Songwriter Sunday
Monday is the new Sunday, right?!
Not “Are You Afraid of the Dark Part 3”?!
Don’t worry. There will be more installments. I need some more time to feel ready to share more chapters of my life (that part at least). I appreciate your patience, friends.
Poetry
I guess you could say I’ve loved poetry since I was young. I fell in love with 30s and 40s jazz standards, and if you ask me, they’re pure poetry.
I often think about lyrics like these:
“And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart
You wandered down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by”
Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish knew how to paint the most beautiful canvas through songs like “Stardust.” Truth be told, I think I was doomed from the start with songs like this guiding my love language.
I’ve often found myself questioning if I’m using too much metaphor in my own songwriting (though perhaps that isn’t possible?). But that kind of writing is what I’ve always been drawn to. And the beauty of a listener being able to take that lyrical mystery and make it their own story…now that’s magic.
Summer Moon
There are times when I purposefully try to write less poetically…with more plain speech. I’ve found that some music lovers are drawn to a simpler approach. I’ve had to teach myself that love and nature don’t always need embellishments, even if it’s my natural path to writing. My song, “Summer Moon,” is an example of writing without as many frills:
I love you more than you could know
No words for you could ever show
No nightingales could sing a tune
As beautiful or sweet as you
In the summer moon
In the summer moon
The way you’ve changed me too
To love a way I never knew
To hold onto each memory
To paint the beauty in everything
In our summer moon
In our summer moon
I love you more than you could know
No words for you could ever show
No nightingales could sing a tune
As beautiful or sweet as you
In the summer moon
In the summer moon
Sharing Time
I’d like to share my song, “Summer Moon,” with you all. Nothing inspires me more than love and nature. What inspires you?
I can’t wait to share the back story to more of my songs with all of you, as well as my journey in music and life. Until next time.
See you in a week
If you’re reading this, thank you. I’m honored. And I can’t wait to continue on this journey via Substack with all of you! We’ll see what next Sunday brings.
To learn more about myself, follow my show schedule and hear my music: Kathryn Severing Fox's website
Photo by Andy Lyons
Lively, rocking and even raucously rowdy music and performances assuredly have a place in our lives. They have certainly been part of mine. But when it comes to poetry, and the artful relating of powerful emotions filled with elements related to one’s heart ? That’s a tranquil stream, not a raging rapids. Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Yeats, Pablo Neruda and Shakespeare never required freneticism to impart magic for sensuality, tears or pleasure.
Your words and songs are sewing sessions for feelings difficulty articulated. You’re really in a flow with both, and I can only hope that when you’re moved to write the treatise you were born to share, I’m still around. Like life itself, telling tales are to be savored not quaffed. Thanks for another great day made better.
gorgeous