Now a decade old, I thought I would revisit this mix again. I have done this a few times as I continue to learn the craft. I thought it would be a good exercise to undertake as a start thinking about writing again for the next record.

As I have mentioned in other years, I am so very blessed to have some songs come to me in my dreams. Grace is one of them. The specific line "Grace, grace, grace! You don't have to be a lonely child" is what I retained in my waking moments so…

We're so quick to judge others. We really shouldn't. This one follows the tone of It Mattered To No One Else. I actually had a lot more song ideas like these two that I thought would end up being the whole record. But it didn't happen that…

Similar to a couple of other tunes this year, the How Many More? chorus idea has been floating around my addled head for a few years, but again, it wouldn't come to shore. But in promising my ideas that I never give up on them, I tried it again…

The Again, Again, Again line and melody has been flowing through my brain since 2017 or so. But if we are merely vessels for songs that are waiting to come to our shores, I was a leaky boat for a very long time and couldn't make the journey without…

And now a complete change. I like variety, and this introduces a new feel to the record. Until the mid-section, when the spacey connection returns, though in a subtle way.

Ok, this one has a journey for its creation. The original riff actually came to me in the heat of late August 2013. I still remember when it came to me. It was in a different key, with a slight different resolution. It felt like a hot summer's…

Another one where the riff came first, on the last day of RPM 2020 actually. Before all the craziness struck. I thought to myself "Oh self! That's a good riff! I will need to revisit it next year for RPM 2021." So I did. It also has a call-back…

Never forget the simple pleasure of just listening to music. I wrote a whole album about it a few years ago called The Lost Art Of Listening. This one's about how a song can simultaneously take you away from the concerns of life, yet make you…

What else can be said of the last 12 months? Everybody wants a piece of my time. Get in line. The riff came first and I walked around for days just banging it out non-stop. Hammer-ons for fun and pleasure...

Originally I had a Motown idea in mind, and I kept my stomping and clapping, but the song seemed to lend itself to a more spacey-synthey feel, so I ran with it. I also am hinting a tiny (very tiny) bit at Joe Jackson's band's backing vocal styles…

C.S. Lewis once wrote about the concept of "out of simple evil comes complex good." These are trying times, an understatement if there ever was one. As you read this, you have uncertainties and fears for what our current situation means for right…

I have never written a song about the RPM Challenge itself, until now. Have we really been here for 15 years? It needed to be fun, it needed to be a great dance number. I had the gtr riff, and realized it would be even better as a horn line. The…

A total gtr inspired tune. The riff came first and I knew it needed thunderous drums. The rest fell into place. I envisioned this one being very Top of The Pops on a Saturday in 1971, or Granada TV in summer of' 70, depending on your point of…

The word agony and the basic melody for the first line came first. I sat on it for a while, then one evening tried to figure out the chords for it. The verse chords followed very quickly, effectively falling out of the gtr after I had discovered…

This one started as the piano piece. I was messing around and thought it had a vaguely Eddie Harris sounding vibe from Plug Me In (which is a killer record, absolutely killer). Anyway, I decided to develop it, since it sounds a little different…

This one started as the verse chords and some rambling vox melody. My demo of just gtr and me mumbling resulted in something vaguely Lennon-esque in delivery, so I kept that aspect and took it further for the mid section. The harmonies in the…

This one came solely as the chorus melody and the basic hook "So I'll sing my song for Carolina" It's all I had for months, but I thought it was a good chorus line so I kept humming it to see if it would sprout further ideas. The mid section is…

The chorus riff came first, then the verses' lyrics. Then the structure. It sounds like 1981 to me, so I just ran with it.

This one came to me as I was sleeping on a plane, delayed on a tarmac. I dreamt that McCartney was singing this, sort of. I came out of the dream abruptly when the pilot said we were finally cleared to take off. I racked my brain to figure out…