A couple of months ago I took a trip to Nashville. I stopped by the office of Paramount Song and today I received my Democratic from them for the song I Can't Have Christmas Without You. It sounds wonderful and I am so excited to finally have a demo that sounds professional and is ready to be presented.
I wrote this song when my brother first joined the Marines. It was our first Christmas without him because he was at boot camp. It inspired me to write a song about spending Christmas without someone you care about and this song was the result.
As I prepare to present this demo, my next step is to determine which songs I would like to make demos for next. I will most likely make them as I can afford them, but I have a list of about five songs that I plan to make priorities. Completing song fragments is going to be on the backburner for a little while. I am ready to focus on moving forward!
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Three Contest Entries
After being a little too lazy for a while, I have entered three lyrics in contests-"Haven't Been Sleeping", "Evil Queen", and "I Can't Have Christmas Without You". One of them ends at the end of the year and one of them ends mid-January. I can't wait to hear back!
~Eliza
~Eliza
Song Categories
I am in the process of getting a little more organized and deciding which songs in my songbook I want to focus on the most. I would also like to expand on what I write about, so I've divided most of my material into a few different categories to see where I can grow.
~Love~
Make Believe
Everything I Want
Angelface
Baby You are the One
A Way That I Can Understand
Pull Me In
~Hope/Inspiration~
So Beautiful
Can't Take Away Who I Am
Boundaries of my Comfort Zone
Still Believe in Dreamin
~Jealousy/Desire~
What I Want
See Your Face
~Break Up~
Enough
Damage
So Sick
~Strained Relationships~
Bring Me Down
Victim Card
You've Got a Way
~Idolizing~
Mr. Sophisticated
Bad Boy with a Heart
This is obviously not a complete list. I just wanted to see what would happen if I categorized the first 20 that came to my head. Now I've got my work cut out for me. I need to find somebody to make me idolize them and/or make me jealous so I can write more about those particular topics. Hm, interesting little exercise.
~Eliza
~Love~
Make Believe
Everything I Want
Angelface
Baby You are the One
A Way That I Can Understand
Pull Me In
~Hope/Inspiration~
So Beautiful
Can't Take Away Who I Am
Boundaries of my Comfort Zone
Still Believe in Dreamin
~Jealousy/Desire~
What I Want
See Your Face
~Break Up~
Enough
Damage
So Sick
~Strained Relationships~
Bring Me Down
Victim Card
You've Got a Way
~Idolizing~
Mr. Sophisticated
Bad Boy with a Heart
This is obviously not a complete list. I just wanted to see what would happen if I categorized the first 20 that came to my head. Now I've got my work cut out for me. I need to find somebody to make me idolize them and/or make me jealous so I can write more about those particular topics. Hm, interesting little exercise.
~Eliza
"Dream" is Becoming my Nightmare!
I have been trying to finish Dream for a couple of months now. I can't even remember the last time I struggled so much to write one song!
What I have so far is a very simple and sweet chorus. It's all about why I love someone who is very important to me. I even have a numbered list of reasons why, but I just cannot seem to make it work for the song. I don't understand why this particular song is so difficult to finish. It's about my own feelings and my own reasons for why I care about somebody. Am I really having this much trouble putting my OWN thoughts and feelings into a song?
It is honestly beginning to alarm me. This song has a simple concept and a very sweet chorus. There is nothing complex or even challenging about it. It's one thing to need a fresh perspective or approach now and then, but this is getting ridiculous! It has been almost four months since I determined that I wanted to finish this song.
This is not the first time that one song has taken me a long time to finish. "I'd Rather Feel Nothing" took me about six years to complete. It's about my struggle with chronic pain. I came up with the idea when I first started getting sick, but could not finish it until about a year ago. "Bad Boy with a Heart" was started in August 2011 and was not completed until May 2012. Many of my other songs have been completed over the course of a few months. The rest are fragments, the most frustrating of which being "Dream".
It's normal for certain songs to take a long time to finish. I would rather spend time to write a song the right way than spit out something I'm ashamed of, but there is something about this particular one that is an extreme challenge to me.
In a way I suppose I feel more pressure with this one. I don't plan on sharing it right away or immediately trying to have it published, but this song is important because the person is important. This one cannot be average. It has to be wonderful. It has to show that what I'm feeling is real. It has to accurately portray something that I have been feeling for the past few years. It's not just any song. It is a song that I truly have my heart invested in.
I only hope that I can manage to overcome these apprehensions and turn "Dream" into exactly what I have imagined it would be.
~Eliza
What I have so far is a very simple and sweet chorus. It's all about why I love someone who is very important to me. I even have a numbered list of reasons why, but I just cannot seem to make it work for the song. I don't understand why this particular song is so difficult to finish. It's about my own feelings and my own reasons for why I care about somebody. Am I really having this much trouble putting my OWN thoughts and feelings into a song?
It is honestly beginning to alarm me. This song has a simple concept and a very sweet chorus. There is nothing complex or even challenging about it. It's one thing to need a fresh perspective or approach now and then, but this is getting ridiculous! It has been almost four months since I determined that I wanted to finish this song.
This is not the first time that one song has taken me a long time to finish. "I'd Rather Feel Nothing" took me about six years to complete. It's about my struggle with chronic pain. I came up with the idea when I first started getting sick, but could not finish it until about a year ago. "Bad Boy with a Heart" was started in August 2011 and was not completed until May 2012. Many of my other songs have been completed over the course of a few months. The rest are fragments, the most frustrating of which being "Dream".
It's normal for certain songs to take a long time to finish. I would rather spend time to write a song the right way than spit out something I'm ashamed of, but there is something about this particular one that is an extreme challenge to me.
In a way I suppose I feel more pressure with this one. I don't plan on sharing it right away or immediately trying to have it published, but this song is important because the person is important. This one cannot be average. It has to be wonderful. It has to show that what I'm feeling is real. It has to accurately portray something that I have been feeling for the past few years. It's not just any song. It is a song that I truly have my heart invested in.
I only hope that I can manage to overcome these apprehensions and turn "Dream" into exactly what I have imagined it would be.
~Eliza
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Stand
I hope you stand
And I hope you know
I'll always be your friend
I just hope it shows
Through good times and bad alike
My heart won't change with the changing times
And I, I hope you stand
~Eliza
And I hope you know
I'll always be your friend
I just hope it shows
Through good times and bad alike
My heart won't change with the changing times
And I, I hope you stand
~Eliza
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Using a Song as an Explanation
There is someone that I love and I find it difficult to explain why. I started a song about him a couple of years ago. It's just a chorus and the song is called "Dream". And even though what I have to work with is obviously not a lot, I like what I have and I'm anxious to finish it.
It's one of those cases where the emotions are hard to explain, even though I want to explain them. I have a list of reasons, a list of reasons why I feel the way I do, why I admire the characteristics that I admire, why I am attracted to the features that I'm attracted to, why I want the things I want, and I why I don't want more or less. At least I have my thoughts organized on the matter...somewhat.
Sometimes when you care about somebody it's not just about something that they did or said or something that you expect to get from them. Sometimes it is simply a matter of appreciating how someone makes you feel and recognizing how important that person is to you. And if it's simply a matter of those things, it should be easier to explain.
There are so many factors in this, the majority of which do not make sense to me. How, then, can I break down my thoughts, emotions, and feelings into a list of reasons or a simple explanation? Should I write a song that's twenty minutes long? Should I sell myself short and sacrifice a realistic sense of what I feel in favor of a simplistic rhyming pattern? Or should I make light of the gravity of the situation just so the song flows the right way or has the right appeal?
Human beings can act simple minded sometimes, but we are not simple. We are anything but simple. And as frustrating as it can be, sometimes we are more difficult to explain than we would like or hope for.
~Eliza
It's one of those cases where the emotions are hard to explain, even though I want to explain them. I have a list of reasons, a list of reasons why I feel the way I do, why I admire the characteristics that I admire, why I am attracted to the features that I'm attracted to, why I want the things I want, and I why I don't want more or less. At least I have my thoughts organized on the matter...somewhat.
Sometimes when you care about somebody it's not just about something that they did or said or something that you expect to get from them. Sometimes it is simply a matter of appreciating how someone makes you feel and recognizing how important that person is to you. And if it's simply a matter of those things, it should be easier to explain.
There are so many factors in this, the majority of which do not make sense to me. How, then, can I break down my thoughts, emotions, and feelings into a list of reasons or a simple explanation? Should I write a song that's twenty minutes long? Should I sell myself short and sacrifice a realistic sense of what I feel in favor of a simplistic rhyming pattern? Or should I make light of the gravity of the situation just so the song flows the right way or has the right appeal?
Human beings can act simple minded sometimes, but we are not simple. We are anything but simple. And as frustrating as it can be, sometimes we are more difficult to explain than we would like or hope for.
~Eliza
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
My Own Words
I have a new laptop, some new goals for myself, and a lot of wasted time in between now and my last post.
It's not like I haven't been doing anything. I have a lot of new material to work with that I'm very excited about. It's amazing how many things get in the way of living the kind of life that you want to live. Trying to have a social life, trying to survive by working, trying to help other people. It seems that lately everything I have been trying to do has prevented me from actually doing the things that I care about the most. I don't understand how I am going to survive and pursue my dreams at the same time, but I know that it's time for me to gain a new perspective on my life and make those dreams the priorities instead of thinking of them as things that will hopefully work out someday.
And when it comes to my songs, sometimes I forget to hear my own words. What about all I've written about following my dreams? About chasing the things that I really want the most? About focusing on the things that are most important to me?
I give some pretty good advice. Maybe I should try taking my own advice.
~Eliza
It's not like I haven't been doing anything. I have a lot of new material to work with that I'm very excited about. It's amazing how many things get in the way of living the kind of life that you want to live. Trying to have a social life, trying to survive by working, trying to help other people. It seems that lately everything I have been trying to do has prevented me from actually doing the things that I care about the most. I don't understand how I am going to survive and pursue my dreams at the same time, but I know that it's time for me to gain a new perspective on my life and make those dreams the priorities instead of thinking of them as things that will hopefully work out someday.
And when it comes to my songs, sometimes I forget to hear my own words. What about all I've written about following my dreams? About chasing the things that I really want the most? About focusing on the things that are most important to me?
I give some pretty good advice. Maybe I should try taking my own advice.
~Eliza
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