I’m getting a little bit of a late start this morning. We stayed up late talking with friends and then had a typical night with kids getting up and needing drinks, having bad dreams, etc. So we slept in a little. Ahhhh, the summer schedule. Swimming, late night baseball games, sleeping in. It’s nice. But, it has nothing to do with this week’s song.

I had a hard time choosing one for this week, so I started at the bottom of my list in iTunes and went up. I had kind of forgotten about this one. It’s a co-write that my husband did a couple of years ago with someone that you might have possibly heard of.

George Canyon is a Canadian singer/songwriter who got his big break when he got 2nd runner up in the second season of the reality show Nashville Star. You can read more about him here . My husband co-wrote this song with him on one of his trips to Nashville. Most of my husband’s songs are piano driven, but this song just needed guitar. There’s something about really good guitar picking that takes a song to the next level. On this particular recording one of my husband’s friends in Nashville is playing the guitar part.

Oh, and thank you so much for all the positive comments. They really are boosting the songwriter’s confidence. Keep listening!

Last weekend, the songwriter and I went to a conference for school board members and their wives. It was really fun. Well, fun for me. The songwriter was in meetings all day while I lounged around the pool and toured the downtown area!

This is going to sound weird to some, but the best part about getting away was that the place where we were going was 4 hours away, so we spent a total of about 10 hours in the car and drove somewhere around 500 miles. If there’s one thing we love, it’s a good road trip. We tend to take the road less traveled whenever we can and we usually see something interesting that we’ve never seen before. Anyway, we enjoyed our time spent together and after all of the winding roads I’ve seen these past few days, I just knew that this week’s song needed to be, "I’m Just the Road."

It’s one of those songs that doesn’t tug at your heartstrings or send a tear down your cheek, it’s just truth. So give it a listen and keep those comments coming!

I’m happy to say that all the problems we have been having with the site seem to have been fixed. Thanks Jeremy!

I had a whole other post ready to go up for tomorrow when I remembered it was Father’s Day. I know it looks like I just outed myself, but let me explain. I remembered Father’s Day as it pertains to my husband, I just didn’t remember it for this site. My husband has written so many songs about so many different things that I sometimes need to look at the calendar and then look at my list of songs to see if there’s one for that particular day. There usually is! The other day one our friends said, "It seems like you’ve written a song for just about every occasion in my life. You should work for Hallmark!"

This song is one of the first songs my husband wrote. He sent it off to some people in L.A. who critique songs and they liked it so much, it encouraged him to give this whole songwriting thing a shot. (Sorry, I don’t mean to influence you in any way. Just forget I even said that last sentence!)

This part is for the Songwriter. Thank you for being such a great father to our children. When I watch them, I’m more confident than ever that the things you’ve poured into them are taking root and will produce excellent fruit! They love you because you accept them just the way God created them. You let them know when you are proud of them and you are gentle when you correct their mistakes. Most importantly, they know without a doubt that you love them because you don’t just say it, you live it. That’s worth more than anything. Happy Father’s Day. I love you.

Cotton Dyed Gray

Well heroes wear armor that shines like the sun
Through battle they ride unafraid
And heroes wear medals that shimmer and gleam
In ticker tape Main street parades

But I knew a soldier that fought quietly
In a factory on Fairmont and 8th
He kissed us each morning and saved us each day
My hero wore cotton dyed gray

And his war he fought every day
Was to raise up a family on shop labor pay
And his medals of honor that gleamed
Were the wallet-sized pictures he often displayed

Reserved in his manner but bold in his faith
A man unashamed of his means
With hands that could pick out a chord now and then
But better with broken machines

A house and an acre a wife and three kids
And God knows the unfinished dreams
But he kissed us each morning and saved us each day
My hero wore cotton dyed gray

And his war he fought every day
Was to raise up a family on shop labor pay
And his medals of honor that gleamed
Were the wallet-sized pictures he often displayed

Well gone is the factory and gone is the house
There’s a four-lane where it used to be
And I’ll always miss that old tree house he built
It seemed like a castle to me

But I’ll keep the memory of his quiet smile
And that image will always remain
How he kissed us each morning and saved us each day
My hero wore cotton dyed gray

I’m so sorry about the problems with the site. Here I’ve asked you to listen to my husband’s music and objectively critique it and yet you aren’t able to leave those critiques in the comment section. Sounds like a sneaky plan to me! Just kidding, of course. If there have been any comments that could even be considered negative, they’ve all been constructive and really helpful. But I will admit, I’m having affirmation withdrawal. I love checking the site periodically throughout the day and seeing your positive comments. It’s a really good ego boost for the songwriter, too. You know those creative types. They’re soooo sensitive!

Anyway, I realized a couple of weeks ago that I hadn’t put my e-mail address anywhere on the site. I had meant to put it up, but I kept forgetting about it. So now’s as good a time as any. Until I get it up permanently somewhere on the sidebar, I’ll just give it to you here. If you have a comment that you just have to get off your chest or a burning question that you didn’t want the whole world to see, just send an e-mail my way and I can get back to feeling good about what I’m doing here. I’ve really been in the dark here these last couple of days!

pam@songwriterexperiment.com

Summer vacation is getting into full swing around here and we’re being lazy and wishing we could just go live at the beach. We can’t of course, but the memories of when we’ve been there are oh so sweet. My husband’s family has always taken their summer vacation at a private camping spot on a very pretty river. They’ve been camping in that same spot for 50 years. It’s a magical place and throughout the year we find our minds drifting to that spot, counting the days until we can go back again.

One day, several years ago, my husband was looking for something in the back of the closet when he came across a pair of shoes that he always wore in the river. When he picked up one of the shoes, he noticed there was sand inside of it. That got him thinking about the river and the last time he was there and how something like that can take you back to a place. I’d better stop before I give away the whole song!

Anyway, it’s that time of year that people plan their vacations, some at the beach, some in the mountains, some on the open road. Wherever we go, it seems we always take a little something away from it. A ticket in a pocket. A ziploc bag full of seashells. Sand in a shoe…

Sorry there’s been a problem with the comments. It’s being looked at.

A couple of years ago, my husband received a forwarded e-mail from his mom that was forwarded from one of her friends. I can’t remember why she even sent it to us. It was a copy of a letter that this woman’s son-in-law had sent to his wife while he was in Iraq. It was probably not unlike most letters that are sent from military husband’s to their wives back at home, but something in this particular letter got to my husband. The man was telling his wife how much he missed her and told her that the barracks that they had been staying in had been destroyed in a fire and he lost all of his personal belongings and mementos in the fire. He didn’t even have any pictures of the kids left to look at. You could tell that he was feeling pretty down and then he started listing some things that he missed and couldn’t wait to see when he got home. He mentioned things like rain, because it’s so hot and dry there, and the smell that little boys have when they come in from playing outside. It was just really sweet.

From that forwarded e-mail, my husband got the idea to write a song about someone who is away from home for some time for whatever reason and makes a list of the things he wants to see when he gets home. And that’s the story behind the Coming Home Song.

**Update** I can’t believe this, but the songwriter and I were cleaning out our bedroom this morning and he found the original e-mail that contained the letter from the soldier to his wife. It’s from 2003 when he was in Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Here it is, with names changed because I don’t know who they are so I can’t ask permission to post it!

Hello Gorgeous,

It’s been a weird week. I don’t really remember the last time I talked to you, but last Monday, around 0300 in the morning, our building caught fire. I crammed my clothes into a trash bag, left my ruck, my cot, and my box of extra supplies, and grabbed my flight bag, which holds all of my important stuff (records, pictures and letters) and got out. Sitting in the parking lot watching the smoke billow out of the doors I realized, to my horror, that I had left my two filled cameras and more importantly Joshua’s first letter to me, Rachel’s letter to me, Mama’s card to me, which I was using as a bookmark in Moby Dick, and the latest bunch of pictures you sent. The greatest of these was my son’s first letter to me. Honey, it so depressed me. We had to relocate shop and find a new place to live. We found a place to live at an abandoned house at the end of the airfield where most of the company has been living while here. We spent Tues. and part of Wed. scrubbing the soot and smoke out of our clothes.

That night I started to feel sick. I don’t know if I caught dysentery, a twenty-four hour bug, or some strange bacteria grown in the Middle East, but it put me down. I became dehydrated and slept 14 hours! Many have become sick here. I mean what do you expect when you cram 10,000 soldiers on an airport. The latrines are pitiful and you could throw a rock from the door of the latrine and hit the cooks in the field kitchen. I’m finally able to keep food down and have put about two gallons of water in me today. Got a box from Mom and Dad as well, so the day ended pretty well. Earlier we were able to go back into the building and see if anything was salvageable. It was all ash, except for my field jacket. I wish Jacob’s letter had survived by some miracle, but all I found was ash.

I miss you, darling. I’m tired of this campout and want to come home. I dream about you all the time. I was lying awake this afternoon, because you can’t really sleep in the midday here, and had a vision of hugging the boys and Ginny. I kissed Joshua’s head and could smell the sweaty boy smell as he hugged me. Everyday, I put up the pictures Ginny in her Easter dress, Joshua in his Spiderman jammies and Jaden in his Superman, and my favorite picture of you and the boys as I start my shift and carefully take them down when it’s time to go home. I’m counting down the days now till I’m back in your arms. I love you and miss you and can’t wait to kiss your wonderful lips. You are the precious jewel of my heart.

With all my love,

Sam

P.S. The comments about the rain and Diana Krall, in Thursday’s email, were just plain cruel. Oh, and could you pass along the interesting part of this to Mom and Dad, etc. Thanks, beautiful.

What? Monday already? I can’t believe it. The songwriter’s family is surviving summer so far. Of course, it’s only been about 4 days. I have a plan to take the kids to every VBS in town and we’re thinking about taking some sort of family vacation so that ought to make it go a little faster. And did I mention it’s hot? It’s starting to feel like it usually does about this time of year, but I never really get used to it.

While I was getting my hair cut the other day, this couple came into the salon and everyone dropped what they were doing and ran over to see them. Apparently, it was the daughter and son-in-law of one of the stylists and they had come by to see her. She was telling everyone that her son-in-law had just returned home from Iraq the day before. Everyone was so happy to see them. The man was holding his son who looked to be about 9 or 10 months old and I heard him say he had been gone about 5 months so I imagine he was excited to see his growing boy. And, of course, the whole scene reminded me of one of my husband’s songs. It’s called Not A Dream, but I’ve always referred to it as the Coming Home Song and it has a really neat story behind it…which I will tell later this week after you’ve had a chance to listen to it a couple of times.

Not A Dream

It’s still Tuesday, just a little later than I’d planned. I hope you all enjoyed your time off. I know I did. And I’ve got a little bit of a sunburn to prove it!

I’ve got just the song to close out the month of May. It’s for all you graduates out there. Enjoy!

I was just listening to my husband’s songs on my computer (yes, I really do that) and I came across one that I had forgotten about. It’s called The Hand That Plowed. I’m putting it up on a Tuesday because I want you to have a chance to listen to it and tell your friends about it so they can listen to it in time for Memorial Day. I think it’s a beautiful tribute to all the men and women who have died for our country’s freedom. Regardless of your political beliefs, there are men and women that have always answered the call to stand up and fight when our country has needed it knowing that it may be the last thing they do on this earth. For that I say, thank you.

If you know anyone that you think would be touched by this song, send them over. I’m posting the lyrics only because I don’t want you to miss a single word. You can critique if you want, but this isn’t really about putting a song out there for critique, it’s about giving honor. So enjoy your family this weekend and take a minute to thank God for the freedom we have that someone else gave their life for. I’ll post again on Tuesday.

The Hand That Plowed

For every harvest gathered in there was a hand that plowed
For every laureled champion a wealth of work endowed
For every man in history that walked uncharted lands
There was to urge his infant steps a parent’s open hands

A banner waved a banner burned a soldier ‘neath a cross
And every mighty victory a mother’s painful loss
Since time began until the end the laws of living last
Every good and precious thing owes something to the past

So here’s to you our fearless sons our fallen ones
And those who still remain
Photographs and memories may fade away
But never freedom’s flame

For every dark and dreaded night there is a coming morn
In every time of tragedy a hero’s strength is born
For every soul who shrinks in fear God calls the one who will
And through the raging flames of strife truth comes marching still

So here’s to you our fearless sons our fallen ones
And those who still remain
Photographs and memories may fade away
But never freedom’s flame

So sing the song of spacious skies and mountain’s majesty
Sing about the fruited plains from sea to shining sea
But when you sing these noble words remember with no doubt
For every amber wave of grain there was a hand that plowed

Okay, here’s the deal. I just got back from a 4 day women’s retreat and I’m exhausted. I just picked a random song from my husband’s stash that’s lighthearted and fun and doesn’t require any analyzing. And no lyrics, either, because I’m too tired to find them and write them out.