My First Song
Well, that statement about the song I’m about to share is a bit misleading. I did in fact write a few songs as a teenager. They were ehhh ok. In my young twenties I wrote a jokey song “the grassroots song” about me and my friend’s crazy endeavors at an annual musical festival (our favorite shit show). But in my later twenties I felt a call to really dive into music. Not just playing with my buddies at a party or in my living room alone, but to out in public. It started with the open mics. I’d play my best cover tunes, and always have encouraging responses from the audience. Even though I was nervous as hell, and didn’t know how to use a microphone. I also probably drank too much beer to curve the scariness of stage (always getting in that last pee while the previous performer was doing their last song). I’d work up my courage, get up and play, and alas! People liked me!
Me at an old open mic:
That was satisfying at first. I’m getting out there, I’m doing it! But it wasn’t enough. My brother-in-law (dreemit’s husband) told me that I should get out and play beyond the open mics. I should make a goal to one day play at that same music festival my friends and I partied so hardy at. I said, “There’s one problem- they don’t have cover artists there, it isn’t a bar. I don’t write my own songs I’m not an artist!”
His reply, “Well then get writing. It’s obviously in your blood. Your father writes, your sister writes, and you too are good with words. Look at that grassroots song!”
The problem was that all of the music I ever listened to had depressing lyrics. Made me think I had to be sad, or angry to be interesting. But I wasn’t sad or angry, so that wouldn’t work. As my sister ingrained into my head, I have to honest and real to be a writer. Even if it’s fictional, the feelings have to be true.
I started listening to a folk-rock group called The Avett Brothers. I even by happenstance met their parents in Rochester just a few days before a sold out show I attended. What was special about the Avett Brothers to me is that their writing, though it could be depressing, often was not. They were writing about their life experiences, their family, and they had a lot of love for those things. So I thought, if they can write about their normal lives and captivate me, maybe I can do the same.
So this was my first completed song as Ed Iseley the singer-songwriter. I wrote this at the tail end of my 28th year, though the song is called “29”. I was feeling at a crossroads with work, feeling like I wasn’t doing anything important or productive (in the lifetime achievement sense), my father had a spinal injury causing a new onslaught of health issues, and I just didn’t know what to do.
And so, here’s a recording off of my first album of that first (kinda) song. It ain't my best, and it's always easy to critique earlier works, but I'm still proud for what it is: (click bottom link if outside USA)
For outside of the USA click bottom link:
