It’s always a gift when the feeling instilled by another songwriter’s composition inspires me to write a song based solely on my emotional response to that song. It’s hard to explain, but that was the case with Galileo.

While on a writer’s retreat in northern Minnesota, I was introduced to the music of singer/songwriter Patty Larkin by another writer from New York. I was immediately taken with Patty’s music – especially her lyric content and wonderful acoustic guitar work. One of her songs was a haunting story about a sailor who dies at sea. I was drawn to the hypnotic feel of her guitar work and found myself experimenting with finger picking patterns in open tunings that engendered that same hypnotic feel.  However, instead of trying to create a rhythmic roll of the ocean, I found my patterns projecting me into space.

I had just finished reading a biography of Galileo and his life story was still very fresh in my mind. Despite his brilliance in mathematics, physics and astronomy, the Catholic Church placed him under house arrest for the last eight years of his life for what they considered to be his heretical position that the earth was not the center of our universe.

I took 359 years, but In October of 1992, Pope John Paul II issued a formal apology on behalf of the Catholic Church for their wrong doing.

It is truly amazing to me that despite advances and discoveries over millenium, we still have disbelievers in science. I think Pope Paul may have summed it up best:

“An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.”

Galileo

I am Galileo and I am earthly bound
While heavenly bodies circle round and round
I feel just like a rock that’s imbedded in the ground

Sometimes when the moon is right
You can see a woman’s face
Illuminating all the hearts in space
While we struggle on this coil in this inhuman race

Haunted by the moon, bound to the sun
Is it written in the stars
Who we are and what we will become

Like Lucifer the Angel
Caught in a graceless fall
The gravity of sin still pulls us all
Weighted by the world, can heaven hear the call

I am Galileo and I am earthly bound
Galileo Galilei, Galileo Galilei…

Galileo is available as a single digital download and on the CD True Heart.

My music has been streaming on several sites for quite some time now, and I’m always fascinated by which songs generate the greatest response from listeners. One of the most consistently popular songs is “Could’ve Had Me”. This was written when I was fairly immersed in the Nashville writing scene, crafting songs that were more commercial than what I had previously written. I’ve always wandered more towards the introspective-singer/songwriter genre, so this was somewhat of a departure for me at the time.

This particular song was intended to be an homage to all those girls (or boys) that had an unrequited love early in life only to find years later that the person of their fantasy had not quite turned out to be who they had imagined. My hope was that this song would be a testament to the personal power and strength that we all possess and to not let anyone else define who we are or determine how we actualize our happiness. It all starts inside.

What I’ve always loved about this piece is the hard drivin’ band, and in particular, the guitar parts by Brad Heck. At the time, my husband Richard Grossman and I owned a small studio in St. Paul, Minnesota where we wrote, produced, recorded and enjoyed creating as much music as we could cram into our daily lives. To our delight, an unsolicited demo tape arrived in the mail one day from a young guitar player from Ogden, Iowa. We were totally blown away by the energy, skill and obvious joy in his playing. It was just the style we were looking for to push forward on our country-tinged tunes. Brad contributed his talents to several tunes on my self-titled first release and was instrumental (non pun indented) in helping me realize my next CD, True Heart. Some of the tracks from that project were recorded at his studio in Ogden. Brad is a great musician and I’m grateful for his talents and continued friendship through the years.

COULD’VE HAD ME

Spendin’ all your time staring at the t.v. screen
While your wife does her nails and reads her Glamour magazine
You can try but you cannot hide behid the football section of the T.V. Guide
And life ain’t what it seems

Now you day dream and dream at night, wishin’ on a star for a better life
Spendin’ all your time thinkin’ what it used to be
You could’ve done better, you could’ve had me

Ain’t it funny how today turns to yesterday
And in the blink of an eye tomorrow slips away
You never had time for me and you, I just couldn’t wait, no I had to choose
And life just passed you by

Now you day dream and dream at night, wishin’ on a star for a better life
Spendin’ all your time thinkin’ what it used to be
You could’ve done better, you could’ve had love, real love
Not just the kind you’ve been dreamin’ of

Now you day dream and dream at night, wishin’ on a star for a better life
Spendin’ all your time thinkin’ what it used to be
You could’ve done better, you could’ve had me

Could’ve Had Me is available as a single digital download and is also included on the CD True Heart.

Timothy McConnachie: oil on canvas

I had the pleasure of being introduced to the work of Australian artist Timothy McConnachie through a talented local artist and friend, Trish Toro, some years ago. Trish and her husband Bill, along with myself and my husband Richard, sponsored a gallery exhibition for Tim in Minnesota. Tim was a relatively new artist and his work had an enormous impact on all of us; I was especially taken with his paintings that featured women and music – no surprise! Blue Companion was one of the pieces shown in his exhibition. What struck me most about this piece was the intimate relationship between the subjects. I felt the seeds of a song the first time I saw it. I wanted to create that same sense of intimacy through music that this painting evoked in me.

During his visit, Tim and I took a walk in the beautiful regional park near our home. The sun was filtering through the trees and for some reason the line “filagree of light and shadow” popped into my head. I started working on this song, most of which was written while I was driving in my car. As a result, I had an a capella song – lyrics and meldoy, sans instrumentation. I tried several versions on my guitar, but never felt that my chord progressions supported the melody line. That’s where my friend Lonnie Knight came in. Lonnie was the co-producer, along with my husband and myself, of a CD we were working on at that time. I asked him if he had any arrangement ideas and of course he took that ball and ran with it. He felt his arrangment called for the unique classical guitar stylings of Michael Johnson, a world renown musician and friend who had moved back to the Twin Cities from Nashville. The recording session was absolutely magical with Michael on the classical guitar and Lonnie playing his haunting electric. After the session I knew that this was the title cut for my CD.

Both Lonnie and Michael passed away in 2017, leaving an indescrible hole in the music community as well as in the hearts of all who knew them. It was a priviledge to work with them both and I will always treasure this song.

I’m also fortunate to have the art work for Blue Companion in my home. I look at it every day with great fondness and think of my dear friends Lonnie and Michael, and of course, my talented mate, Tim.

Blue Companion

The summer trees outside my window, filigree of light and shadow
Fall across my face and leave a melancholy trace of madness
I watch the moon begin to rise now, all too soon, it sets before my eyes close
I see another day begin it brings my solitary friend

And you are my blue companion
Take me far beyond the rainbow’s end
Fly with the heart’s abandon
On wings of my blue companion

A single flower of summer fading into dusk, the light receding
Shadows whispering surrender of a heart so bruised and tender
The autumn sky gives way to the winter, we’ll survive facing together
Every love that’s been untrue, we’ll find a way to start anew

Cause you are my blue companion
Take me far beyond the rainbow’s end
Fly with the heart’s abandon
On wings of my blue companion

Facing fear and never knowing what tomorrow is unfolding
Tender touch upon my shoulder sharing secrets growing older

With you as my blue companion
Take me far beyond the rainbow’s end
Fly with the heart’s abandon
Far beyond this world of sorrow lies the promise of tomorrow
You are my blue companion
Yes, you are my true companion

Blue Companion is available as a single digital download and on the CD Blue Companion.

I’m sure other songwriters have experienced writing a song that starts out having one intention and, as if having a will of its own, it takes a turn in a completely different direction. That was the case with Gentle Heart. I originally wrote the chorus of this song while thinking of my father. During that time, I received a scholarship to a writer’s retreat located on the shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota. While I was working on this song in that inspiring setting, something shifted and it morphed into a story about my mother. I’m not sure if it was a result of the energy from that magnificent body of water or some premonition that my mother was not going to be on this planet much longer. Sadly, the latter turned out to be the case. (Evelyn is pictured here with her first born – Jim)

Evelyn was born on a farm in Wisconsin in 1916 and was the only girl in a family with six brothers. I often wonder how isolating it must have felt to be surrounded by so many boys and to not have a sister to confide in. Her only formal education was in a one-room school house down the road from the farm. She cooked on a wood burning stove, sewed her own clothes and worked as hard as any farm hand. At seventeen, she left the farm and took a bus to St. Paul where she worked, married, and raised a family of six children. She was a remarkable woman who faced everything life threw at her with grace, strength, and kindness. She loved her family above all else. I should be so fortunate to be half the woman she was.

GENTLE HEART

Her hands were leathered with life, but not her heart
Seventeen years she lived on the family farm
It never really mattered that the life she had was hard
‘Cause she was born with a gentle heart

Her hands were weathered and rough, but they could soothe
Laid against a fevered brow, soft and cool
They’d pick up all the pieces when our lives would fall apart
And soothe our souls with her gentle heart

Sometimes deep and distant, I always tried to listen
Though the words she spoke were often lost to a young and foolish girl
There were times her heart was heavy, but it never turned to stone
The light inside her heart was always on . . .

Her hands were leathered with life, but they were kind
They always found the strength they needed to make us mind
And nothing really mattered when she took us in her arms
‘Cause we were born to her gentle heart

Gentle Heart is available as a single digital download and is also included on the CD Blue Companion.

Photo by Rebecca Pavlenko

Relationships with parents can sometimes be complicated, and that is probably the best descriptor that I have for my relationship with my mother. While most folks identify Paris as a song about the missed opportunity to be with a lover, this song was actually written about my mother.

As an adult, I had the chance to take a trip to Paris with both my mother and older sister. Travel can sometimes highlight stressors in relationships and my fear at the time was that those issues in our relationship would impact the trip in a negative way.

Needless to say, I regret not taking the opportunity to share that experience with her and perhaps would have found a way to better understand and comminicate with her. But I was too myopic at the time.

The older I get, the more I appreciate her level headed wisdom and the fortitude it took to raise six children and work outside the home. She taught me to recognize what was truly important in this life. I wish I had learned those lessons earlier…

PARIS

I should have gone to Paris when I had the chance
I almost palmed the golden egg, but it slipped right through my hands
As near as I remember I just did not want to go
I wasn’t ready to surrender the life I’d come to know

I should have loved you better and I should have loved you kind
I was flying left of center – deaf and dumb and blind
Caught between a circumstance and the fear of all unknown
Waiting for a second chance can turn a heart to stone

I am alone, I am alone with my regret
Thinking about what I haven’t learned yet
Ten thousand wild horses can’t chase all the pain away
And now in dreams all the demon forces are pulling me in separate ways
I am afraid, and yet amazed

I should have gone to Paris when I had the chance
I should have left it all behind and followed you to France
Now I see you in the photograph standing by the Eiffel Tower
I see the smile upon your face, obscured by April showers

Paris  is available as a single digital download and is also included on the CD Blue Companion.