Note: I appreciated NancyCz’s comment in the last post about how listening to these songs in advance will change the overall listening experience of the CD.
It most certainly will.
So, you can listen to this song and decide whether or not to keep listening to others. Or I can open up, say, SIX of the songs to you – and save the rest, or whatever.
(And Nancy – you can hit the play button on the song below and plug your ears and go, “LA LA LA LA LA!” really loud so you can’t hear it. 
VIRGINIA (Part One)
Okay, our first song is “Virginia.” (This is Part One because I first wanted to share a little about the writing of this tune.)
I first wrote this song in about three hours. I wrote it for my niece (Virginia) on her birthday while sitting in my hotel room. These are the first lyrics scribbled on my hotel writing pad before I went to her big birthday party…
The song was about a little girl waking up on her birthday. And the hook was “Before you even blink your eyes Virginia is growing up.”
Bringing in a Co-writer
Then, about a month ago, Steve Seskin and I spent two solid days writing together in Nashville. The whole point of this was so I could play my new songs for Steve, who would help me re-write any of the ones I was stuck on. Steve is very good at this.
I played “Virginia” – and he liked it. But it was in that dog-hears-a-high-pitch-head-tilting way. Not in a “Whoa-what-a-great-song!” way.
So, we tore the song apart . It took almost the full day – and at one point the lyrics were so bad that we made a parody song that changed my original hook line from “Virginia is growing up” to “Virginia is growing pot.” We found this hysterical and wasted lots of time adding new lines that sent us into fits of laughter.
Then, at Steve’s suggestion, I let go of the song being about a little girl, and let it be about someone a little older. The song began to move effortlessly. The second verse is totally word-for-word what I said out loud to Steve when he asked me to describe this adventurous girl. It was Steve’s idea to lose the hook line altogether – which is why, at the end of the chorus – it goes “Virginia…” and leaves the thought hanging and moves right into the second verse.
Where’s that Confounded Bridge?
Steve and I didn’t write a bridge for the song.
(FYI: A bridge is the one section in a song that is totally different from the other sections – musically, lyrically, whatever. So, say, in Jimmy Buffet’s song “Come Monday,” it’s the part where he sings “I can’t help it honey, you’re that much a part of me now…”)
Not every song needs a bridge. But often, you simply know when a song does need one.
So, when Steve was out of the country and unreachable, I came up with the bridge. It’s unfinished in the version of the song below. The bridge I wrote switches the song into first person. This kind of thing drives Steve nuts about my songwriting. When he first heard this bridge, he wasn’t convinced.
Then, while I was walking through LaGuardia Airport on my way to record, my cell phone rang. Steve was calling to tell me that the bridge had grown on him, and that it was a very “Christine-ish” bridge. (Read: “This song has no chance of becoming a hit.”)
I’ve since come up with the last two lines of the bridge – and you’ll hear that later. In this version of the song, and in tomorrow’s version - I will “la la la” through the missing lines. (There are always a few re-writes when you record a CD - and always a few unfinished lines.)
So here’s the song. Please know that this version of the song is me at my kitchen table singing into Garage Band on my computer. It’s VERY rough - with flubbed chord changes and bad singing. Tomorrow, I will post the first round of work that Ben and I did on this. For now, just get acquainted with the song…
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Truth is…
