A songwriter walks on the slimmest of threads
to balance what’s in his heart versus his head;
sometimes, random thoughts will inspire him to sing
words that aren’t about his life or any damned thing.
Emotions in motion, a mood for a day,
the lines on the page don’t relate any way
to the life he’s living and good things he’s found;
sometimes in the looking glass things get turned ’round.
A song’s inspiration can come from nowhere:
a phrase from a movie, the shape of a chair;
from someone singing the line as you write
imagining your song is their song tonight.
Your loved ones imagine you’re talking of them,
and take your songs personally, now and again;
they don’t understand it just don’t work that way,
and feel hurt no matter what else you can say.
Sure, my life is in every song that I write,
some more and some less, some real heavy, some light;
but I’m not my lyrics, my poems or verse.
I work in third person, for better or worse.
A song about leaving don’t mean I must go;
one that says I’m brilliant does not make it so.
I’ve got songs from good times, and others from bad,
and some drawn from thoughts someone else might have had.
A songwriter balances truth with a dream,
and finds hell and heaven, and points in between
where honkytonk angels and demons are poised
to drown out his voice with the tiniest noise.
05 MAR 2006
