Write on, bra

When I am writing my music, I feel like I am communicating more clearly and louder than I ever have in my life. It is a fusion of the creativity of poetry and song, except that the words have a tone, an urgency, and an energy—a voice, my voice. There is no misunderstanding what I mean. It is a direct line to my soul; I am naked on a canvas. A true songwriter is a true artist, in this sense.

I’m not famous, and I definitely don’t make money off of my music. Hell, I might not even be good at it—yet. The yet is the part that keeps me going in everything I do. I was raised to believe that I could do anything I wanted to do, and life has taught me that I can do most things that I want to do (I never got drafted into the NFL, shocker). Regardless, I approach obstacles as possible until proven otherwise. And, sometimes, the journey in being wrong can feel so right.

I wrote my first song almost a year ago today. I’m a little late in the game, but my can-do-anything attitude got me learning guitar about two years ago, so it makes sense when you put it in the perspective of my talent timeline. I wrote it in the car. I was driving to Memphis with love on my mind. And I just started singing it. I slowly added more rhymes and structure to it. Then, I recorded what I had in a voice memo on my iPhone. I barely even killed anyone that night driving. Don’t worry. I was responsible and didn’t pull out my guitar until I got to Memphis.

This is how my music generally comes to me. I need to be in the right place to where I can think of nothing but a feeling or an emotion. Sometimes, I get there without even realizing that I’m there, and, then, bam, something insistent comes to me, and it becomes a line in or title to one of my songs. The only time that I’ve been able to sit down and write a song without something nagging at me was when I decided to write a song for my momma for Mother’s Day. She is a different sort of inspiration altogether, I suppose. Mom’s do that to a guy.

My songwriting book

When I have an idea come to me, it ends up here, in my book. My handwriting is horrible, and the organization often has arrows going all over the place to move lines and verses around; writing is not a linear process, after all.

I would love to witness and document another person making music, and, yes, I know this would be the equivalent of tagging along on their wedding night to watch as their nuptials come to an intimate close. One day, I will get a chance to do this, and I will share it with you. Oh, and I want to watch some one write music, too . . . In the meantime, this is how I wrote “Mending Our Wall.”

The line, “The sun cannot set without mountains to hide” haunted my thoughts for a day or so. It has such beautiful imagery and meaning to it. It sparked the theme for this song, and it was the first thing I put to paper. You see, I was in one of those reflective states: I wasn’t on speaking terms with my best friend, and I wanted desperately to fix what was wrong between me and my ex-girlfriend so that she could still be a part of my life (I know, foolish. I’m a hopeless optimist).

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The thought that barriers keep us from light—happiness—drove me deeper. I was reminded of one of my favorite poems: Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall.” I wrote the next line, “A fence can be built without neighbors that mind,” and I immediately knew the title. The passively purposeful nature of my closest relationships at the time struck me as foolish. I wanted desperately to have that openness and comfortable honesty back in my life—and I knew that they did, too.

The music started coming to me at this point. I had recently learned D minor, and the chord kept coming to me. It said what I was feeling. I began alternating between D minor and A minor, and, naturally, I ended up in the key of C major. It took a few minutes to find the right progression and sequencing (Dm-Am-C-C-G-F-C), but when I played it, I felt warm for the first time in days. I was in sync with myself. I was being honest with myself, which made me realize that I was just as much to blame as they were. It’s easy to draw a boundary and say that the other side is wrong because they are separated from us.

We build our walls with guilt, shame, blame, fear, and pain, and we maintain these walls to keep these feelings from coming back toward us because we are terrified of holes, gaps, or cracks letting them back in. I started writing these things in columns so that I could work them into lines:

    Excuse fills the gaps that keep us from shame
    Guilt seeps through the cracks and causes us blame
    Fear rushes holes to keep us from pain
    But if you could see my side you’d see it’s the same

I wrote the chorus next because I needed something to connect all of the untethered themes:

    We’re just building fences, stacking up rocks
    Why don’t we let them fall?
    We’re mending, mending our wall
    Mending, mending walls

This vision of a black iron rod being put into a fire—slowly warming it and pulling a glow from its dark figure—played out as a vision on repeat. If this dark metal can be bright, then what do we know? We choose the darkness. We are culpable:

Right-hand page (recto)

Left-hand page (verso)

Both pages (spread)

    The day it comes at treats us like night
    Iron in a fire, well, it can be bright
    We’re looking for darkness to keep us from sight
    I work with the moon, and I hope for some light

This led me—naturally—to the first lines I wrote. I had to do something with them. I felt an enormous weight of regret for my part in mending these walls, now that I knew them for what they were. I felt my mortality. YOLO, and I wanted to live for once. And I had hope and courage again. The artistic journey had brought me here:

    The sun cannot set without mountains to hide
    A fence can be built without neighbors to mind
    The sand between my fingers reminds me of time
    If you want to leave the pieces, you know they will slide

I finished this song that very night, and the next night, I had my friend over to apologize over a beer. And, that week, I even texted to my ex . . .

    Excuse fills the gaps that keep us from shame
    Guilt seeps through the cracks and causes us blame
    Fear rushes holes to keep us from pain
    But if you could see my side you’d see it’s the same

    We’re just building fences, stacking up rocks
    Why don’t we let them fall?
    We’re mending, mending walls
    Mending, mending walls

    The day it comes at treats us like night
    Iron in a fire, well, it can be bright
    We’re looking for darkness to keep us from sight
    I work with the moon, and I hope for some light

    We’re just building fences, stacking up rocks
    Why don’t we  let them fall?
    We’re mending, mending walls
    Mending, mending our wall

    The sun cannot set without mountains to hide
    A fence can be built without neighbors to mind
    The sand between my fingers reminds me of time
    If you want to leave the pieces, you know they will slide

    We’re just building fences, stacking up rocks
    Why don’t we let them fall?
    We’re mending, mending our wall
    Mending, mending walls
    Mending, mending our wall