Three Artist Challenge Chapter Two: Iron and Wine

My second step in the snowy footprints of a greater artist is in the steel-toed boots (speculation) of Iron and Wine.  Here's a song to listen to during this post.

This was not my plan.  To be honest, my second artist was going to be the great John K. Samson who was the first indie musician other than my David to entrall my little jelly heart.  And yet, the track spinning in my head the day I sat down to write my newest song "Small Planes" was not "My Favorite Chords" or "New Name for Everything" or even "Elegy for Elsabet".

It was "Jesus the Mexican Boy" by Iron and Wine.

Recently, David and I came home on one of our days together and David just wilted.  We'd been out in the snow, running to the church so David could practice with the music directors for two pieces they were to perform that Sunday.  He had a fever.

Not wanting to go home, wanting to stay with me, he rested the remainder of the day while I gave him some fever reducer, a cool washcloth for his neck, and checked his temperature every so often.  I loved taking care of him and I feel badly about saying that because he was so sick.

While he rested, I watched his face.

That was the beginning of this song.

"Small Planes"
Half-Hearted Elephant

Ezra’s fever is spiking.
Sees hanging paper planes over his bed.
His face like pennies he rubs with ketchup to burnish
In pain, but he finds solace,
Like small planes find love in the angel tread
Because the Carmex on his nose smells like Mommy’s purse.

On the small paper airplane away he goes.
And the wind that blows him is warm and smooth.
No snow angels gave him this sickness, he knows.
In the wind’s hands… “If anything, I love you!”

Ezra’s mommy is smoking
Over a bowl of soggy Fruit Loops. Lets
The embers douse in the milk but Ezra fears ashes
Will burn baby sister’s lashes,
Car seat on the table where all day she‘s left.
For their health, her yo-yo promise to quit rehashes.

When the carton of Camels
Is dumped out the window, there’s hope, and yet,
The next withdrawal comes before they’re happy again
A half-hour later she says
“Fish them from the snow. Don’t care if they’re wet.
Don’t care if it’s cold, and death draws plans on your skin.”

On the small paper airplane away he goes.
And the wind that blows him is warm and smooth.
No snow angels gave him this sickness, he knows.
In the wind’s hands… “If anything, I love you!”

Ezra’s fever is growing.
Stands on his bed, picks the plane, broken string.
His room falls away as the paper plane takes wing
Glorious red Exit sign
“Mistreatment you’ve known, but!” the Father sings:
“If anything, I love you! I love you, if anything!”

Three Artist Challenge Chapter One: Emmy the Great

As I've blogged before, David aspires to be a professional musician and composer.  Following my desire to be involved in such an important part of his life, I want to write lyrics for his music.  So, I wrote "The Ground Never Quite Touches the Sky" ... but, it was so difficult for David to compose music because it had no meter.  I hate meter.

David suggested that I study my favorite songwriters to learn how to write to a beat.  Thus the Three Artist Songwriting Challenge was born.

I'm to choose three songwriters I admire and imitate their style.  With any craft, imitation is the best way for beginners to learn.  In my creative writing classes we did this often.  For example, I once wrote a poem based on Ted Kooser's "Selecting an Reader." (Read it! I love this poem.)

The first artist in my challenge is Emmy the Great! I love her frank and vivid language.  She's my favorite artist of all, so she was garunteed to be the first.  I chose "Absentee" because it was stuck in my head, found the lyrics (edited them... stupid hard of hearing fans), counted the syllables in each line, and marked the rhyme scheme.  I didn't bother with scansion because I will never understand those cups and strikes.

I took the blog post I wrote "Surprise Paper Bag" and now it's a song.  (I changed the skeleton of the song near the end to suit my own purposes.  When imitating, don't be afraid to go off on your own ideas.  Duh.)  David was so happy! And I was brimful of joy!

Surprise Paper Bag

Half-Hearted Elephant

Don’t know who I really am

Staring, in Daddy’s T-shirt, bangs with one curl,

At a surprise paper bag, the one marked “girl”

Dull ribbons

The dollar store will be closing soon

Crumpled dollar bill in my fist waits to hear

The verdict. Wheels grind in my ear

What’s in it?

Yo-yo? Squirt gun? Doll whose paint runs?

I am a surprise paper bag

What will I be if I break inside?

And who would like the things that I find?

If I shared them.

I see a small bright face, a boy

Standing down the aisle. How long has he been?

Blue juice from a gumball dribbles down his chin

Smiles at me.

Shy he finds beautiful, loneliness, too

He picks the bag though sullied and bruised

Pulls out things I thought I was born without

Says don’t pout

Glow in the dark stars

“You’re beautiful and I love you”

Pearl studded hair bow

“You’re you and I want to be with you”

Gold foil glitter glue

“It’s all there and I want to be there, too”

And a pinwheel made of spoons.

The Ground Never Quite Touches the Sky... But We Try

This song began in Paint.  I've been reading two blogs, The Olive Library and 101 Bird Tales, and was inspired towards some cute art.  When swiping the canvas with green and blue for ground and sky, I realized that I couldn't make the sky meet the grass without ruining the quaint blades left by the paintbrush.  I titled the painting "the ground never quite touches the sky."

David saw the picture and wanted it for his album cover. 

The song is about a little boy who can't smile normally, never quite sure what his face looks like.  The little boy is, of course, based on David, who has Asperger's Syndrome.  He ends up baring his teeth like a little animal, which prevents him from making friends at school and invites their animosity.  It's the first draft, so be nice.

"The Ground Never Quite Touches the Sky"
Half-Hearted Elephant

There is a boy who doesn't quite know how to smile.  He practices in the mirror when he brushes his teeth, wearing the newspaper crown him mom cut for him because the scissors are mean to his fingers.  His mouth is a little castle and he is the king.  They explain that smiling is showing your teeth.  In the bathroom he brushes them until they bleed.  Orange spit in the trashcan.  He bares and he bears on the playground where he can't make friends.  And his two sisters knock on the door.  Their iron is burning.  His cheeks balloon, his gums gleam.  He bites his lip and bites his lip in the schoolyard where he can't make friends.  The mechanics of smiling are elusive again.  The white flags of friendship don't look like a grin.  He doesn't know why he can't get it right just like the ground never quite touches the sky.  But we try.  But we try.  But we try.  But we try and we try.  But we try.  But we try.  But we try.  We try and try.

Surprise Paper Bag

Lately, my mirror looks different.  That is, of course, because I look different.  I feel different and differently.

It's cheesy, but I'll say it.  I am that brave, after all.  And certainly that much of a softie.  I began metamorphosing about 15 months ago.

I saw a boyish bright face through the window of a car pulling up to me.  Amid the shadow and light polka dots provided by the overhanging tree.  On the way to a movie theatre out of town, out of the places I usually found myself.

But that's just it.  The places I were, I couldn't find myself.  I was a paper bag marked Surprise! stapled, taped, on the shelf of a 25 cent store.  Marked girl with a lackadaisical ribbon, but even that was debatable.  What's it cost to break inside? What would I find? Would I be a cheap squirt gun or a dolly with lopsided eyes?

Shy he found beautiful and loneliness and hiddeness, too.  Disney couldn't write a sweeter love story nor Austen one more true.  Our first date he held me, he held me the first day of my life.  And kissed my hair, his kisses kitty cat soft.  His lips warm as sugar cream pie.

The little girl in daddy's T-shirt and boys jeans stood gazing at the Surprise paper bag.  A yo-yo, a paddle ball, a penny whistle she'd lose in the sandbox.  What was she? And the sad part: she didn't know and she was twenty-one.

She'd been kissed but she never kissed, been caught but never caught, raised but never raised, told but she never told, loved, maybe, but never loved.

"Me either, me either."

Glow-in-the-dark stars.

"You're beautiful and I love you."

Pearl studded hair bow.

"You're you and I want to be with you."

Gold foil glittering glue

"It's all in there and I want to be in there, too."

And a pinwheel made of spoons.

I pulled out something new little by little and stashed the rest away, there's time to wait while I play with these few things.  I write stories at bedtime, drink cherry soda in the meantime, and learn not to hold it in when I want to kiss him.

Poets Metamorph into Songwriters, but I'm not a Poet...

My David is a lovely guitarist! His music has the charm of shooting stars and picnics on candy striped quilts, clean sheets, still a little damp and warm from the dryer... of a music box inside a teddy bear.  Melodious, sweet, atmospheric... Embellishments are his talent.  And fingerpicking (with his Aspie hands, ^^).  And he sprinkles harmonics through his songs.  Little Tinkerbells, I call them... He wants to compose for films.

For composing he'll use his name, but he also wants to write the sort of songs that have lyrics.  For that band, he's called Half-Hearted Elephant.

That's where I come in.  I want to write lyrics for his songs!  Little scared-of-meter, frightened-by-scansion me.  In these vast fields I feel like such a little bird.  But, maybe, the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs.
But if ever there was a genre of songs for which I could possibly write lyrics, David plays it! Hyperliterate.  A style that concentrates on words without the "convention" of chouruses and lala's, nana's, or oh oh oh's.

John K. Samson, Emmy the Great, Colin Meloy, Ben Gibbard, to name a few, are hyperliterate artists...

I'm twitterpated with the idea of songwriting now.  If David and I wrote a song together... it would be an intimacy of our talents.  An intimacy worth being brave for for.

David told me, "Pick a subject and start writing the words and I'll write the music to it."

Motherhood.  Wifehood.  I'll write about my shyness toward it, my nervousness, and swallow confidence in my ability to be a good wife and mother.

Now on to gathering images and clips to use in the construction:

the dogeared pages of my diary

your cheeks resemble the pennies I rubbed with ketchup to shine

staple kitty's on every lamp post, fence, and tree

sing Beatles songs to our baby, don't forget to let her into your heart

origami wedding gowns made from sheetmusic

hope you didn't fall in love with Mary Poppins

never trusted fireflies to spell out words in the skies

I found love in you like small planes find love in the angeltread


Ah! Even if I fail, I'm having so much fun! I love collecting images! And David loves to compose music.  We can do this if we love it, right?

Love, Emily, pushing Publish Post...