Friday 25 May 2007

Discography

I thought it would be neat to post a "Storyteller's"-type description of my songs to give folks a better idea of where I was coming from when I wrote them:


He's Got My Heart (2007)

1. He's Got My Heart
2. Split My Time
3. Just Leave Me Be
4. Banned From Baton Rouge
5. Self Defense
6. Thank The Lord It Wasn't You
7. You Won't Give Me The Time
8. Optimism
9. Right As Rain
10. The Lows
11. Huckleberry Finn
12. Tear After Tear
13. Heartaches
14. You Don't Have to Shave Your Legs For Me*
15. Traveling Soldier*


He's Got My Heart:
Well, I'd written the chorus a couple weeks before I came around to finishing it. It was originally written about Lee Humphrey (!) and this funny-haha school-girl crush I had on him. No big whoop, it was just amusing. Well, 'round about April-ish I fell for this other kid I've known for years and on April 20, went fishing up out of Gulf Breeze and caught this big cobia (okay not so big by cobia standards, but was still a keeper and definitely the biggest fish I've ever caught, 20lbs and 40"!). So after catching the fish I was out on the bow of this huge boat all by myself, and the verses just came to me. Thus, He's Got My Heart is the title track of the record, and the photo of me with the cobia (who had the bait eel still hanging out of his mouth!) is the album cover. :)

Split My Time:
I had a bluegrass crush on this banjo player who lived in Greensboro and was in my ex-producer (scumbag)'s band. His name was Jeff, and he was AMAZING. He played it like jazz. So it just kinda went from there. Don't get me wrong, he's married with kids (and waaaaaaayyyyy too old for me), but it was a cool idea for a song. My hope is that if it gets recorded by a real performer, they'll have a fiddle vs. banjo duel for my heart, HAHA.

Just Leave Me Be:
Wrote this New Year's Day evening of 2006. During December 2005 I'd had roughly 12 boyfriends (gross, I know, not that I went past 2nd base with any of them, and only 1 got that far, and that's bad enough, but I was lying to myself that it was okay). I had this idea that all of them brought something to the table and at the end of the day I was full. WRONG-O REINDEER! So after walking onto the Quad at UGA, on my way to climb this big magnolia that Audrey and I had carved our names into the New Year's Day before and some random guy came up and tied my shoelaces and followed me up the tree, I'd had my fill. So they can all just leave me the heck alone.

Banned From Baton Rouge:
Awwww, I love this song. I wrote it about the stories Bradley'd told me about his life. Bradley is the last boy I kissed (January 2, 2006) - I have this thing for juvenile delinquents. All of it is true, except for the part in the chorus about how "I hope the Lord forgives me for the awful things I've done", because he's an atheist, even though his favorite book is "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving. I'd say there's hope for him, after all. God bless Bradley, wherever he may be.

Self Defense:
I have NO IDEA where this song came from. I guess I thought it'd be cool to write a song about a girl killing her high school sweetheart she was so flattered to have gotten to marry and not feeling bad about it until she knew she was busted. Just found it in a journal. I really like singing it though.

Thank The Lord It Wasn't You:
Haha, wrote this one about my old beau from college. It tickled me so much to see him with his now-wife - as soon as I saw them together I knew they'd get hitched. And I really couldn't be happier for him, cause we never could've made each other happy. We just brought out the worst in each other!

You Won't Give Me The Time:
Just a fun little bluegrass song. I wrote it for Jeff's band, EIGHTwenty3.

Optimism:
The third recorded version of the purest love song I've ever written. No lyrics, it's just what my heart sounds like when it's in love. Originally written for the "C-word" (haha, yeah, how pure can love be when you refer to the object of your affection with a nickname like that?!?!), so in some ways I consider it his, but when I play it now it just makes me happy in the best way and makes me think of the new boy (who's got my heart, my whole heart, and nothing but my heart, so help me God). :)

Right As Rain:
I really like the verses in this and the imagery. Honestly don't know where it came from, wasn't really intended to be about anyone, just a general feel-good song, another gift from God.

The Lows:
Wrote this back in 2004. This arrangement was suggested by my ex-producer (scumbag), and I hate to admit he was right about some things (maybe 5% of the diahrrea that came out of his mouth cause he just looooved the sound of his own voice).

Huckleberry Finn:
Another one of the C-word's nicknames, given by one of my college rugby teammates, haha. Wrote it in grad school - was reading Bob Dylan's book Chronicles, Vol 1 - at the part where he was in New Orleans about to record the Oh Mercy album and mentioned "the Southern-most magnolia" and the melody just came to me. Also, Huck Finn was my Papa Frank's favorite book. I LOVE this song, it makes me so happy to sing it, because I truly, truly feel every word.

Tear After Tear:
Wrote this for Dolly Parton but so far have been too lazy to send it off to her! Supposedly was going to be my hit (according to E.P.S.B.) - he suggested a couple relative-minor chord changes that made the song better, and then wanted to throw in some random instrumental break that didn't make any sense to me. To be nice, I offered him song-writing credit for the music (the lyrics are allll mine except for a couple of suggestions my little sister Emmy Lou made when I was writing it at home one summer working watermelons and training for a rugby national championship tournament, which my team won, thank you, thank you, haha) - just to be nice, it was an excessive credit. So when I told him to get lost, I put the chords the way I wanted and dropped the crazy instrumental break and gave my sister half credit for the lyrics. That way he'll have to sue me if he wants part of the royalties, which would only amount to 25% anyway - HA HA HA. It's even creepier that he latched on to this song about a naive young girl who gets cheated on and hurt by a man, GROSS. I still like the song though, it's mine, dangit! :)

Heartaches:
One of the first songs I ever wrote. Worked on it for years before it was finished. Just set out to write a country song in drop D and here you go. It's fun to sing too - I like to sound all hurt and what not to make it more dramatical, haha.


You Don't Have to Shave Your Legs For Me:
A cover of a great Keb'Mo' song. This song is why I got to discover him in the first place. My parents were listening to XM Radio on the way back from Suwannee and this came on. As soon as they heard the hook, they gave each other that look (I know exactly the look, too), and Momma was all, "Oh I hope Haylee can find love like this some day!" and ran out and bought me the CD the next week. Getting that album was the best thing that happened to me in 2004 - don't underestimate the power of music, people.

Traveling Soldier:
A cover of a Bruce Robison song, as recorded by the Dixie Chicks. I love this song. I recorded it to dedicate to my daddy's best fishing buddy, Big John. He served in Vietnam. The first time I heard this song was in college, in my car, and I boo-hoo-ed like a child.


There you have it! No secrets! Hope you dig the songs. :)