lyric writing » Darryl Gregory Music

“Christmas Time” ~ a new holiday song

Dec 172011

… as if we need more holiday music.

For some reason I love this niche genre of music and I find it a challenge to write in this genre. That said, there are certain things that go into a good holiday song and I tried to shove them all into this one.

Let’s see if you can identify all the aspects of a typical holiday/Christmas song that I jammed into this nugget:

the sound of sleigh bells – always an indicator that this is a seasonal/winter/holiday song
quoting other well known holiday songs – in this case I quote ‘Jingle Bells’ AND in the guitar solo I quote ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ AND I quote the lyrics to ‘Hark The Herald Angels Sing’
allude to a holiday movie – in the bridge section I make an attempt to conjure the scene from “A Christmas Story” when the parents are sitting on the couch having a glass of wine after Ralphie and his brother have finally gone to bed
any mention of snow, ribbons, mistletoe or other seasonal paraphernalia
finally, a child’s voice over - I love those ’60s and 70′s country songs that have kids voices in them like Ray Stevens’ ‘Everything is Beautiful’

Thanks for listening ~

If you would like to download this song, you can go to my Bandcamp Page for a FREE download.

Happy Holidays

Darryl

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Christmas Time

[Verse]
At home with the family
Hiding presents underneath the tree
Ain’t no place I’d rather be
At Christmas timeGot a bunch of songs to sing
The old carols, a few new things
Can’t wait to see what Santa brings
At Christmas time

[Chorus]
Hey
It’s Christmas time
Hey
It’s Christmas time
Peace on Earth good to men
Sharing love with family and friends
I hope this feeling never ends
At Christmas time

[Bridge]
The snow is falling gently
On this peaceful silent night
I pour you another glass of wine
Drink a toast to the season
As we sit in the firelight
Nothing could be better
Nothing could be better than Christmas Time

[Verse]
Kids are waiting quiet as mice
Didn’t need to ask them twice
If they’ve been naughty or nice
At Christmas timeUnwrap another box of cheer
Throw the ribbons over here
Mistletoe kisses suddenly appear
At Christmas time

[Chorus]
Hey
It’s Christmas time
Hey
It’s Christmas time
Peace on Earth good to men
Sharing love with family and friends
I hope this feeling never ends
At Christmas time

[Tag]
Hey
It’s Christmas time
Hey
It’s Christmas time

Jingle Bells…

The CD Project ~ an update

Articles, Diary of a New CD No Responses »

Aug 062011

It’s been a while since I’ve posted something about the new CD and I blame Congress. Well, everything is Congress’s fault these days, so why not blame them for this as well?

I look back on the posts that have been about this new CD project and the funny thing is that NONE of the songs I’ve mentioned in the the previous “Diary…” posts are on the CD line-up. This album has take a turn for the dark country ballad and will probably go down in history as marking my black and blue period of songwriting. I found myself wanting to tell stories about about the things that form our chains ~ the chains that bind ~ and the heaviness of this life. Since the last post, which was on June 6, I’ve written three new songs specifically for this CD and one of those songs was inspired by the working title of the CD: Big Texas Sky.

So, where do I stand as of now? I have the first draft of the songs recorded and on a demo CD that I am listening to and will use for musicians that will come in to record specialty parts. I need to fill out the instrumentation with a pedal steel, fiddle and some piano; all of which I do not play very well. Also, I think I would hate to produce an album that had only me playing ~ a kind of musical masturbation… ewww. The biggest hurdle that I’ve crossed thus far is deciding on the track list. I did a lot of internal wrangling about how many songs I wanted to place on the album an decided that I should limit the line up and release a shorter set. The track list stands now at 7 songs: a little more than an EP, but fewer than what constitutes a modern full length album. When one looks back at the album from the vinyl era, 7-9 songs was an album!

So as a sneak preview of the CD, I will let you look at my mock-ups of the cover and the back. I will hand these over to a professional graphic artist as a starting point and hopefully they will improve upon the ideas. In the mean time, let me know what you think so far.

Front Panel

Back Panel

Old Melodies, New Lyrics ~ revisiting the bone pile

Articles, Country Songs, Diary of a New CD No Responses »

Jun 062011

Last year I started a collaboration with a lyricist on a new song that looked promising, but after many rewrites and varying attempts at orchestration, we called it a day. Part of the problem stemmed from the lyrics not being something that I would personally sing. I had a disconnect to the story and to the verbiage. But, I liked the melody and the arrangement that I wrote, it had this bright-spookiness to it that was interesting. I hated to see it abandoned.

I let the track sit for a while and revisited it to see if I could rewrite it somehow, but the original lyrics kept getting in the way when I tried to write something new. I just decided to let it sit. I had to let it sit long enough that I would be able to “forget” the lyrics that we had written.

So recently, I was writing something about a musician who has been out on the road and is coming home, but doesn’t really remember his place in the life of the person he left. I’ve been seeing a lot of stories on the news about soldiers that have been on a tour of duty for a year and then come back to their households and have a hard time trying to fit back into the flow of everyday life. The only time it seems to work is if the person that was left behind has a lot of patience and love.

I started the lyrics and wan’t sure of the form they were taking and then I remembered that I had this finished arrangement with the expendable lyrics. The hard part was making the new lyrics fit the exisiting melody and the form. I had to replace a bunch of words that didn’t work with the rhythms; a lot of scratching my head trying to think of different ways to say the same thing and still have them rhyme.

The only thing I kept from the original lyric was the phrase — beautiful again — which, in the case of the new lyrics, became the title and the resolving feature of the story.

Moral of the story is: never throw anything out… and, revisit the bone yard every once in a while to see if there’s stuff there that might inspire you.

Let me know what you think of “Beautiful Again”. Do you re-work old material? or do you just let it die?

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Beautiful Again

Verse 1:

Heading home

After miles on the road

Called you on the telephone

To lighten my load

It’s so damed hard

To just fit back in

I forget about the pleasantries

Don’t know where to begin

PreChorus 1:

But now you welcome me back with dust on my shoes

Tired to my bones I got nothing left to lose

Chorus:

Cause you pick up all the pieces

We left on the the ground – and then

You add some love and tenderness

And you make life beautiful

Beautiful again

Verse 2:

You know my heart

I’ve been a traveling man

Singing ‘bout the lonely road

Guitar in my hand

I broke your mirror

Threw my luck on the floor

Couldn’t stand to see myself

Walking out your door

PreChorus 2:

But now you kiss me like I never told you good-bye

You hold me together and make everything alright

Chorus:

Cause you pick up all the pieces

We left on the the ground – and then

You add some love and tenderness

And you make life beautiful

Beautiful again

Bridge:

Hypnotized and mesmerized

Counting all those white lines flyin’

Underneath my wheels

I knew this wasn’t real

But now I see

Now I see

How I colored it wrong

This is where I belong

With you –

Chorus:

Cause you pick up all the pieces

We left on the the ground – and then

You add some love and tenderness

And you make life beautiful

Beautiful again

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

Diary of a New CD #2 – Where Does This One Go?

Country Songs, Diary of a New CD 1 Response »

Oct 152010

I’m still doing demos of new songs for the CD and I’m recording anything and everything that I think might go on the new CD. I’m not even starting to think about a theme or a thread of coherence, I just want to get some songs in the can so I can hear them.

But – after I recorded this song I asked myself – Where is this one going to go?

The title of this track is “Hillbilly Backyard” and it is a novelty/humorous song. It came from a journal writing I did while sitting on my back deck and looking at the crap that was laying around in the backyard. Meanwhile out front, where my wife holds dominion, the yard looked great with flowers and freshly cut grass and an air of suburban accommodation.

It will be interesting to see where this song fits with the other songs I have recorded. I don’t want to have this seem like an anomaly on the record, meaning I have these serious songs and then all of a sudden here’s this tongue-in-cheek song about suburban lawn care. But I’m not throwing it out just yet – perhaps it will fit somewhere. We’ll see.

Let me know what you think!

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Hillbilly Backyard

I moved up North from way down South
Got a corporate job and fancy house
Now I gotta put up with all these blue-blood Yankees

So if I want to fit in here’s what I gotta do
So this Dixie boy can be just like you
I gotta hire me some guys to gussy-up my front lawn

Put in some fancy shrubs and manicure the grass
A couple of lawn jockeys so when people drive past
They say – Hey! He must be one of us!

But I was raised down South where people understand
That a pretty face ain’t worth a goddamn
Until you take a look at what’s behind their eyes

So come on through my hedge
And take a look around the edge
You’ll see a chicken coop
A car on blocks
A refrigerator full of beer
Cigarette butts, an old spit can
And the grass is growin’ up to here
The paint is pealing off the porch
But I’m payin’ it no regard
‘Cause I brought my Southern Comfort up North
To my hillbilly backyard

Well I shop at the Mall, I drink white wine
I wave hey to the neighbors as they pass on by
But no one suspects I’m just a Good Ol’ Boy

Come on back and set fer a spell
Sip some white lightning but just don’t tell
About what you seen when you stepped out my back door

So come on through my hedge
And take a look around the edge
You’ll see a chicken coop
A Volvo on blocks
A refrigerator full of beer
Cigarette butts, an old spit can
And the grass is growin’ up to here
The paint is pealing off the porch
But I’m payin’ it no regard
‘Cause I brought my Southern Comfort up North
To my hillbilly backyard