The pleasures of songwriting

[Cornflake]

This afternoon my group rehearsed. Bandmate Barbara was recalling when she had been in our audience, before she joined the group. She said that two songs we did had stuck in her mind. One was a humorous number we play fairly often, "Old MacDonald Had the Blues."

The other was a song we haven't played for years. It's called "The Last Will of John Pryor" and it's about an ancestor of mine leaving a slave to his daughter in his will in 1771. It's taken almost verbatim from his will. It ain't humorous at all.

I always liked that song but it never got any audience reaction. I decided it was a dud and put it in the reject pile after a few performances. Hearing that it had lodged in someone's brain was a true pleasure. That's what a song is supposed to do. It made me think it was all worthwhile.

Maybe I'll drag out old John Pryor and stick his song in an upcoming set.

This isn't a first. When my oldest daughter left for college, I wrote a semi-schmaltzy song about it and we played it a few times. No particular response. I'd retired that song until a year and a half later we got a request for it. Then another request. Then some more. It's probably our second-most-requested song.

I don't think it's easy to tell what has affected someone in the audience. When you find out something has, it sure is a great feeling.

[Marshall]

I had an almost similar experience. When i was putting my disc together, Gene posted some of the tunes on his site. I only published the site to a few friends looking for critical comments. Nobody said anything. . . . , I was a little miffed. I wanted some idea if anything was getting through. Then Kari told me one day, that she had forwarded the site to a friend of hers I didn't know. And this person had told Kari that I was a musical genius (or that's the way I remember the story).

Boy was I surprised.

Now, I don't really take that seriously. But it was nice to know that someone in the world might actually like what I did.

[Deleted]

i find that a lot of people need to hear a song a few times to really appreciate it. the music "scene" here in ireland is pretty terrible, and unless you play god damn u2 covers, you don't really get a response. but i have one song called crosses of gold that criticises the music scene here, and it's always requested. i just think thats funny.

also, i think if you know they audience, generally they'll just sit and listen. i've played to friends here and had very poor reactions, yet i've played to strangers in denmark and they went mad for it. maybe there's something in the water.