Day 26: Brand New Day

 

Day 26: Brand New Day

Part of my song-a-day writing project for January 2024

Lyrics:

Every morning when I rise
Every morning when I rise
To my feet
I feel the rhythm of a song
I feel the rhythm of a song
With a marching beat

And then I put my new shoes on
An open door reveals the dawn
And as I gaze upon the sun
I walk away
Into a brand new day

In the evening when my body aches
I pray to heaven for a bed to lay me down
When I'm dreaming, it's a vivid picture
All the colors and the textures
And the sounds

But then sensation starts to fade
A cloud of darkness fills my brain
And then my mind rejuvenates
And I awake
To a brand new day

A brand new day
A brand new day
A brand new day
It's a brand new day

Every morning I'm surprised
Every morning I'm surprised
It starts again
Again, again, again, again

And then I put some coffee on
And then I fight another yawn
And in ten minutes I'll be gone
And drive away
Into a brand new day

***

Details:

Boy, this was a tough one to write. I started with "Every morning when I rise" with that rapid fire phrasing, and that made everything harder. Because you can't just put any word in there and make it sound natural. I'm not sure it sounds natural even with the words I came up with, but I tried to find ones that fit the cadence. I liked the rhythmic hook of the song at first, but then I grew to hate it, then I started liking it again when I got closer to finishing it.

I went through several iterations of what it was about. The first verse came out plainly, but then what? At first I was going to go back to some bad experience the singer had the night before, or some weeks ago-- anyway, something that was eating at him. Then the idea was that he starts out feeling good, but by the end of the day he's depressed again, but then sleeping makes him feel better in the morning, and so on.

I couldn't seem to make that work, so I decided to make the second verse more generic. Just describing what it's like to go to bed at the end of the day.

The bridge is a cop out; and I threw it in there just to get it done.

The final verse was cool. I like that it turned out to be less optimistic and more realistic than the first verse. I have a hard time writing 100% happy songs.