jOhnny Morse

Writer's block sucks.  Without a prompt, without a deadline, I got stuck.

I decided to reverse my process and see if that'd unstick the stuck (or, as the case may be, the suck).  I wrote a tune to see if it'd inspire lyrics.  It didn't…

However, what I got was an instrumental track that, for me, is a tribute to my Jupiter 2 bandmates; Bob and Tom.  Bob passed away the day after my last birthday.  Bob was the first person (who was not in the military) that I met when I got stationed at Pease in 1984.  We were…

It's a love song!

Because, you know, in my bio it states “every song is a love song… in some manner”

Most summers my wife and I take a week up in Vermont to visit friends.  The area of Vermont is the area where much of my dad's family is from.  I learned a couple of years ago that my great (or was it great-great?) grandfather was the town veterinarian in Calais VT.

Anyway, one of the first years we went up as we were driving north on Route 12 out of Montpelier I saw a road sign.  It was Horn Of The Moon road…

Hello gentle reader.

No song this week.  Sorry!

The songwriting challenge has died.  I'm sad.  Apparently I work best in the creative world with deadlines and rules.  Counterintuitive, perhaps, but I had an inkling this is where I'd end up.  I have been working on a previously mentioned rewrite of a Snapface song.  Specifically a love song I wrote for my beloved called Horn of the Moon.  I needed to rewrite it so I could add it to a setlist for when/if Shari and I decided to start doing open mics and playing…

Vulgar?  Maybe
Crude?  Yup.
But that's this week's throwback song.  The songwriting challenge has stalled a bit for the group, and I hit the dreaded writer's block trying to write something other than another angry political song.  Instead of putting out something new I pivoted to start working on a rewrite of a Snapface song because everything I tried to write this week, sans prompt, has sucked. LOL. More on that particular rewrite in a future blog post.

Pornhub Rebound was spawned from an offhanded comment…

One of the first songs I wrote that I was really proud of.  An old Smoke Up jOhnny track (both Apple Music and Spotify links provided for your aural pleasure) that was written about a former relationship.  They say write what you know, and at this time this is what I knew.  It was a challenging relationship that I really wanted to work but it was, well, never meant to be.  Timing was bad, circumstances were off, whatever…

I was still pretty shit at writing music at this point (still not great at it, but…

JFC I need to get off of this topic…. I feel like an 80's Reagan-era punk raging against it all.  Whatever.  I need to get this shit off my chest.

The prompt from Ryan this week was “your head on my chest”.  I'll admit, I had already started this song and decided to inject a little hope into the bridge against the semi-sarcastic  (semi LMAO) message in the song.  The first bridge I wrote for this song was jarring.  I thought I was being cute with some chords and it just… sucked.  Stripped it out, rewrote it…

The one song that Snapface got on the radio, thanks to our pal Roadkill who runs the Local Licks segment on our local radio station.  I uploaded the version with his talk up.

Sunrise was inspired by a Facebook post I made following the passing of Anthony Bourdain.  I'm rarely impacted by a celebrity's passing but I really dug Bourdain.  Finding out he unalived (what a dumb f'n term) himself did hit me.  Shortly before his passing my daughter went to a book signing of his in Manhattan and got me a signed…

Autobiographical.  

This was a Snapface song that we recorded in the basement.  Bryce had the music, I wrote the lyrics.  I pulled some references from Anthrax and Public Enemy into the lyrics because… autobiographical.  Love those bands, and I'm a huge fan of the Bring The Noise collaboration between them.

This one always was a bit tough on the timing of the last line of that first lyric because there's extra beats.  We never changed it because I love the way it's a bit jarring, just like getting old. LOL

The…

This week's prompt was from Aaron and it's “a certain point of view”.  Yeah, I have a point of view (as if you couldn't tell from some of the other entries in this blog.  Warning; I'm angry.  Damn political climate has me insane.  The only way I know how to cope is by writing an angry song.  There may or may not be (there is…) an F bomb at the end.  I pulled it down in the mix a little but it's there.

I keep ideas, and lyrics in the notes app on my phone, as I imagine many songwriters do.  This one started…

Not gonna lie this was a tough one.

The prompt from Jeff this week was “drained, tired, worn out, exhausted, empty tank, last legs, dead on my feet, spent, out of steam -- anything that fits that feeling.”  And this was before the election on Tuesday.  

Challenge 1: I was traveling for work which makes the process a bit challenging for me.  Not the writing, but the recording.  I brought my Journey travel guitar with me so lyrics and chords were written in a hotel in Vacaville California.

Challenge 2:  The…