TomFlannery.com

Up real early today…so I was still a bit groggy when I turned the music on and mis-heard a lyric as “the jukebox knows…the jukebox knows….”

I’m still not sure what the actual lyric is, but I like what I heard better. So that’s my starting point for the day. Good song title ‘innit?

In a bit…

–tf

Nothing today. Brain dead. Some days you wake up and couldn’t get a decent note out of the guitar even if you had Les Paul’s fingers. Music comes when it wants to and not a moment before.

That being said, the “wait around until inspiration” bullshit is just that. Bullshit. You gotta get off your ass and try. Songs won’t write themselves.

So I try a little some days, and a lot on others. Sometimes the good stuff comes when I try a little, and the dreck when I try a lot. That’s why I love songwriting so much. If all it took was effort there’d be a avalanche of great songs out there. It takes more than effort. Being inclined to laziness, I like that. It sorta evens the playing field, or at least makes it a bit less bumpy.

In a bit…

–tf

Crushing news this  morning from Belfast.

A good friend of mine there just lost a child. It stopped me cold.

So I wrote this song….

Time For a Lullaby
by Tom Flannery
copyright 2009

It’s all I know how to do. It’s very rough. It wavers. It meanders. But it was everything in my head after I received the news.

Life ain’t fucking fair boys and girls. It hurts way too much sometimes. But we carry on. What else is there to do? I don’t think love conquers all. But it comes a helluva lot closer to doing so than anything else I can think of. So hug ’em if you’ve got ’em. Extra hard too. And if it rains today, you know why.

In a bit…

–tf

Just cut a song called “Hand to Mouth”. Kind of a 3 minute blast of venom against all things right-wing….inspired by my mother having a guest recently who insisted on watching Fox News the entire time he was there. By the end of the week I think Mom was ready to waterboard herself…..nightly doses of hyperventilating propagandists like O’Reilly and Hannity being enough to send even the most kindhearted of souls (Mom) into the abyss.

Anyway, the work commences. I still feel more songs coming, so I’m not going to stop writing until the well runs dry. Only then will I edit what I’ve demo’d down to the strongest ten and enter the studio. I hope to come out deaf.

And of course, in the interim, there’s a play I need to write in the next 3 weeks. In my spare time. It’s good to be busy. It keeps the fear away.

In a bit…

–tf

And so I’ve returned. Quickie trip to Gettysburg and to DC, where I got loads of pictures of the 2 snipers on the roof of the White House. An odd site that. One wonders where “national security” ends and theater begins, especially since both dudes were dressed head to toe in black and looked like ninjas. They may as well have smiled for the cameras. If they had called less attention to themselves….maybe with some white shirts?….I’d be less cynical. But then, Washington itself is a cynical place. But a great city to visit. So much to see and do you’d need months to cover it all. I had a day, so had to pick my spots. So it was off to see Archie Bunker’s chair at the Smithsonian of course. It’s all about priorities.

Visited the WWII, Korean, and Vietnam war memorials. It’s a pilgrimage every American should take in a lifetime. A bit overwhelming really, but it should be. How our leaders in this city can be so casual about war with these symbols in their backyard is beyond me. They must not have seen what I saw….or heard what I heard….or imagined what I imagined. Or teared up the way I teared up.

Anyway, must get back to it.

In a bit…

–tf

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And Chuck Norris.”
–FDR

And that pretty much sums up the first decade of the 21st century.

Anyway, wrote a song last night called “Hand to Mouth”

One hand on the trigger
the other hand to mouth
finding baby Jesus
just by heading south

hand to mouth
love and war
waterboarding
down the shore

Not sure what to do with it. I just thought I’d let you know.

In a bit…

–tf

Lots of things in the head. Just nothing coalescing right now. Instead of no ideas, I’ve got too many of them, and as a result keep flying off in all directions, like a bird with no head. Dylan is probably the only person who could control this type of thing. But since there’s Dylan, and then there’s the rest of us, lately  my lyric note pads look like they’ve been hijacked by a gaggle of drugged former beat poets on the lam. I’ve been very grateful for the invention of the shredder.

But still, it’s been fun. Throwing things against the wall always is. Coherency comes to those who wait. And since I’m not being paid, I’ve become a patient man in this regard.

Truth is, I want to write a single song about everything. Three minutes long, with a nice guitar crunch. Then I’ll step back and watch the world tilt on it’s axis. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, do you?

Okay, maybe a little. How ’bout a song about a girl or something like that?

In a bit…

–tf

I split the difference and cut two demo versions. One quiet and one loud.

Our Only Chance (Is That You Feel the Same) (quiet)

Our Only Chance (Is That You Feel the Same) (loud)

Who the hell can tell about such things? They both could suck. That would certainly make the ultimate decision easier.

In a bit…

–tf

Had my 7 year old with me last night….heading to the bookstore. Decided to put the “American Idiot” record on. Hey, she likes to rock sometimes too.

Them I remembered Billy Joe’s propensity for dropping F-bombs. So I figured, being a good Dad and all that, that I’d cough over each one, drowning it out. After a few minutes the car sounded like a tuberculosis ward and my girl was fearing for my health.

Ah, rock and roll eh? Nobody said it’d be easy.

Which leads me to my own record, which as I look back on the completed demos thus far, will apparently contain it’s own share of secular profanity sprinkled liberally throughout the grooves. Hmmm….

To cough, or be clean?

‘Tis the question.

In a bit….

–tf

Ok, maybe I need to sleep on it again….

In a bit…

–tf