So what makes a song idea pop into my head?

Today, it was something on the radio, I think,that set it off though I can’t precisely remember which song got me going. I was traveling to Franklin, TN from Smyrna for supplies at Costco and Whole Foods that I can’t get closer to home and listening to the Americana station out of Murfreesboro. Seems like the song that was playing was one of those plaintive old-style country tunes where a woman is lamenting some kind of lost lover or fun times that were over.

And the idea popped into my head. The radio tune had started me thinking about the sexual proclivities of former lovers, the anti-depressants some of them were — and are — on (as are so many folks) and led me into a made up scenario involving proclivities and psychoactive drugs and regret.

We’ll see how this one turns out. When I write songs the initial idea usually undergoes seriously warped changes before I get to something I want to perform. I write the finished version on the guitar and feel like the words come out of my mouth while the melody part comes out of the fingers on the fret board — which means, I guess, that the verse is working its way through the language/oral part of my brain and the music is wending its way mostly through another brain area that’s linked up to motor control of my hands..

Though I’m sure there’s plenty of feedback and interaction among all the moving parts in the white and gray matter.

At the same time, it’s been an exhausting week getting projects done for the websites that pay me to write for them. But I’m recovering