lyrics on the cutting room floor

In journalism school, there was a common saying, "Kill your babies."
    
What it means is, no matter how brilliant that line you wrote is, all that matters if how it fits into the whole. If you want the whole thing to be brilliant, it's about flow. It's about order, and importance.


You just can't cram all the good ideas and expect for it to radiate awesomeness. What it'll radiate is cobbled together'ness.


I'm working on a new song this week. After several frustrating hours of coming up with cool parts that were going nowhere, this great melody jumped into my head.... and the thing that's most important in the writing process clicked into place: I knew what I wanted to say.


It's a song about feeling lost inside yourself, and knowing if someone outside yanks hard enough, they can bring you back.


Here's the thing though. Of the 6 or so stanzas I sculpted, listening back, they're not quite right. The sentiment is right, but the images are wrong. I need something more physical, more forceful, more tangible, less metaphorically poetic. So I'll throw these ones out.


But I couldn't bear to do that without at least printing them here first.


So here are the lyrics I'm leaving behind & some of my thinking about the true direction this song needs to go in.

Just hit me with your sureshot

I need a dose of what you got

Take your aim & I’ll be ok 

Just hit me with your heartbeat                              

Stronger ‘til I move my feet             

 & I’ll be ok

Just lend me your anchor

Before my ship drifts under             

Be my Milky Way & I’ll find a way

Just show me your sweet side

If I could, I’d give you mine

Take me inside & I’ll be revived

Just give me that one thing

The one that keeps  me dreamin’

& In spite of everything, I’ll be ok

here's the new direction.

Smile

Stomp

Heartbeat

Arms               hands

Louder    stronger   harder      tighter              all connote intensity

     Do you all struggle to leave some of the good stuff on the cutting room floor? II'm with you.
And thanks for reading.


~jessie


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from the 2 to the 0 to the 1 to the 2

A little check-in to find out how all you are faring so far in 2012??

Here's a website where you can peruse others' resolutions & set your own... check it out.

My year did not exactly start out the best... On the heels of an awesome holiday and birthday party (burlesque, oh yes!) (and a pinata), I fell outrageously ill on new year's eve.
    Then we in Austin woke up to the news that a young woman was brutally murdered walking home the night before in what we all think of as a totally safe idyllic place to live.


Somehow though, I remain very optimistic this year.
  
Resolutions: dance more in my bedroom
                         yo-ga        yo-ga      (perhaps hauling amps in 'n out of the van does not count as exercise afterall)
                            style it up a notch    (thanks mom for the sparkly christmas sweaters)
                                 pay off my credit cards by April
                                      practice my ass off
                                            lazy brunches with friends
                                                   meet the XX


And then there are the serious goals. The ones I wished for on the birthday cake... and since I'm superstitious (read: born Italian Catholic), I can't tell you here.


But suffice it to say, with Alissa & Agustin as my co-pilots, I am feeling lots of momentum -- like this year is ours for the taking.


WHAT ARE YOUR 2012 RESOLUTIONS? OR NEW YEAR'S WISHES?
    AND ARE THEY STILL IN PLAY?


Remember, it's never too late to live the life you wished you'd had.


xo
   ~jessie


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