Week #7: NOT SO MEAN IRENE

Hurricane Irene came through the East coast with a fury, but somehow miraculously missed NYC. Thank goodness!!! For this week's song I enlisted the help of an old friend, and brilliant song writer, Thomas Dieter. We wanted to write something about Hurricane Irene, and after several ideas were thrown around Thomas came up with the title Not So Mean Irene. I was immediately inspired and both the chorus, and verses popped out of me within seconds. This was a total collaboration, Thomas wrote the bridge, and did the piano arrangements and harmonies and a lot of the lyrics. Most of all, it was a total blast. We had so much fun.

Check it out:

INSPIRATION:
When Thomas suggested we write a song called Not So Mean Irene he was thinking that we would literally write a song about how hurricane Irene magically didn't mess with NYC too much, however I thought of it in a different way. I imagined that Irene was a very mean woman who had left the singer heart broken because she was just too mean. I ran with this idea and the result was this song....

Week #6: NEW CAR

This week's song is called NEW CAR. I had the idea for the chorus about two years ago, but never did anything with it until this week, as I listened to old song ideas I had saved on my computer. It took only about twenty minutes to write actually, it was one of the easiest songs I've ever written.

Check it out:

INSPIRATION:
I wanted to capture the feeling a teen has, when they get their first car. It seems like the possibilities are endless, therefore it's almost like a metaphor for being young.

Week #5: THE NORMAL HEART

I got the title of this week's song from the play THE NORMAL HEART. I saw the recent Broadway revival in June, and it was mind blowing. What a heart wrenching play, about the beginning of the AIDS crisis and how it could have been stopped if anyone with a normal heart had listened, and helped the gays. Instead, America ignored the problem until it began infecting straight people and children. The playwright, Larry Kramer (one of the first gay activists) took the title from a poem, September 1, 1939 by W.H. Auden. That poem is about people ignoring the Holocaust. I wanted to write a song called the normal heart.....

Check it out:

INSPIRATION:
Although my songs is NOTHING comparable to the holocaust, or the Aids epidemic, I took the idea of how a heart can ignore those hurting and applied it to a love song. In the song, the person leaving must not have a "normal heart," or they wouldn't sit idly and watch their lover die.This week, I also had the idea to write a new musical, which I'll tell you more about later..... but I imagine one of the characters would sing this song in the second act, after a certain traumatic event takes place........

Week #4: 52 Songs (the song)

Someone said, "You should write a theme song for your 52 songs blog," and that got me thinking. Should I write a theme song? I started to wonder what the song would be about. Would it be about anything? I decided that I should challenge myself to write a song called "52 songs."

Check it out:

INSPIRATION:
I really got the idea for the song just by singing the first line, "I'll write you 52 songs." I thought about why someone would write 52 songs for a specific person and the idea came that the song-writer might be trying to get this person back. The rest just flowed out very quickly, that may be good, or that may be bad. We will have to see. It's definitely not a radio friendly type song, but it's the type of song that I could see being played at a concert in a park. :)  Or maybe I just want to play a concert in a park.

PS: the lyrics for the verse about poetry are supposed to be: "Cummings, Whitman, Dickinson, & Cisneros," I flubbed the words and didn't have enough time to re-record to meet my deadline.

52 Extras: The Best Best Man Speech.....

Like I promised, I'm posting the video from my brother Gerry's wedding. My brother Danny and I were both the Best Man. Check out our speech... which incidentally DOES include another original song..... though I'm not counting it as part the 52..... lol.... you'll see why.

2 BEST MANS - Best Mans Speech

             CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN TO TIFFANY & GERRY DAVILA!!!!!

                                               July 30, 2011 <3 <3 <3

Week #3: EMPTY BLUE

I spent the whole week in Texas, taking care of a million tasks for my brother's wedding, which went AMAZING, (I'll post my best man speech soon so you can see) but it didn't leave much time to even think about writing a new song. With only two days left, I was scrambling to try to come up with something catchy. Luckily as I was strumming some chords out, my Mom jumped in and came up with a catchy little melody. She thought she was only joking around, but it inspired me to write a song. So, two of the first three lines, and the opening melody, were written by my Mom, Lupita Davila. A MILLION THANK YOUS!!!!! Plus, she helped me work out some ideas for the bridge, so my mom shares credit on this song.  Also thanks to Charles Barksdale again for telling me several times that the lyrics in the chorus weren't good enough.... hope I got them right this time....

It's a bit rough since it was rushed.... but here is week number three:

INSPIRATION:
After getting an opening melody from my mom, I was inspired to write about sitting around at home missing someone that you lost. How many times when you're heart-broken do people keep telling you to move on, or forget it, and it just doesn't help? That's the basic idea of the song. The character keeps going down a downward spiral. I came up with a bazillion different lyrics to the hook..... some very figurative and complex... some super-duper simple.... I ended up going with something simple... and came up with the title, Empty Blue in the last 20 minutes before recording. I also kept accidentally saying "stumbling" instead of "spiraling" but I think I ended up liking that better. In the end, only time can heal a broken heart... but when you're in the empty blue it seems like nothing can save you from drowning.