thanks everyone for the positive and constructive comments. i loved writing this song. i get choked up when i sing it alot of the time because it's personal.. and the journey it took to get there was a torrent of insanity. i'll be honest, i'm really uncertain of myself and my songwriting so this forum has done me a great deal of good (i think).. just talking about songwriting.. reading some peoples comments on various songs here makes me realise just how little i know about the technical and emotional side of songwriting and the songs people here write are phenomenal.. and i mean all of them.. so many rich ideas delivered so beautifully.. even if the musical ability isn't there yet those tentative efforts often sing louder to me than any perfectly delivered chorus.. or catchy hook. that said i also feel like i have something of my own to offer.. just as everyone else does which makes a forum like this so special.
so thanks all of you. really.
anyway..
i heard this great little poem?/proverb?/story thingy? recently from a musician friend after he listened to this song..
you've probably heard it before but i liked it so much i thought i'd share it (it's what songwriters do, right?)..
A young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it.
But an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said,
“Your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.”
The crowd and the young man looked at the old man’s heart. It was beating strongly but full of scars. It had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in … but they didn’t fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. The young man looked at the old man’s heart and laughed.
“You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine … mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.”
” “Yes,” said the old man, “Yours is perfect looking … but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love….. I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them … and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart but because the pieces aren’t exact, I have some rough edges.
“ Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away … and the other person hasn’t returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges … giving love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay open, reminding me of the love I have for these people too … and I hope someday they may return and fill the space I have waiting. So now do you see what true beauty is?”
The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man.
The old man took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart.
It fit …. but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges.
The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from the old man’s heart flowed into his.
i'm a sucker for these cheesey, sentimental stories..
