I have promised myself, and friends, that I would re-learn the habit of sharing songs. When I was good at sharing songs, the world was a wildly different place. This is interesting to think about. Recently, I have found myself so very weary of listening to YouTubers my age go on and on about how the music business has changed, bemoaning the days of yesteryear when only an artist or band for whom all of the stars aligned as the right talent scout happened into the right club at the perfect moment to hear this perfect flower of an artist, or collection of them, who as it so happened were at the perfect age for capturing, packaging, and selling to the masses.
In those days, studio gear was out of reach for the mass of musicians, and songwriters. In those days you had gatekeepers. In those days, the gatekeepers had gatekeepers. There were layers of those people.
Sharing songs in those days for me was to invite a friend or two to come hang out on the front porch of 1908 South 8th Street or some unexpecting piano I would descend upon with all the loving key-pounding enthusiasm of my younger self. I would set upon sharing the most recent of the songs that had sprung from my lungs and fingers.
I get it. The route used to be so easy to see, the route to the life that music would pay one to live. I suppose that route may not be completely closed. Who knows? I do not.
What I do know is that today, any tunesmith or musician or collection of them, can in their spare rooms and basements can now create in ways the greats, pick your favorite, could not. What freedom! What joy! Seriously.
I intentionally remind myself frequently that I started writing and singing songs purely for the love of songs, for the love of melody. In the past couple of years, I have sought to lean into making and sharing music in whatever ways I am able.
In that spirit, here is Party at the End of the Line. I wrote this tune driving home from work on a day when a fellow employee through me under the proverbial bus. I believe it was undeserved. I believe it was known to all or most that it was undeserved. It does not matter. It matters not a whit.
Song notes:
My dear, sweet bride gave me a banjo several years ago. She knows that I love to have and play on an instrument where I am somewhat lost. I wrote this tune some years ago on the guitar. As I was practicing, noodling, on my banjo; I wrote the little instrumental intro part. Then so that I could share it with a musical companion, I recorded the song on my phone. I hope to record it again soon in the studio. But for now, I share it as it is, or was, yesterday when I put it down to share with a few friends. The musically astute may notice me trying to manage to play this somewhat still foreign-to-me instrument as I also seek to recall all the words in the proper order. Is no matter. If you want to play and sing along on your favorite instrument, I am playing in G Major.