jOhnny Morse

Week 7 and its my week to pick a prompt.

Week 7 started 28 October and therefore runs over halloween.  So to make it a little topical I decided to make the prompt “mask” or “disguise”, writers choice.  Turns out my song uses both.  It just happened that way once I landed on the theme for the song.

I've long been fascinated with the idea of people wearing masks as a coping mechanism.  I do it.  Work?  Business mask.  On stage?  Rock Star mask.  Out in public? Choking people is generally frowned on so use a…

This time of year is tough for everyone, especially our pets!  Can we just agree that changing the clocks is friggin' dumb, antiquated, and no longer valid?  Also, the constant news reminders to change your clocks… nearly every device now does that for you?  Who is this message for?  Oh, I know… the butler who has to reset the Rolex collection. LOL

Damn dog is going to want to eat at 4 every day this week. ;-)

Anyhoo… this is a song I wrote sometime around 2002/2003 for Smoke Up jOhnny.  My grandfather passed…

We got our prompt from a wonderful songwriter, Karen Barr, this week.  It was "What do you want".

The first words I wrote were “what the fuck am I going to do with that?” LOL. It was a tough one, and I can't say I love the song but that's absolutely going to happen when you're trying to write a song a week.  I'm loving this challenge and to get a prompt like this really put a boot up my ass.  Doesn't matter if I'm not in love with what I wrote, it's flexing that skill that matters.

I do kind of like the…

Before I went to the Rhett Miller Songwriting Is Magic camp 2024 I had written a song to perform at Open Mic.  I'm nervous as hell doing solo acoustic stuff, which is weird because I'm generally not nervous on stage.  Just me and a guitar on stage?  Terrifying.

Anyway, my wife and I were seeing Jade Bird (she's brilliant, by the way.  I recommend you check her out) locally and we met up with a friend of ours.  He's been going through some serious health issues and offhandedly said “I count my life in…

Here we go again.  This prompt was Street Lights.  The song is called Simpler Times.

I decided I wanted to try and incorporate the prompt without also making it the title of the song as I seem to have done most times so far.  The result is a wistful look back at, as the title may have clued you in, on simpler times.  It's a reflection on the days of yore.  

Oddly enough even though I'm making reference to streetlights coming on, the neighborhood I grew up in was in the middle of nowhere and we had no…

This week's prompt; Blank Stare

I went back to the well on the political climate for this week.  It's a not very veiled shot at the divisiveness that's been sewn over the last many years.  I've waxed philosophic on that topic already so no need for me to ramble on there.

I went full demo on this one again with the Yurt Rock drum loops.  Once again I couldn't find an ending fill so this one ends with spoken word.  It's a choice… a good one?  The jury is still out. LOL

Link to the song

Instruments on this tune…

The prompt for week 3 was Fall/Autumn.  Unfortunately I was on the road and couldn't take my guitar with me on this trip.  I worked out some lyrics for a murder ballad but never got a chance to record it.  Someday I'll go back to it but honestly I didn't dig the lyrics.

This was another tough prompt for me as I've already written a song with Autumn in it and, well, it's my mom's favorite song.  The song is called One More Hour and I wrote it after the passing of my grandfather.  I'll write a post about that…

The prompt for week 2 was Healing.

OK, here we go.  Can I do this?  I ended up landing on a topical theme, for me.  Fear, and the way it's used by politicians to give you something to be afraid of so you'll support their bullshit agendas.  It's one of the things my wife hears me bitch about constantly;  Fear is Control.  The political climate of today is 100% fear based and not collaborating to GSD (get shit done (as espoused by PA Governor Josh Shapiro).  I don't care if you're a republican, democrat…

Background:

For the last two years (2023, 2024) I attended a songwriting camp hosted by the most excellent Rhett Miller of Old 97s.

Year one featured Charles Thompson (Frank Black of the Pixies/Black Francis for those unaware), Rachael Yamagata,  Michael Casey, and the most excellent Dave Hill with whom I got to play on stage in his act – because I had my bass with me.  I met a ton of folks and when many of them said they’d be back for year two… I was in.

This year Rhett featured Ryan Miller of Guster, Jaime…