The A Cappella Handyman: Songwriting

I never would have guessed when I was a senior in Mechanical Engineering Design at UC Berkeley back in 1965 that I would have an armload of songs on YouTube.com by the time I was 75. Or that Herb Caen would list all the lyrics to my “Laid Off American Man” in 1994. Such are the graces of a life well lived and loved.

The time Peter was mentioned in another newspaper. (Clipping provided by Peter Bray)

How does it work?

Poems come easy, thousands of them over the years on a variety of subjects, but songs…songs are similar but different animals. They begin similarly with some underlaying thought, phrase, or message, but Shboom!, the song lyrics come first in a pattern that is very shortly thereafter singable. And I know nothing about music nor do I play any instrument, but I like to sing. They arrive with story verses and refrains or choruses. And then more verses expanding the story, and repeating choruses that add some unifying or memorable theme.
In 2005 we video-recorded 12 of them at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe on Marin Street in Vallejo. Local poet and shop owner Martha Cinader invited me to be Featured Poet on a Friday night and I jumped at the chance. I called my friend and long-time Handyman customer Ursula Morgan-Kane of Vallejo to video-record me and she agreed. We did it as VHS and I later found a shop in Walnut Creek to convert it to DVD. Then in Berkeley I found a computer wizard in a Mac shop to upload them to Youtube.com. Yippee, I was airborne! Subsequent performances as a member of Benicia Literary Arts were recorded by Benicia poet-artist-media wizard Tom Stanton and have also been uploaded to YouTube. The list there includes these, check them out:

Two Right Shoes Colitis Blue Buy The Farm I Buy Jam Dog Food Commercial Can’t Find The Pharaoh (Quarry Song/Rooms & Brooms) Bottom Back Life’s Just a John Prine Song The Box Top Shop East Benicia Jail Song Daddy was a Hard Drive Methane Jane I’ve Been Better & I’ve Been Worse Laid Off American Man You Are The Song (And Peter Bray at the Rellik Tavern)