![]() I don’t own the songs I’m singing / They found me by the road / OK, hardly any of my songs are happy-clappy… □ I try not to do sets that are unrelieved misery, but I’m not inclined to apologise because not all my songs are happy-clappy. Plus some lyrics that have only recently found a tune (notably the Falklands song, 40 years too late for most people to care), and yet another setting of a poem, this time by Paul Laurence Dunbar.Īn indirect response to a couple of hostile responses to a not-very-cheerful story song I sang somewhere or other a few years ago. ![]() HarleyĪ mixed bag, but slowly catching up with some of the songs I should have recorded properly years ago. ![]() Harley except ‘Thou Art My Lute’ – words by Paul Laurence Dunbar, music by David A. I hope to continue along my newfound path and meet you along the way, to reach out to you emotionally, to share some part of my life and myself.Guitars, bouzouki (don’t blink or you’ll miss it), vocals by David A. Taking elements from folk music, country, R&B, and Jazz, I have tried to find my own original voice through these songs. So here is my first 6 song EP recorded live with overdubbing at Goerge Quirin’s home studio in Santa Barbara. If I fail financially or professionally and find myself at the end of a long hard workday away from music, I will always have something to write a song about, somewhere to go that will not destroy me. I no longer dwell on my past, or the high demands and expectations of the music industry, I still suffer from the need to be successful, but I know I have everything I need within my songwriting to really succeed. Picking up guitar, transcribing songs, playing along to my favorite albums, singing, strumming, jamming, whatever you want to call it has completely revitalized my life. A way to get rid of all those disappointments, a place to lay down my repressed emotions, and find joy in life again. ![]() From death of loved ones to falling in lust masquerading as love, drinking myself into a coma, and finding sobriety.Īll I can say at this point in my life is music still means everything to me. Life had provided a gauntlet of emotional highs and lows. I found myself moving home to my father’s house in 2009, riddled with debt and struggling to stay mentally and physically healthy. I wish I could say that I took it all in the face and came out strong and successful but that would be a lie. Levels and standards of playing are incredibly high, the instrument itself is really more like the “icing on a musical cake,” and when bands are put together it becomes an extra entity that most people won’t spend money on, coupled with the growing use of DJ’s, Midi Music, stereotypes towards the instrument, the need to double on every other woodwind to get paying work, and girls in short skirts (had to go there), it has been extremely difficult to survive. As a saxophone player I could not have picked a tougher instrument to try and break in on as a professional performer. I have felt the so-called difficulties of a struggling artist. I am truly happy for what has evolved from these songs. I have had to make a valiant effort to drive myself beyond them, not accept them I am now finding a way to create something I have always wanted through them. These previous boundaries have blocked my creativity. I was always told that it was my poorest subject, that I was a “math and science” guy. I hated English class in high school and failed miserably at it. As I try and describe my music in words I’m reminded again of how hard writing words really is. The most difficult part of music making for me is lyric writing.
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