Acoustic/Groove/Folk » Darryl Gregory Music

FAWM ~ Song #3

Acoustic/Groove/Folk, FAWM No Responses »

Feb 212011

February song number three!

Here’s a song about a person who, when things are going good, blows it all to hell because that’s what they are used to. We all know these people. We root for them to succeed, to get into a great relationship, to find a good gig, but when they do, they screw it up somehow. But the real kicker is that they seem to like to wallow in their confusion and pain – AND they want you to participate.

This video was shot at the Reid-Higham House Concert on February 19, 2011. What a great evening that was: good food, Gwenann’s art and me getting to perform for a great crowd!

This was also the premier performance, so give me some feed-back!

She Didn’t Feel Right

She didn’t feel right
Unless she had a broken heart
Love was a word
She could only guess at
Everything was good
Until it started being good
Then she’d bite and claw
Just like a cornered wildcat

She was a tornado in the desert
She was confusion in a pretty dress
She was afraid of being still
And listening to her awful mess
As soon as she was riding the smooth road
She’d reach for the dynamite
Unless her heart was in pieces
She didn’t feel right

She wanted the perfect life
They sold her in the magazines
A car, a house, some kids
And a man to love her
But as the pieces fell into place
She’d throw the puzzle to the ground
The walls closed in she felt trapped and smothered

A sunny day was so blasé
She needed clouds, she needed rain
Peaceful prayer, so damned rare
More satisfying to complain

FAWM Song #2

Acoustic/Groove/Folk, FAWM, New Songs, Rock Songs No Responses »

Feb 092011

So here is the second installment for this month. This song’s chord progression and part of the melody come from a song that I wrote years ago that never really made it out of the studio. It was called Blue Horizon and I tried to get it on the Swanky Hotel CD and then I even re-recorded it for the She CD but in both cases it just didn’t work out. But, I really liked the chords and the rhythmic feel.

So here we are 2011 and February. I searched my journals for some material to write about and found this entry about cutting out a piece of Blue Sky. For a person that has a life that is painful and difficult, just a little slice of blue sky can act as a window into heaven and hope.

Let me know what you think ~

Darryl

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My Blue Sky

Oh this world
Can tear me down
Oh this life
Pulls me to the ground
My wounds are raw
The salt’s poured in
My mouth is open
For a scream to begin

I lay
On a bed of nails
I cry
To the walls of this jail
There’s not much more they can do to me
I’ve confessed the truth, but it won’t set me free

So I’m looking for my blue sky
I’m making room in my soul
It’s been a long time coming
On the edge of this rock-n-roll
I found my blue sky
Hidden in your eye

It’s been here all the time
Stuck between the words and rhymes
I’ve been the fool
Who falls on his own knife
As I force the steel to pry
Away my blue sky

Oh this hand
Reaching out to touch you
Oh this heart
Bloodied and misused
I’m waiting for the secret sign
I’m waiting to take back what’s mine

I’ve found my blue sky
Holding my arms out wide
It’s been a long time coming
I’m struggling to decide
What to do with this blue sky
Hidden in your eye

FAWM ~ Song #1

Acoustic/Groove/Folk, FAWM, New Songs No Responses »

Feb 052011

I’m always trying to figure out how to write songs more efficiently and be a little more prolific. I love to write songs, but I go at it in fits and spurts. I may write two songs in a given month and then go three months without putting pen to paper and melody to lyrics. Yes it’s a sad situation, but that’s the way my creative/manic soul works. I guess…

What I actually need is some discipline – no not a spanking… What I need is a goal and a community to help me to reach the goal. Enter FAWM.org!

FAWM is an acronym for February Album Writing Month where we’re attempting to write 14 songs in the 28 days of February. So there’s the goal: 14 songs and there is the community: FAWM.org. What more can I ask? Well I still have to write the songs.

My main question was do they have to be “finished” songs? By that I mean a song that I would be happy to play at a gig. I tend to take a long time re-writing the lyrics and then practicing the song with the guitar and recording it each time to critique. But when you’re writing 14 songs in 28 days, there’s not a lot of for retrospection. So i feel that if I get 14 songs that are at least at a beginning stage, I can then go back and refine them at a later date.

So here is my first offering. FAWM-ers will often post songwriting challenges and this week’s challenge was to write a song that had to do with ‘numbers’. This song is titled “I Can Count On You” count – numbers – get it? hmmm

Let me know what you think!

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I Can Count On You

One day I’ll take you for a ride
Two of us sittin’ side by side
Three dollars for ice cream at the mall
Fortune shines down on me
Five kisses are all I need – then the
Six O’Clock news ain’t so scary at all

‘Cause I’m rollin’ sevens
And there’s eight ways to heaven don’t cha know
Nine Steps up to your place
I knock ten times and then I see your smiling face

It all adds up
Again and again
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8
Nine and Ten

If I run out of fingers
And I run out of toes
You’ll let me borrow some of yours
Because I know
That you love me
You love me
You love-love -love -love -love me
And baby yes it’s true
I can count on you

Adding Another Song To The List

Acoustic/Groove/Folk, Blues Songs, Diary of a New CD, New Songs, Songs with Video No Responses »

Jan 182011

I’m still not satisfied with the list of songs I have for the next album. I really feel as if I need a bunch of songs to choose from so I get it “right” (whatever that means) and therefore I just keep on writing.

I finished the first draft of this song recently after going back over some journal writing. I had written an entry about having a house full of kids after a visit from my son’s cousins and some neighborhood friends. There were kids everywhere in the house and so my journal entry was centered around having too many kids in our usually peaceful house and what they might do to destroy the place and my sanity.

This is a great ‘live’ song and works well to break up a set of more ‘serious’ songs. I always get tired of the singer-songwriter who has nothing but breakup songs or political songs or angst driven songs… You gotta laugh a little during a set.

So this is a video of the first performance of “Too Many Kids In This House”. I feel the lyrics still need a bit of tweaking and it might be a tad long winded, but the message gets delivered and the audience really connects so the elements are in place I just need to refine. This was performed at a friend’s birthday bash (slash) house concert and the crowd really got into it as did the kids that were there (as you’ll see).

“Too Many Kids In This House!”
performed 1/15/2011

CD Diary #1 – Song Demos – Help Me Out!

Acoustic/Groove/Folk, Diary of a New CD 7 Responses »

Sep 222010

Looking into the future –

Bless me Father for I have sinned, it’s been 3 years since my last CD release!!! Yikes that is a sin!

Yep I’m gearing up for another CD release and I’m shooting for August of Twenty-Eleven. I thought that this time around I would blog about the process in order to keep me on target and as a point of interest to you all.

So where to start? Well I guess we start with the desire to put out another album of songs. I have more than a few that I’ve written since 2007 (the release date of ‘She‘) and a handful that didn’t make it onto the previous two CDs. I’ve made a list of those songs that I think would work well and now I am recording demos of those songs. Why demos and not the final recording? Well I need to get a sense of the songs to hear how they might work as a grouping and I also use the demos to work out arrangements. Later, I will give the demos to musicians that come into the studio to play on the final tracks just so they can have a reference. Some demos sound very close to what the finished tracks will sound like and then others will just be me and a guitar.

What I’d like for you guys to do is to help me out by commenting on the demos. Let me know if you like the song, if you think they might fit with other demos I’ve posted. You can tell me just about anything, but remember that these are not the final tracks so if there are mistakes or something doesn’t sound “finished”, that’s OK for now. But please let me know what is on your mind.

I thought I’d try my hand at a video for this demo and a little explanation. This is a new-ish song called “Still Life Painter”. I’ll put the lyrics under the video.

Enjoy and thanks for coming along on this ride!

~DG

Still Life Painter

An empty street
Every morning I walk through the blue
Then you appear
And the light is cast in a different place

Spun with colors
I watch you move through my life
Day after day
Until I’ve memorized your face

In line at the coffee shop
I catch a view
With the eye of a still life painter
I capture you
Casually I frame it all
And hang it someplace new
With the eye of a still life painter
I capture you

A pencil sketch
Done quickly as you walk on by
At another time
I’ll draw myself into the scene

I lean in close
To study the nature of my lines
A borrowed smile
But nothing more so it seems

In line at the grocery
I catch a view
With the eye of a still life painter
I capture you
Casually I frame it all
And hang it someplace new
With the eye of a still life painter
I capture you

A closer eye
Might strip all this beauty away
Breaking the spell
Like George Seurat
I struggle with a fine tipped brush
Resisting an urge
To look too deep

Waiting for the light to turn
I catch a view
With the eye of a still life painter
I capture you
Casually I frame it all
And hang it someplace new
With the eye of a still life painter
I capture you