mostly instrumental with Arcade fill-ins.

mostly instrumental with Arcade fill-ins.

I made an album of original songs called "Unvarnished Truth." It is, in a sense, a concept album. It is not praise and worship music. I helped form and was in a praise band at church for several years. I have played for years at retreats called "Walk to Emmaus." sharing just those kinds of songs. But, in my own walk with the Lord, I find that my experience has been less than the idyllic one presented in so many Christian songs. I have had my share of trials and times of honest doubt and so have a lot of my Christian brothers and sisters. I don't feel like I've arrived as a perfect Christian. So, could I glorify God by trying to portray the ups and downs of an authentic Christian journey in song in hopes the music would touch those who are still trying to find the Lord? This song epitomizes that theme. The jury is still out.

Well, I always felt if I have to explain it, I am not getting it across in the lyric. Again, this is the kind of song I'm learning doesn't typically get cut these days. Still, there is something to be said for trying to put something unique in a song lyric. I had a friend whose mother had Alzheimer's. She was in a nursing home in a town a couple of hours away and her husband was trying to live his life, going to church and trying to just get along. She was still his wife and knew she was married but couldn't remember his name. I was touched not only by her plight but by his. I stirred in a little personal emotional experience and there you have it.

Probably not the kind of song anyone is cutting right now; but I got the idea after working late one night and coming home tired. There was a big moon shining down through the locust tree and I thought a beer sounded good, hence a "having a beer with the moon." As I recall, I had supper instead and went back to my music room to write the idea down. The concept of the song was to use an AABA form, to make it conversational, and to use as few words as possible. to get my idea across. That form is seldom used today but has its charm and a ton of old pop songs were written that way. Also, in this song, the moon-tune rhyme was so obvious, I wondered if offsetting it with an inner rhyme of equally cheesy tear-beer would work.

A friend made a chance comment, wondering aloud if anyone missed her at church when she was traveling with her husband on frequent business trips. The song was made up from whole cloth but sort of written as an answer to her question.

This song is about thanking God for being with me in good or bad and saving me. I'm a rocker at heart so if you can hear the rock tones in my head you would get it. There is a guitar solo in here and I am NOT a soloist so please don't criticize that

We celebrated our 30th. wedding anniversary on the 5th. of September 2023. My wife Valery asked me to write a song to commemorate the occasion,which I happily accepted. My mission was to cram 30 years of marriage into 3 or 4 minutes. Verse 1 was easy, because it's about us meeting, falling in love and making a commitment to continue on. The hardest part was writing verse 2. It speaks about us raising our 2 children Jasmyn and Brandon in better times, trying to do the right things, by keeping them as far away as possible from the negative things of this world. It then speaks of the worse storm we had to experience, which was losing Brandon in a car accident at the age of 18 in the year 2018. Verse 3 is why we are still here today together, because of the healing power of faith and prayers. We will stay loving each other for a lifetime or a hundred years, which ever comes first, by God's grace. This song is very relatable to almost every couple, because we all go through good times and storms in our relationships and we can survive if we believe in love and have faith. I can see many artists in Country, Adult Contemporary, Pop and RnB singing "A Lifetime or a Hundred Years".