It was snowing in Denver yesterday and today. It reminded me of a song I wrote in 2004. It was one of my first songs, and I made a conscious effort to use imagery, metaphor, and create a good melody– things I had learned at my first Lyons, Colorado Song School in August 2004.

Some other songwriters that I showed it to had some criticism of the lyrics and music. So I tweaked it over the years, and just yesterday and today changed 4 lines. I haven’t figured out a way to change the music, probably because I actually like the melody and chords. Demos of the music are at myspace.com/robroperdemos. Here’s the lyrics as they stand now:

2 AM
© Rob Roper January 2005 revised Nov 14-15, 2009

2am on a winter night
Denver, Colorado
I put on my boots, and winter coat
And step out into the snow
The cars are all sleeping
under their blankets of white
And a snowflake kisses my face
As I stop and view the sight.

The snowflakes toy with gravity
As they dance in the streetlight
Refracted, soft and blurred
Like whiskey eyesight
And the multicolored houses
Are now nuanced shades of grey
Like a black and white photo
A winter painting by Monet

Chorus:
I’ve seen many of the wonders of this world
And I’ve known the touch of a beautiful girl
And I’ve seen the works of the great Van Gogh
Ah, but this is just as fine
Like a great bottle of wine
Standing in the middle, of the street
at 2 am, in the snow.

The snow plays a symphony
of silent eloquence
and I know that I am lucky
to be in the audience
It’s 25 degrees out here
But I don’t feel the cold
And though I’m standing by myself
I don’t feel alone

(Chorus)

Bridge:
Now you might think I’m crazy
And maybe I am
But if you could only be here
I think you’d understand

(Instrumental Break/Solo)

(Chorus)

This one started with a guitar riff in the DADGAD tuning, probably 2 years ago or more. Then January 2009 I started thinking of lyrics for it. It sat around until today when I assembled the lyrics into a first draft. You can hear a very rough demo, just me and guitar, recorded on a handheld digital recorder, at my myspace demo site. Here’s the lyrics as of today.

-Rob

The Voice of Doubt
1st draft Nov 14, 2009

Why you wanna be all alone?
Can’t you just do what you’re told?
It don’t matter if you’re right
You will never change their minds
Can’t you see the game is rigged?
And that you can never win?
And what makes you so sure you’re right?
What if everything’s a lie?

Just go along
Pretend it ain’t wrong
Do what you’re told
Let your heart grow cold

I’m just trying to help you, my friend
I hate to see you suffer like this
I hate to see you waste your life
You know we only go around one time
What’s the point if you always lose?
You don’t have to take the abuse
Why you wanna hang on that cross?
Who the hell do you think you are?

Just shut up
Don’t speak up
A fool and his dreams
And you just want to scream

You think too much
and you read too much
A fool and his dreams
And you just want to scream

This is from an email to my brother Greg. Greg is an English Professor at the University of Dallas.

Last fall and winter I felt that I advanced to a new level with my songwriting. I think I’ve started to figure things out. There’s two stages that require different sides of the brain. The first stage, which should be probably at least 80% of your time, is the imaginitive, non-structured, creative stage, where you just go with whatever comes into your head. Then there’s the editing stage where you use your craft to put some structure to it. My problem in the past was going to the second stage too early. The poor editor just didn’t have enough material to work with. I had the percentages reversed. I only spent maybe 10-20% in the creative stage, then 80% in the editor stage.

I’m developing a metaphor for this. There’s the hippy and the businessman. The hippy dances around barefoot with a gauze shirt and flowers in his hair, coming up with melodies, chords, rhythms and lyrics, which are all interesting but have no structure. The businessman looks at him with a combination of disgust but also jealousy, because he could never come up with such cool ideas. Then the hippy hands the businessman the stuff he comes up with and he sorts it out and gives it the structure that the hippy can’t be bothered with.

The other thing I started doing last fall is, whenever “The Muse” sends me a line, and it sounds stupid and makes no sense, instead of throwing it out, now I say that line MUST stay in the song. I’ll write around those lines. I may not know what they mean, but I now know those are the ones to keep. Whether they come from the deep subconscious, or God, or a god, or some spiritual blob in another universe, that can be argued interminably, but wherever the fuck they come from, they’re staying. I may or may not figure out what they mean later. Or other people may figure out what they mean.

So last winter The Muse sent me these lines, and they became the titles to
songs:

“Falling into Heaven”
“Waiting on the Other Side of Nowhere”

For both, I’ve had people say, “that song really speaks to me”. I chuckled to myself and wanted to say, “thanks but can you explain what it means, cuz I have no idea”. Actually I did give them some meaning, the editor/businessman insisted and I couldn’t shut him up. 🙂

-Rob