Prompt- it all happened before I could tell him

You stand there paralyzed unsure of what to say
Frozen and afraid not sure of the right way
To express the mess that you have made
Everything has happened so fast
You stand on a pile of decisions you regret
On a mission to repair what’s still there
But he just walks away

You always find the perfect words after the fact
You always draw the perfect card in the next hand
These aren’t the sort of things you can plan
But you wish you could change the past

There’s so many things I wish I could do differently
I try not to regret 
But I know that if I was then who I am now 
I would have said the things that I wish I could have said
It’s like I know where all the breaks in the road are
All the different paths and I know that I can pinpoint the moment 
That changed it all and just friggin laugh

Oh I always find the perfect words after the fact
I always draw the perfect card in the next hand
These aren’t the sort of things you can plan
But I wish you could change the past

Sometimes things flow so easily
Syncronicity is some inside joke 
Where you feel you are exactly where you need to be
Sometimes you gotta just make a choice
And be open to what you get
Life’s not a test it’s an improv set

Always find the perfect words after the fact
Always draw the perfect card in the next hand
These aren’t the sort of things you can plan
But you wish you could change the past

Hindsight

cinderella changes majors

prayer in Ab

I wrote this song for a songwriting challenge. I tried something different by writing the lyrics as I created the track using the drums and synth motif as framework. I'd describe this genre as "band you would hear at the Bronze "(the bar from Buffy). 

Lyrics: 
you walk down the same the hallway
you’ve been down before
You make your way thru
to a  familiar door

all around you hear the same sounds
from scenes you keep replaying
You stand outside the door way
You know exactly what they’re saying

 you find yourself killing time
in the hallway of memories

You stand at the threshold
Revisiting the past
watching mistakes unfold
You can’t correct you can only look back

The images cast a spell
You’re frozen in place
you were so young then
filled with guilt you couldn’t erase

That’s the design
of the hallway of memories


You can’t erase it 
though some things may shift and change
It’s an overwhelming world 
familiar yet strange

stay awhile

drink your wine 
in the hallway of memories

Hallway of memories

A comedy song written by asking friends for their favorite pet peeves and hot takes. Good times.

This Is The Hill I'll Die On

Experimental track written for February Album Writing Month 2020.

Reign reign

sometimes your student doesn't show up and you write a song using the extra time you gained.

The Student "no Showed" Song

Bear In A Trap

sleep and fight

Another FAWM experiment. The prompt was waiting and I had an hour to write something. I've wanted to do something involving my "crown of thorns" which is a weird little percussion instrument I got at the Experimental Sound Garage Sale last summer from Kaiser instruments. I found two notes on it that I could drone, built the piano part over that and then improvised the lyrics over that.

daybreak

Hello welcome to the land of demos! My sound cloud profile is where I keep fresh tracks from songwriting challenges. The fully produced music will live elsewhere. My musical aesthetic is "folk rock cabaret" if you like Rachel Bloom, Tori Amos, Amanda Palmer, Regina Specktor and/or act 2 of your favorite musical then you'll like my stuff.

Gail Gallagher (demos)

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