You will never know dear just how much I miss you. You will never know dear just how much I care. If you knew the answer it would leave you speechless. If you knew the answer to how I want you here. You will never know dear just how much I’m grieving. You will never know dear all my deepest fears. If you knew the answer to your unanswered questions, it would leave you silent sipping on a tear.
And then I "barely" missed out on getting a song I cowrote recorded by a Grammy-winning producer
I came so close to having a song I cowrote recorded by a Grammy-winning producer at the Pure Worship Institute. The following may not have happened in the exact sequence and it's based entirely on my memory, but here's the timeline as I recall it (all times CDT and approximate).
June 17, 2014
2:00 p.m. Songwriter Workshop led by Jeff Deyo (PWI founder you may know from SONICFLOOd). I learn that I will be collaborating with others to write a song. One song out of all the songwriting groups will get recorded by week's end.
2:15 p.m. I team up with four women: one (Angela) slightly older than me and three (Jaila, Hannah, and Anastasia) much younger. None of us has a guitar handy, so I volunteer to play piano for the rest of the workshop. This should be interesting.
2:16 p.m. I mention to the group that I've never collaborated with others to write a song before.
2:17 p.m. I think to myself, Is that really true? Never? That's a shame.
2:32 p.m. We like a comment made by one of the PWI staff earlier in the day and spend some time seeing if we can expand it into lyrics. Ultimately, we cannot. Instead, we choose to use Ephesians 3:18-19 as the foundation for the song.
2:40 p.m. Jaila (I think) comes up with the melody for the first line of what would become the verse, although we call it a chorus.
2:47 p.m. We have lyrics for most of the verse, although we still think it's a chorus.
2:54 p.m. We are told by Andre Rodriguez (musician, songwriter and one of the clinicians) that it is definitely not a chorus. Fine.
3:05 p.m. Angela has some great words that we try to incorporate into...a chorus? a bridge? We're not sure, but they're good and they seem like they're going to fit, thematically.
3:15 p.m. Workshop over. There's much work to be done, but it's a good start. For five people who have never previously spoken together, let alone worked together, it's been an incredibly productive hour.
4:45 p.m. I realize that I must get my guitar from church, both for tomorrow's workshop and for trying to work on the song after the evening's worship encounter.
10:35 p.m. Basement couch, bowl of chips, glass of water, guitar in hand, laptop beside me, the fatter of our two cats trying in vain to steal my chips...let's write!
11:15 p.m. Exhausted. Internal monologue says: I got the verse and bridge done. We can write the @#$! chorus tomorrow. This was not spoken in a mean-spirited way. Just a really, really tired way.
June 18, 2014
8:38 a.m. I arrive late to prayer time at PWI. They're praying in groups and I don't want to interrupt, so I head upstairs near the skyway. As I start playing through what I wrote the previous night, I am pleasantly surprised to find that I still like it.
8:44 a.m. Jaila comes walking across the skyway to where I am. I am mildly afraid that she will absolutely hate what I did to the song. To my delight, she seems to like it and we spend some time refining things and get a chorus written. A very productive 15 minutes.
1:45 p.m. Fifteen minutes until the group is back together to work on the song. I am practicing what I worked on like mad in order to make sure I know what I'm doing when I share it with the rest of them.
2:00 p.m. Brief instructions from musician, songwriter, and worship leader Jonathan Lee. Reminded that one song will be chosen and that it may not be the "best" song but the song that best fits what they want to do in the studio for the rest of the week.
2:05 p.m. I share what I've worked on with the rest of the group. There is some mild relief and exhalations in our tiny, dimly-lit room. Apparently, some of the ladies tried to work on the song last night but weren't able to get very far. Glad I stopped to pick up my guitar.
2:06 p.m. The honing begins. Hannah, Anastasia, Jaila and Angela are all providing helpful feedback and we're whittling away to get at what might just become a good song. The bridge is problematic. We leave it alone for now.
2:10 p.m. Jonathan Lee stops by. He wants the second line of the verse to have the same melody as the first, and the third and fourth lines to both go up and build in intensity. The chorus is not exciting to him. Now the satisfaction of being somewhat ahead of the game quickly starts to feel like catching up in a hurry.
2:11 p.m. Did I mention Jonathan played my guitar? That was cool. You know what's not cool? Trying to replicate the feel of what he did with the melody of the verse without blatantly copying what he did.
2:15 p.m. Jeff Deyo stops by. Like Jonathan, he really likes the first line of the verse. We play the chorus, rewritten after Jonathan's direction, and he gives it some more tweaks. It is head-bobbin' fun.
2:18 p.m. Rick Barron (musician, songwriter) stops by. He's bobbin' his head a lot. I don't remember if he said anything or not. I just remember his head moving. A good sign.
2:20 - 2:50 p.m. A 30-minute blur. I picture clinicians popping in, grooving to the verse and chorus, smiling and moving around.
2:51 p.m. Uh, we need a bridge, ladies.
3:05 p.m. Whew, got a bridge. Chop off most of the original bridge words, focus on a two-line phrase that would be repeated to reach acceptable bridge length.
3:07 p.m. Rick Barron stops by again. He suggests we change it into a ballad. He's kidding.
3:10 p.m. I give Jonathan my phone number. He's going to text if we made the top five, although the way he is speaking it sounds like a virtual done deal. He wants a title. Jaila begins with the scripture reference when somebody interrupts with the title "Let Me Know." It makes sense, since the phrase is used a lot. Jonathan says, "Well, let me know," and we all laugh, because it's the title, but it also sounded like he wanted to know, but...yeah, you probably got the joke by now. If you don't, let me know.
3:15 p.m. Everybody is moving on, but I stay in the room for another few minutes to record the song on my phone. I think I have the melody memorized, but I'd hate to risk losing it. Based on the reaction of the clinicians, I feel like this is our contest to lose. And we did. But you already surmised that from the title.
3:53 p.m. Sitting in the last general session of the day when I get a text:
