Song clumps

When the muse hits, I wish it'd hit more thoroughly. I've got about half a dozen song fragments going through my head right now. The problem is they're all from different songs.

Some folks write music first; others write lyrics first. I tend to have everything come into my head at once. The "gotcha" is I tend to get segments of songs. There was a time when I'd have whole songs pour out at once. When they did this it seemed like they were pouring out in rapid succession. Eli Goldberg once told me Kanef thought I'd written all new songs for a concert. I hadn't for that one, but I've done concerts that were all new material (or at least were written within the past year).

Unfortunately, in the last few years the songs haven't been flowing as rapidly. I don't know whether Fuzzball's death sucked life out of me or what, but I haven't been quite right since she started going downhill. I've been perking up a bit with Lady, though.

We're starting to bond, though, and it's a weird kind of bonding. This past week I could tell when my fever was up by looking at the dog. When it was up, she'd start panting. My eustachian tubes are blocked, and she has "responded" to this by trying to suck my ears. Weird puppy.

The creativity is coming back. Two song clumps came into my head in the last 24 hours -- make that three (a third just started going through the back of my head as I was typing those last words). I write them down and then come back to them. Sometimes I decide the song clumps aren't worth using, like when the music and lyrics don't fit each other (and not in a funny kind of "don't fit" way). Other times I'll hear the tune with a different set of lyrics, or hear the lyrics with a different tune. Either way, I hear clumps rather than one or the other.

I now get to wait till more clumps of the existing songs come into my head so I can finish them.