Rick Jerram

SONGS & SONGWRITING

The great thing about songs is that there are so many ways of writing them and so many sorts of song. In some ways I envy those who can sit down and write a song "about" something (or, indeed, sit down and write a song then and there). I have tried that, but somehow I never believe the result. It seems that, for me, a song -however slight- can only come from some deeper, or at least less accessible, place so that I need to be caught unawares.

So, for me, song ideas* just arise and it's then a matter of finding out what the song wants to say. It usually takes a very long time to find out and the result is fiction.

(To my way of thinking, *song ideas -words and tune- are not to be confused with ideas about songs -such as "I could write about that person I met / the election/ the importance of gratitude" or whatever. Nothing wrong with writing a song 'about' something, but I find it hard to imagine ever doing so myself.)

SLOWVILLE

Nothing to add. The song is self-explanatory -isn't it? 

SCHOOL OF THE SACRED HEART

I cannot remember much about the writing of this song. Years ago -decades ago- I knew a girl who had gone to a convent school in India which, she said, had peacocks in the garden.

FADED TO BLUE

The song started when I was walking in the street and saw old flyer on the side of a utility cabinet: once colorful, it had faded to a faint blue. Certain later circumstances attached themselves to the song.

CARELESS RIDER

Self-explanatory or impossible to explain. Your choice.

SO EASY WITH YOU

Staying in a lakeside cabin, I noticed how the whiteness of the sunlit dock next door contrasted with a storm-laden sky.

SOMETIME SOON

Big issues, small song.

AT THE MAYFLOWER MOTEL

Written in the midst of post 9/11 war-mongering. I had once spent a night in an apartment rented by graduate students which was out back of a cheap motel with a similar name on El Camino Real in Palo Alto, CA. It was demolished years ago. There's a school on the site now.

GIRL FROM FRESNO

Actually this one is not fiction, although anything in the past slowly becomes so.

CENTER CITY

No comment.

TWO RIDERS IN THE RAIN

The one important thing to know is that Jackson & Lee were Confederate generals in the US Civil War, fighting to maintain the institution of Slavery.

This song arose out of some strong but mixed feelings prompted by daily walks past the statue of Confederate generals Lee and Jackson that used to stand between Wyman Park and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Considered aesthetically, it is (or was) the only interesting equestrian statue I've ever seen
-because the subject is the relationship between two men rather than a 'hero on a horse'. However, the purpose of the statue's commissioning -to glorify the Confederacy at a time when African-Americans were starting to get somewhere in the US- is made only too obvious by the sneaky arrangement on the base of the two men's quotes about each other.  Lee's STRAIGHT / AS THE NEEDLE TO THE POLE JACKSON ADVANCED TO THE EXECUTION OF MY / PURPOSE and Jackson's SO GREAT / IS MY CONFIDENCE IN GENERAL LEE THAT I AM WILLING TO FOLLOW HIM / BLINDFOLDED are manipulated so that PURPOSE SO GREAT are the words facing the street. It was not hard to notice that BLINDFOLDED STRAIGHT forms the reverse of the coin. To statue was removed some years ago.

Of course the song is not about Lee and Jackson. It is about us.

BAD WEATHER NEAR BUENA VISTA, COLORADO

The song began with the first two lines of the chorus while I was in Arizona a few days after driving down from Boulder to Santa Fe. 

The physical location is precise: US285 approaching the Arkansas River crossing at Johnson Village (at 38.814585, -106.089210). Of greater importance is the location in time -the summer of 2016, with America sliding towards a disastrous election result.

(Yes, I know that Buena Vista CO is not pronounced in the usual Spanish manner. But as there are a number of variations in use locally, I ignored them all.)

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY

This began as a contemporary story, but the tune seemed to set it in the past -the 1820s or 1830s?