The Process

Here is a song that is in its working stages... Just thought I would share a bit of the process that goes into song construction. For example I Love You Too Much is the backing track, the vocals have not yet been done. I tried to go for a Tom Petty feel with some Beatlesque overtones. I used the following instruments: Vox Pathfinder Amplifier; Charvel 625c Acoustic;Epiphone Casino; Epiphone Viola Bass; Rickenbacker 360 Electric 12 String; And an excellent guitarist and personal friend of mine, Mark McAfee added his talents to the song by playing: a Gibson ES335 through a Fender Vibrolux Amplifier. Check the lead out played by Mark, very melodic and played over a guitar army of licks....Looking forward to some possible recording with my old band, The Revolvers. Will keep ya posted...

I Go to the the Movies

when i'm feeling blue and low
and i've got no place to go
and all my fire has gone from below
i go to the movies...i go to the movies
there's john wayne and montgomery clift
red river: watch the currents drift
hurry up boys, gotta give him the slip
and go to the movies...and go to the movies
time can wound it's over too soon
let's go jump the moon make the women swoon
make them swoon...make them swoon
saturday night at the picture show
i'm all dressed up i got nowhere to go
guess i'll just sit back and let it flow
and go to the movies...and go to the movies
liz taylor in a place in the sun
violet eyes and all the damage done
pardon me for i best run
and go to the movies...and go to the movies

i go to the movies
wordsandmusicbywilliambates t21music 2007

Songs and Expressions

I am a songwriter. I have written hundreds of songs and have recorded nearly all of them in my studio and at other various places from Nashville to Winston-Salem, NC. In my latest podcast I share 3 of them and give brief introductions as to their meaning. I invite you to give them, and by effect I, a listen:

Episode Two of the Days I Knew Podcast: Songs and Expressions

An Imaginary Inaugural Address

My Fellow Americans,

Today we meet to sanctify a process that has not only led me to this hour but has led us all to an appointment with certainty. The certain and lingering knowledge that we as Americans can accomplish things that cynics label impossible. Throughout our history each generation has heard the call of responsibility and it has been up to its leaders to endow in their people the will and the strength to meet the rigors of this responsibility. At this moment, in this uncertain time, I call upon Americans of all political persuasions to answer this call. To say this will be easy; To say that this will be devoid of risk; To say that this will be without sacrifice would betray the very call we all feel. There are some who say in strident tones that our country's best days lay behind us. To them I say, the dream of America that has guided us through the storms of war; depression and civil strife is very much alive. It is beating still in the heart of our history and in the soul of our present and in the everlasting promise of our future. Like a seed waiting for the coming of a righteous spring it awaits our tending of the garden. Let us nurture the seed. Let us pour upon it from the mighty stream of freedom the nourishment of a hope forged in the cold crossing of the Delaware; of the blood soaked fields of Gettysburg; of the storming of the Normandy Beaches; of the overcoming of the ramparts at the Selma bridge; of the love we all have, we must have for this precious country. And let it draw strength for the trials we all must endure as we walk this uncertain road of life.

Once a crippled man led a crippled nation and asked us not to fear. His words linger in the air we breathe in today within this capitol hill. We have seen the worst the world can bring into us. We watched towers fall. Yet as those noble buildings sank with a speed unbelievable into the bedrock of our greatest city we also knew that the souls within them were ascending into a giving and prideful God. Let us ascend like our brethren. The time for doubt is over. The darkness, though still outside our gates, is not our enemy unless we welcome it into our hearts. Government of the people endures.

Let the world note that America is a friend. Our power will be used wisely. But to those who wish us harm be warned that our resolve is omnipotent and that we shall never shrink from the defense of our institutions; our people; and our sacred honor. In this time of rapid change and in our deep desire for change let us never forget that change must be earned. It must be based on what has gone before. These things we know in our collective memory. These things we will always know. It is just that in times of trouble the memory becomes clouded by the darkness we all must put asunder.

The words said today may or may not linger in the telling of our story. That is of little importance. What is important is that the calling we feel be acted upon. That our country, filled as it is with the burdens of the living, will never walk among the ghosts of the vanquished.

The bible teaches us that those who trouble their own house shall inherit the wind. Let us rather inherit the house our ancestors gave their all to build for us. And let us all give, into those who come after us from that house, many mansions. The sense of purpose in that endeavor will be the font of our strength. And from that national will will arise yet another chapter written by a strong and compassionate hand that will reveal to all who seek its guidance a path that might be on the edge of but shall always lead away from the wilderness.

Listen to the Days I Knew Podcast Episode One

The Allure of the New

Change is in the air.   The country's  so weary of being idle.  The contestants are there for the country to judge: The woman; the black; the old warrior.   Can the old be new and the new be old?   Who knows, we cannot predict what is going to happen over the course of the next few minutes.   History has a way of working it all out.   I mean, everything does work out if you let it... And one other thing, I think we should do "the opposite" of what we usually       do...just like a personal icon of mine "George Cantstandya...

Magnetism and Insanity

Have you ever had the feeling that you are a living magnet for insane events?   By that I mean the little things that happen during the course of a normal day that really have no basis in reason.   Like computer foul ups; car trouble; financial screw ups...I believe that the human world operates on the principles of Newtonian physics:  for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...Thus, the concept of Karma is alive in all we do...Therefore to cleanse the magnetic effect of those little insignificant things that don't really amount to anything in the grand scheme of life we should strive to do good.   The good comes back in time and the bad comes back in massive droves.   Or maybe they come back in little drips of irritants.   

The Cumulative Effect

I guess I just wasn't made for these times as Brian Wilson said way back in 1966.   

Teenage angst seems to follow some of us through life.  I think I got something going good for myself and what goes wrong....

Hell, we all whine at times, some people do it externally to the detriment of others and some keep it all inside.   I prefer the later.   Thus, in a sense, the ability to overcome disappointment is a hallmark of a healthy life.   Hopefully we learn that time does heal such wounds.   That is true, it really is.   The bounce back time element is crucial.  Those who can't bounce it back are doomed not only to live their lives in quiet desperation but are burdened by the added feature of what I like to call the cumulative effect.  In other words, those wounds seem to add and add to each other so that they consume the present and grant a hopeless tenor to the future.   So try to not let that happen to you.  Live in the now and stab disappointment in its cold and dreary heart.

Think About It

When one takes the easy way out things are easy at first and then they get hard.  When one takes the hard and right way things are hard at first and then they get easy.