It's a compromise between pure poetry and wordless music. The pure poet might say "good poetry has music within the words and needs nothing but well-written words" while the pure musical composer might counter "the sounds of instruments speak volumes that mere words cannot express."  Operatic arias notwithstanding, the song lies between these two revered art forms.  Songwriting is a balancing act; too many words and the music is overpowered, while too many notes and the words get buried.  I try to approach most of my songwriting with an eye on the balance between the two.

Songs are also (usually) short and stripped down, though some story songs, like "Alice's Restaurant", tell their tale across many verses.  I generally write moderate length songs for the times..three to six minutes in length.

From here you can select work across my three recordings:  The Weight of the Rose (with Horace Williams), Songs from the Heart and Gray Diner at 5am.  In a few weeks, I'll add some from my upcoming release (slated for this November) entitled For the Snow.  Although the accompanying song samples, at 40 seconds or so, will not give you the full picture, I hope you enjoy them both lyrically and musically.  I have tried to take great care on each side of the equation.

Thank you for visiting my Songs pages; they are the sole reason for this site in the first place.

                 October 2012