m a thinker, probably an over-thinker at times, but studying people, body language, words chosen, media hypocrisy etc.  It’s what makes me a songwriter.  In any event, a thought for the day…

Knowing we’re all human and physically individual with different shapes and sizes, the result of a video capturing a hypothetical UFC fighter bullying and beating a young, scrawny male would evoke strong emotion in us.  We’re simple creatures.  We can clearly see the disadvantage of a 120 lb male vs. a 220 lb, all muscle fighter.  And if that scrawny young male happened to be gay, trans or queer, the results would be written.  The bully would be publicly doxxed, shamed, deplored, forced to apologize then seek counseling.  He’d lose his job wherever he worked and lawsuits would follow.

Yet, in this very same world of news, which really now means ‘shit we captured on video’…  if one man were to be of higher intelligence than another, it’s completely acceptable to call him a moron, shame him for his stupidity and publicly ridicule and humiliate him.

We can agree that nobody should be body-shamed or bullied, while we accept the relentless attack on someone who doesn’t see things the way we do, or is ‘slower’ than another.

I also see scores of memes featuring unknowing citizens, maybe in a Walmart or on the street, dressed in a way that might seem laughable to some, but reveals an out-of-step taste to society, maybe a poverty or drug addicted life, or possibly mental issues.  We laugh as though they’re not real, or as though they’ll never see it.

I sincerely hope we evolve from here.  Kids are growing up with serious challenges.  Anxiety, ADHD, OCD and 101 other disorders already named or unnamed.  Social media is not only a bathroom wall, but it’s become an integral part of our news cycle.  A news anchor sitting behind a desk reporting what someone else tweeted.  This is equivalent to stopping at a 76 station on highway 15 in Baker, California, reading lines written in a bathroom stall and claiming it reflects the town’s attitudes or somehow has some social significance.

Our world, witnessing almost everything in 2D from a television or computer screen has become a toxic and dangerous environment to live in.  A person filmed being rude to an employee is all it takes to go viral, the audience weighing in venemously, with no context as to what happened before the incident.  We’re monkeys flinging feces from the cheap seats.  Something’s gotta give before it breaks.

May 2024

Poison

By |2024-05-26T20:48:26+00:00May 26th, 2024|Uncategorized|

If you want to kill someone quickly, you put a lethal amount of arsenic or rat poison in their food, watch as they get violently ill, then drop dead.

If you want to do it slow over time, you might use the same ingredients in trace amounts so it builds up, causes illness, creates a 3rd party disease and ultimately kills by another cause… i.e., heart failure, diabetes, kidney or liver failure etc.

This is the state of our food.  It’s almost entirely poison.  Not the kind that kills you same day, but the kind that happens over a number of years.  You grow an illness, go to the doctor, they put you on a drug, that drug begets another drug, and now you’re in the medical loop.  They got you.  Not only do you devote much of your life to doctors and hospitals, ultimately resulting in death, but they turn you upside down and shake the money from your pockets before you go..

Queen Elizabeth II ate the same meal every single day.  Don’t make me look it up, it was something boring like 2 eggs, a piece of toast and some tea.  The Royal Family has their own fruit and vegetable gardens.  Wanna bet they’re not Monsanto?

King Charles has cancer.  I’m skeptical.  Trust nothing this family says or does.  They don’t get cancer.

The point is, nearly every item in the aisles of a mainstream supermarket are laboratory processed and manufactured.  Almost nothing that comes in a bag or box is good for you.  It’s poison.  It’s designed to kill you.  Queen Liz II wouldn’t touch it.

Yesterday I wanted a hot dog.  After almost 5 years of passing by fast food joints, deciding otherwise, I finally broke and got a chili-cheese dog at Weinerschnitzel.  As I took 2 bites of the dog before sharing some of it with my real dog, then throwing the rest away, I wondered…Why can’t we just know our food is good for us?  It’s just meats (theoretically) wrapped in edible casing.  Why do we have to wonder what’s in it and how harmful it is?  Why would there even be a question about the ingredients of something we eat to stay alive?

Taco Bell 70’s & 80’s

Taco Bell today           

Is their one-eye sign a signal to keep them away from the poison they feed us?  Everything these folks do has symbolism,  so what’s it for?

And why do fast food and corporate food chains spend billions trying to find out what appeals to our taste buds vs. what’s healthy?

They showed us first with chewing gum and breakfast cereal.  Chewing gum was made from real sugar cane.  When a ‘scientist’ developed the chemical equivalent to a sweet taste in our mouth, though it killed rats, they sold it to us with a healthy slogan…  “Sugar Free” is almost all you can buy now.  Because they care?  Fuck no it’s cheap!

Same with breakfast cereal.  It’s processed wheat, artificial sweeteners, food coloring and some handsome packaging.  It’s all chemicals, but “fortified with Iron!”

I’ve compared GMO foods to taking a Beatle record into the studio, re-timing it perfect so that it lines up to a metronomic grid, then repackaging it as my own record.  On top of that, I make the original Beatle record illegal to buy or sell.

This is what they do.  They modify the earth’s fruits, vegetables, meats and everything in between, and call it their own.  It’s the original AI!  They invented nothing.  They tamper.  They’re like Sid in Toy Story… pulling the wings off a fly to call it a new bug.  These people have no talent except for lying, cheating and counting money.  They also have no shame.

Please, think about what you’re sticking down your pie-hole.  We’re all going to die, yes… but we shouldn’t let it be so easy for them.  And think about how high up you hold these billionaires.  They love nothing but money.  It’s not a coincidence they have more than they could ever spend.

 

Songwriting

By |2024-05-14T18:38:58+00:00May 13th, 2024|Uncategorized|

I started writing songs at 18.  Believe it when I say I was no prodigy.

My first song was called “I can see through you (like a window)” It was less than stellar.  Elvis Costello was a big influence at the time… and I loved how cynical and intelligent his lyrics were.  I possessed no such skill, yet… but had such a desire to GET good that through mimicking him and other writers, found my own voice, my own signature.

Now I doubt anyone would listen to one of my records and say ‘oh i’ll bet he was an Elvis Costello fan!’.  That’s how copying works.  Bach was a copyist before there were electronics, and would work through the night by candlelight to finish.  It’s no coincidence or sheer genius that he ended up being the greatest composer of all time.  So aware of the works of his day being a copyist, he was able to borrow, avoid and overall learn from the greats before him.

The library is where I started.  Each day i’d walk there and read, keeping a notebook and writing down lines that felt rhythmic or unique in a lyrical way to me.  I still have them in a trunk somewhere, and there are many… filled with lines from Anne Sexton to John Fante, Langston Hughes to Neil Young.  Anything was game as long as it opened up the window of creativity.  So with 46 years of experience, here’s a few tips for new songwriters.

  1. Be agile.  Allow all your walls and floors to move.  Never get so married to an idea that you can’t bend it.  This is the greatest way to end up with little pieces that never see the light of day.
  2.  Don’t try to re-invent the wheel.  In other words, don’t try something chordal or melodic, lyrically or structurally so outside the box, you find yourself outside of the realm of platforms in which to be heard.
  3. Use anything and everything for inspiration.  I used to play a C on the piano with my middle 3 fingers… but quickly learned by changing bass notes on the left hand, a new universe of chords were possible.  Hits are usually made of interesting chords.  Not C-D-G.
  4. Use cheats.  If your brain isn’t feeling too creative, open a book of poetry, other lyrics even, and let the single words and images provide you with some inspiration.  I.e., Bob Dylan from the album ’Street Legal’-
    “I stepped forth from the shadows to the marketplace
    Merchants and thieves, hungry for power
    My last deal gone down
    She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
    On midsummer’s eve near the tower”
    For me, the words that stand out here are marketplace, merchants, thieves, meadows, tower… but whatever may grab YOU is key.
    “In the marketplace, that’s when I saw your face – On a hot summer night in the city”
    See how I use the word marketplace and borrow ‘midsummer’ and made it ‘hot summer’ instead?
    It’s not rocket science, but when we’re blank for words, this technique can kick-start your thinking.
    Just don’t plagiarize.  Nobody likes that.
  5. Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.  It’s not fun to watch someone look in a mirror, or to listen to an artist with a 1 minute intro.  They’re both masturbatory.  Stop it.  Become a good editor.  If you have a re-intro, make it half as long as the first.  Cut the solo in half.  Try starting the song on the lyric.  Where radio used to love intros so they could do their ID’s up until the vocal starts… nobody’s listening to radio anymore, so get on with the song.
  6. If you’re not a natural hit melody maker, topline writer as they call it now, cowrite!  There’s a reason Robert Fripp is an exceptional musician but not a hit writer.  Melody isn’t his thing.  He’s into notes and difficulty.  Whole ‘nother skillset there.  McCartney is a walking topliner.
  7. Stay away from trite.  Nobody wants to hear “You broke my heart, when you told us we’ll part”.  It’s not 1952.  Don’t do that.  Instead use false rhymes, new words, contemporary themes.  Study people, become a good listener and write down what you hear that grabs you.  You’ll be surprised how creative it gets when you start writing down anything/everything.
  8. Write the song before you start zooming in on the track.  One way to lose sight of a well written song is trying to produce the track too soon.  Get off the DAW and stick with your piano or guitar until the song is realized.  Then, the possibilities are endless on where to put the beats and all the bells & whistles.
  9. Sometimes that thing that makes us feel self-conscious is really our signature trying to find it’s way.  Lean into that.  If you sound like John Mayer or Adele, remember there’s already one of those.  Be brave enough to suck a little.  My bet is something original will start to emerge.
  10. Know there are no rules.  Everything I’ve just stated is not an absolute.  Lennon was a great rule breaker, but he trusted his gut.  We’re not all blessed with the same killer instincts, and Lennon didn’t have as many hits as Max Martin or Dr. Luke… but if you have a unique enough idea that makes you feel something deeply when you sing or play it, then to hell with rules.
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