So, I
put my nervous headache and migraine aside and bravely faced the music
(literally). We drove back at the office/writing room for Malloy and Brannon
just in time for a “working lunch” to finish writing a song with five people in
a -- a “Nashville Committee” songwriting session. I’d heard about them &
was so excited! I would now have to prove myself in a competitive group of
writer-musicians, two of whom I knew well. And as much as I like to be “nice”
and polite and never step on others’ proverbial toes, I WILL speak up when
necessary.
Once in
the writing room, I sat on the floor, and the guys sat around casually, too. I
had a pen and notebook in hand rather than a guitar -- Bruce and Tom had their
instruments. I started out saying, “Now here, this melody -- what if you took
the last part of this line and started with it because it sounds more interesting?”
Those
few notes/that part of the melody became the top of the verse. Bruce added
full, dramatic guitar strums -- a D - D - E pattern. Tom noodled around on bass
and got the “Shakin’ All Over” bassline to fit.
“And
how about that repetitive part, ‘Nah nah nah nah. . .’ -- that can start the
chorus?” My brain was on fire. I was deconstructing and reconstructing the
melody because it needed some juicing up, sprucing up -- pruning too, perhaps.
After
maybe 20 minutes of getting the song melody and structure tight, I tuned out
everything else in the room and remembered sensory images -- sights, sounds,
smells -- from the summer I had my heart broken for the first time. I thought
of how flowers start to die. . . came up with the line, “Last rose of summer,
withered” and I thought, what else, what else? I got it:
“--Like
the love gone in your eyes.” Gone or lost? Somehow, “gone” sounded more
country.
Malloy
and Brannon approved of the direction of the lyrics, so I plowed on and
sketched out lyrics that included a chorus, “Can’t Stop the Rain, Can’t hide
the pain, I see the flash, I hear the thunder--“
The
rest of the chorus goes, “--It’s going to fall, despite it all, but I won’t let
it drag me under: No, you can’t stop the rain.”
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