Forty-some years ago, I wrote my first song. It seems kinda silly now, but it was enough to infect me pretty thoroughly.
Thirty-some years ago, I recorded some tracks in a barn studio in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just about a year after that I decided to drop out of the music business and finally, after a seven year delay, enroll in university.
Well, I've done a few different things since then, but I've always gravitated back into writing songs. Last weekend some friends stayed with us and, as usual, I performed a few of my songs for them. In the course of that evening rediscovered this ditty I started an awfully long time ago, but never finished. I decided this week to finish it, and managed to complete that today. Here's the first recording of Paint Me A Picture, and my first musical recording in a very, very long time. (Just click the "Podcast" link below.) I hope you enjoy it.
Paint Me A Picture
I’m workin’ my way through
Only two more sets to go and I’ll be gone.
The spotlight sees right through me,
But I don’t think it shows,
I mean I’m holdin’ on.
‘Cause I’ve been deceiving myself through the worst of
it
Just hopin’ to make the best of it someday
Hey, hey.
I’ve been feelin’ way past due,
and smelling your smile in every other song.
I thought these spotlights ought to free me,
how was I to know
that they would hold so strong?
Here I am living my dream of the best of it,
while dreaming of the rest I left behind to play.
Hey hey!
Paint me a picture of the world as it should be
The world as it could be with all of her charms.
and write me a letter on old motel paper,
Just anything handy could brighten my day.
You’re so far away
I know you’ll trundle off to bed
Thinkin’, “He’s out there somewhere,
Singin’ his heart out to a room full of recent
strangers,
While the one he really cares about sleeps soundly.”
Is life ever what it seems?
Does my voice betray what I dare not say in song?
Before this spotlight ever caught me,
We’d managed to survive
by simply holdin’ on.
we held on tight through the thick of it,
Though I’ve been losing my grip when I slip onto this
stage.
hey, hey!!
So paint me a picture of the world as it should be
The world as it could be with all of her charms
And write me a letter on old motel paper
Just anything handy could brighten my day
You’re so far away
I know you hate to go to bed
Thinkin’ I’m out there somewhere,
Singin’ My Heart Out to a room full of empty strangers
While the one I really care about sleeps lonely.
I’m workin’ my way through
Only two more sets to go and I’ll be gone.
The spotlight sees right through me,
But I don’t think it shows,
I mean I’m holdin’ on.
‘Cause I’ve been deceiving myself through the worst of
it
Just hopin’ to make the best of it someday
Still hopin’ to make the best of it someday,
Hopin’ to make the best of this someday.
11/29/2008
©2008 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved
