Song of redemption and letting go of the past with a litigious undercurrent

Free at Last

If I Didn't Care was written by Jack Lawrence and was originally sung and recorded by The Ink Spots in 1939.  (cover art: detail from charcoal by clara lynn baxter)

Ifididntcare2

and so the moon

Revised R&B, Southern Rock Track with horns from Reason's Vintage Horns added. Just learning how to arrange/ mix/sequence in  this plug-in. So much fun. Thoughts?

Lucky

Another Rean 7 Vintage Horns arranging experiment. Just scratching the surface of arranging in this plugin and having a real funky good time. How's it sound on you platform of choice. If you're gonna comment, be specific and tell me phones or speks , levels etc... love. thx...

Monkey

Waiting

rough mix of newer song uploaded for compression test and feedback. thoughts? thanks to Lindell Stacy-Horton for the viola and violin tracks.

TDOK - TQOT

Drink You Away

MyMommaSaid

Sorry4U

bedtrack for love song for musical in utero

Flower in Your Hair

V5 Bed track for Final Number in Musical - Group Dance Scene

ATown Funk

Story - Tick

I wrote this in about 2007. I'd actually called off the relationship. I remember pretty clearly sitting at the bar at Omar's, telling her that I didn't want to date anymore and her surprise and indignation. She walked out and I was instantly remorseful. This is one incredible woman. She's really beautiful, she's smart, she's funny, (she's engaged now) congrats to you both and incidentally she is and will always be my very good friend and I have her expressed permission and insistence that her name remains as sung. So in my resulting turmoil I penned about 15 verses. I honed it down to the three you hear but others included... "you're just like a ... cat. a whore, a song, a boat, and the one that pissed her off the most...

You're just like a tree
Beautiful to behold
More beautiful as you grow old
But a tree, will always strive to grow
And that's just something you'll never know
So I guess you're not exactly like a tree...

I liked the way it turned around each verse. I say very humbly that it reminded me of a Dylan trick.

Anyway, when I'd finished penning it, I typed and printed it, put it in an envelope and left it on her desk at work while she was out. An hour later she walked into The Beau Club where I was having lunch and read me the riot act in front of the entire bar, stating it was the most juvenile sophomoric bullshit she'd ever heard in her life and not to ever call or try to touch base with her again.

Several months later when the dust had settled, she called on a Sunday night and insisted that we go to the Wild Goose for open mike so she could hear "her" song. We did. A lot of my songwriter friends really like this song and of course that's the sweetest compliment of all. I suppose it's funny and its also sad.

There's a word for a song or poem that is written as an apology for another song or poem. It's called a palinome. The palinome for "Tick" is titled "Thank You Note". Its included on this project also.

Thank you MNT for your lasting friendship and inspiration. You are a fantastic woman. xo

Tick

Story - Rag Doll...

My mother Marilyn wrote this song probably when she was in college at Chatham (then the Pennsylvania Women's College) in about 1951. Incidentally, my grandmother Mabel and my sister Lynn attended the same school. Lynn likes to point out she actually graduated from there.

This rendition was recorded in my living room in Ashland this year using the same baritone uke she wrote it on and later willed to me. It's a beautiful, mahogany, 1948 Arthur Godfrey endorsed Vega that she taught me to play when I was about eight or nine.

I found it's a pretty complicated little ditty when I figured it out this year. I knew it in my head but when I sat down and learned it, I gained a new respect for the chordal structure. It's a forlorn little tale about a fella who decides a Rag Doll would be better than his Real Doll.  It paints a storyboard in my head. No ...  like a Buster Keaton, black and white thing where she comes to life and winks at the audience at the end...

My mom was a pistol as anyone who knew her will tell you and she finished her bachelors, got her masters degree and raised three kids as a single mother. She passed away last year and her memorial service in Buhl Park in Sharon, Pa. brought together a lot of wonderful people who shared their memories of a smart, courageous and kind person that we loved and admired.  Thanks so much to those who attended. It was so wonderful to see you all.  My sis asked to play this and I brought the uke cross country in my carry on expecting to. It sat with other memorabilia on a table but I was way too choked up when it came time to speak to pull it off. So here it is now...Love you Mom. Lovely song.

Ragdoll

Story -  Amanda...

I came home one night this January and wrote down the first two lines:
"if you hear me say Amanda...read me my Miranda..."
Sometimes it only takes one couplet and you're off. The diminished chord thing comes from hearing my grandpa Ray and mother play piano as a child. I asked my friend Dal Carver to listen to it and consider recording the piano part,  as he plays circles around me but he just gave me some brilliant suggestions for passing chords and said he "liked the way I played it" .

It was inspired by an infatuation that I knew wasn't going anywhere. Don't get the wrong impression from the Miranda reference here. There would have been nothing illegal in this relationship blossoming, I just knew I wasn't going to pursue it for a number of reasons, even though the attraction was sincerely intense.

That weekend, I sat down at my piano and it wrote itself in about an hour. I recorded it the next day...adding bass, an acoustic guitar part, a dumb drum loop, some backing vocals and called it done... coming soon. the real "finished" version

Amanda

the first thing my mother taught me on the baritone ukelele when I was about eight or nine

My Sister Kate

rough draft of an odd piece that has been demanding to be finished for months. out here for feedback... feel free

baxtersmusic

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