Singer/songwriters often have one idea, concept, or experience in mind when they write a song, but the beauty and power of music is that it can mean many different things to many different people. A single song serves to celebrate our differences, challenge our perceptions, make us feel deeply, and ultimately, unify us through a shared auditory experience. The birth of a song is similar, in some ways, to the birth of a child. There is a combination of nature, nurture, love, mystery, and miracle.
Songs are born every day and from every facet of life. As a singer/songwriter, I welcome the spontaneity of new song ideas, the evolution of song structure, and the melodies that often materialize out of thin air. I believe that as a songwriter, I am only a vessel, and I can only channel what resonates within my spirit, while aligning with the cosmic universe around me. The power of song and verse comes from somewhere above and beyond my state of consciousness. I honor and welcome this truth. The origins of song vary, as much as, the nuances between songwriters.
Some songwriters are trying to write a #1 hit on the American Top 40 or the Billboard Hot 100 Charts, and every day they sit down to write their hit song. My goal is not necessarily to write a #1 hit on either of these charts, although it would be pretty interesting to do so, if it were to happen. But this is not my primary pursuit in writing and playing music. I write when I am inspired to write, and I do so, because I love the process. I am going to write, whether I write a hit song or not, and I am going to write regardless of any monetary gains I may receive. Writing, playing music, and singing is a way for me to nourish my spirit and cleanse my soul.
Often times a thought, a melody, a line, and/or a lyric will come to me when I am in the middle of some random act. Walking in the woods, hiking in the mountains, swimming in the ocean, feeling interconnected to those around me, daydreaming, playing with my children, embracing the four seasons of change, and exploring the constellations above, have all yielded songs over the years.
As a Libra, I have come to know that inspiration can also surface during times of tragedy, death, destruction, decay, and chaos. There is always a starting point for a song, but as with all aspects of living, this process is about the journey and not the destination. Most often there is no end in sight when a beginning is made.
Other times I am practicing a chord progression and a couple of lines come to me, or the exact opposite happens. As a writer, I am not relying on only one formula to write a song. Songs can, and do, evolve in a myriad of ways, but there are variables in the songwriting process that remain a constant. Everyone wants to know if the music of a song is written first or the lyric? I have written songs in both ways, but I often come up with a lyric and a melody in my head first, and then I transpose this melody, or tune if you will, on the guitar.
I wrote "Infinite Smile" two days before the birth of my daughter. I did not set out to write a song the night that I wrote Infinite Smile, it rather developed spontaneously and in the moment. I was noodling around with a new chord progression thinking about the arrival of my daughter, and that lead me to the line, ‘You don’t know the infinite smile that you are painting on my face’. The rest of the lyrics were written in less than fifteen minutes. I don’t always write songs this quickly, but inspiration can often lead one to swift action.
“Infinite Smile”
You don’t know the infinite smile
That you are painting on my face
You don’t know the minutes and
The hours of your heartbeat
I don’t want to waste
And I will watch you blossom
And I will watch you stumble
And cry but I will always love
You even after we say goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
You don’t know the unending
Warmth of you smile and your
Loving embrace you don’t know
The innocence of your touch and
The delicacy of your grace
And I will watch you blossom
And I will watch you stumble
And cry but I will always love
You even after we say goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
You don’t know the infinite smile
That you are painting on my face
You don’t know the innocence of your
Touch and the delicacy of your grace
And I will watch you blossom
And I will watch you stumble
And cry but I will always love
You even after we say goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
As a songwriter, I can only write about what I know, and everyone has a unique experience that colors the lens that they look through. I am seeking to live an authentic life that is filled with peace and love, but it would be naïve of me to think that this would be possible without the expectancy of pain and suffering along the way. I have found that psychiatric hospitals and institutions are filled with the latter. C’est la vie. Wherever there is darkness, there is light, and it is our choice, which force we choose to align ourselves with. I would rather bask in the sunlight of the spirit, than freeze while harvesting ice and wind.
My parents taught me how to LOVE. They taught me how to love myself, and they taught me how to love others. My parents have been my biggest support, besides my wife, over the years and I would not have made it to this point in my life, and to this point in my recovery, without them.
My parents’ love and support has never wavered, no matter how much drama or chaos entered into my existence. Their unconditional love and support has always shined through, no matter how dark my life and our world became. My parents were also there, along the way at every major positive event in my life, when light and love beamed from the mountaintops. And I am blessed to write that for all of the "Manic Mondays" I have lived through, I have also had a lifetime of these moments to celebrate as well.
Now that I am a parent, I am indebted to my parents for teaching me all of the lessons that they have graciously taught me over the years. Beyond molding my belief and value system, they have also taught me how to parent, without realizing it at the time, or in the moment. No parent is perfect, and I am fully aware of this fact as a father of a 2.5 year-old daughter and a 5.5 year-old son, but overall my parents are pretty exceptional human beings in their own right. My deepest and most sincere appreciation is reciprocated back to my parents, with my eternal lovelight for them, always burning bright.
In mentioning my parents, it is my maternal side of the family that has passed down music through the generations. My cousin Steven told me, not too long ago, that my great-grandparents from Slovakia were united through song, when my great-grandmother Chanda fell in love with my great-grandfather’s singing voice, while he was a member of the church choir in their small village. My cousin Steven is a music teacher, my cousin Daniel was a piano tuner and gave my parents an upright piano when I was a child that is still in their home to this day, and several other relatives on my mother’s side of the family are musicians as well. My mother’s father was also a musician and played guitar, piano, and sang in the church choir until his death in 2012.
As a Clark, it is my paternal side of the family that has passed down writing through the generations. According to the, Dictionary of American Family Names (Oxford University Press, 2013):
Clark is an English language surname derived from the Latin clericus meaning scribe, secretary, or a scholar originally a member of a minor religious order. The word clerc denoted a member of a religious order, from Old English cler(e)c ‘priest’, reinforced by Old French clerc. Clark evolved from clerk. In medieval Christian Europe, clergy in minor orders were permitted to marry and so found families; thus the surname could become established. In the Middle Ages it was virtually only members of religious orders who learned to read and write, so that the term clerk came to denote any literate man.
This notion may be somewhat of a wild goose chase, but somewhere along the way, one of my relatives began writing and here I sit this evening continuing in that tradition.