One of your very best, an absolute masterclass

A master craftsman at work. Love what you do Todd.

Excellent track with really cool guitar work

This is a beautifully crafted song, Todd. The melody and lyrics resonate deeply. 🌌🎶🖤 Well done!

Hey man, these chords are pure magic, as is the way you arpeggiate them with your exquisite fingerpicking. Wonderful song you have here!

💗🙏🕊️🙂‍↕️😏🙂‍↔️🥺😟😧🥹💔😻😘🥴🕊️🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️🥺🥺🥹😻💗😻💗😻💗😻💗😎😎😎👋🥀🥀🔮🔮🙂‍↕️❣️😘😘🫣🤔😎😎❤️❤️😊😚😊🫠🫠😶

Andy McLean joins me again with his soulful and soaring soprano sax on our original "What's On Your Mind?".  Follow Andy's great horn playing, arranging and composing skills here:  https://soundcloud.com/mcleanaf. 
Thanks as always for your generous time listening, for your comments and for your shares.  

what's on your mind?

A diminutive woman in her 7th decade, Laurie is a dynamo of personality and energy living an outsized life as she still works, loves to travel, and when home, playing in our church band as a guitarist and sharing music as a multi-instrumentalist.  She is also a personal hero in how she powered through chemo, invasive surgery, then radiation to arrest the progress of a rare cancer.  She would tell you it was by the Grace of God, but I would quickly add He worked in concert with her faith and "joie de vivre" of which she has an abundance.  Not knowing what to give her for her birthday and Christmas (a month apart), I gave her a song with her band nickname as the title.  For you, "Laurie Lou" my dear friend, guitar sister, and bandmate:)

Laurie Lou

All rights reserved January, 3 2025

Inside, the heart still aches
There’s no way around, all the sights and sounds that greet the day
What will it take
Just To climb that hill, such a bitter pill..that lingers there

Outside, the air is light, as the sun appears, and you feel the fears
Begin to grow…another fight
Then you hold the tears and the yesteryears
Inside your mind…

Now I’ll be on my way watching days go by
Searching to find a way and wondering why

Til then I’ll try again, as I watch the change through the windowpanes
And soldier on into a world
Such a pointless cause stuck in these four walls
As darkness falls

Now I’ll be on my way as days go by
Wasting away and a wondering why…

Darkness Falls

Another from the back catalog.. recently re-recorded. Around the time this was written I had just resumed playing and writing after a 22 year layoff. It was at the tail end of a whole lot of ugly and nasty moments ... but the dust was finally settling and I needed time to collect my thoughts and heal a bit.  Mid-Life thing..? Yeah...
I remember distinctly writing this in the basement..  Early on I didn't have very good guitar skills ( At least I don't think so.. )  and this song was particularly hard for me to play and sing at the same time. I spent a long time writing it.. maybe a few months. I would sit and drink Dry Red and write songs.. I recall working on this with my song writing companion " Little Penguin ".😆  ( Cheap Australian Dry Red... )...  So that didn't help matters.
I have since, played this live thousands of times and can play it with or without dry red and eyes closed..

Lyrics

Don't you know that I get
Plenty of rest
because you know I know what's best
for these old bones
and don't you know that I drink
A little too much wine
You know i've got plenty of time on my hands
I need someone who understands
I've got to get my rest
so I can look my best
for when Big things start coming my way

Don't you know that I sleep till 10:15
with a couple of snacks and a couple of naps
in between
and don't you know that I sit
and read plenty of books
I might just mosey down into the kitchen and cook
I realize how this must look
but i've got to get my rest so I can look my best
for when big things start coming my way

I am a man.. of limited means
all the fancy things in this world
they don't add up to a hill of beans
I've got to save my strength
you know i've got to lay low
I've got to get my rest so I can look my best
for when big things start coming my way
oh yeah big things..are coming.. my way.

Big Things ( with Merlot )

Cast of Characters:
Joe Stroffolino-- @joseph-stroffolino -- Taylor 114ce acoustic guitar, main vocals, harmony vocals, lyrics, composition
Llanpsych -- @llanpsych -- Tez – Fender HSS Telecaster electric guitar
TexMex Shaman–@texmex-shaman –Stephen– Tom Anderson Custom T electric guitar, mix, mastering, and production
Mistermark-- @user-432503709 -- Mark – piano
K2 and the Three [and the Four]--@k2andthe3, @k2-kara -–Ken–drums
Entheogenic Psychonaught (Josh Clary)–@josh-clary-1 –- four string Fender Precision Bass with a plectrum

This song began as one of Joe's catchy, lyrically centered songs, which he wrote on his acoustic guitar, and filled in with VST instruments. He came up with the lyrics by sharing ideas with fellow SoundCloud musician Michele Ansani, who began the thought process of a song about becoming a musician.
Knowing that Josh is a fan of his work, Joe offered this song to him in hopes that he'd share it with the rest of the band. Of course, Josh jumped at the opportunity to work on his song, and immediately shared it with the rest of the group.
Ken went to work first, adding his driving, excting drums. Josh was having a hard time coming up with a good bass line for it, until Ken suggested that he use the power of the 1/8 note to propel it. Tez was up next with his clever fills you hear throughout the first half of the song. Stephen came along right after and matched Tez's energy for the guitar fills in the second half of the song.
It was still missing a solo in the designated spot, though, so Mark stepped up with his innovative piano solo you hear in the middle. If it sounds a little mechanical, that's because he's using an arpeggiator to achieve the effect. We thought it sounded good in a song about AI, though.
Once all the parts were dialed in, and Joe had gotten all his vocals tuned up, we asked one of our resident pros, Stephen, to mix it for us. He did that and mastered it, too, expertly, as always.
This is the first song we've ever done with Joe, and don't expect it to be the last. We all really enjoyed putting together, in no small part because Joe is such a competent, receptive, and gracious collaborator. We all hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Lyrics by Michele Ansani and Joe Stroffolino
Music by Joe Stroffolino (@joseph-stroffolino)

When I was thirteen I picked up my first guitar
it was my mother's, it only had one nylon string
I tried to play it like a rock star
I learned to play the Coca-Cola jingle
So I could teach the world to sing
When I was fourteen, I put on six new strings
I learned to play Beatles, I learned a Bob Dylan song
I sounded out of tune but I tried to carry on
At fifteen I wrote my first original tune
So bad it sounded like it might have been written by a baboon
When I was sixteen, I got a new guitar for my birthday
The metal strings sawed through my fingers
But I continued to play
And the calluses formed and every day I learned a brand new chord
I was obsessed with that guitar and I never grew bored.
I wrote songs every day and most of them were a mess
But I believed that through hard work, I could achieve success
Malcom Gladwell wrote a book that said it takes ten thousand hours
To become and expert at your craft
But now all it takes is two commands and an enter
And in two minutes you have ten versions of the same damn new song,
You just have to choose the type
folk, rock, rap, pop, metal, jazz, trap or blues.
You don't even need to write the lyrics,
your push a few buttons let the AI choose.

And people will think your songs are great even though you didn’t write or play a single note.
When I was 20, I did my first concert, it was time
it occurred in a village square
there were four cats all friends of mine
I was still using the plectrum and sometimes I got the chords wrong
at thirty I finally wrote what I thought was a decent song
It had a very well thought out structure

AI Sucks - Eclectic Collective

Music : Janne Hennie & Little Man
Vocal & lyrics : Janne Hennie

Thought I had everything I needed to feel free
But somewhere along the way, I lost me
Without direction, or knowing what to do
I blamed you...

I had a vision of finding something more
A stronger me
But I wasn't sure
where to look, I had no clue
So I blamed you....

I searched every corner, but still couldn't find
The freedom I was looking for
I went blind
Didn't even consider to look for the truth
I just blamed you....

I got tired of searching around
My longing for freedom
I just couldn't find
Couldn't bear to look anymore
So I blamed you....

What was I thinking?
Why couldn't I see
My own freedom was always within me
But I was blind
I was a fool
Blamed it all on you.....

I Blamed You

Music: Little Man & Janne Hennie
Lyrics & Vocal: Janne Hennie
Instruments & Mix: Little Man

Lyrics:

Thought I had everything I needed to feel free
But somewhere along the way, I lost me
Without direction, or knowing what to do
I blamed you...

I had a vision of finding something more
A stronger me
But I wasn't sure
where to look, I had no clue
So I blamed you....

I searched every corner, but still couldn't find
The freedom I was looking for
I went blind
Didn't even consider to look for the truth
I just blamed you....

I got tired of searching around
My longing for freedom
I just couldn't find
Couldn't bear to look anymore
So I blamed you....

What was I thinking? 
Why couldn't I see
My own freedom was always within me
But I was blind
I was a fool
Blamed it all on you.....

Music and Lyrics Copyright 2025 Joe Stroffolino
Vocals Joe Stroffolino
Guitar's: Fender Squire picking track  and Taylor 114ce strumming track Joe Stroffolino
Violin and Bass PG Music real tracks
Drums EZ drummer 3
Piano Logic Pro Session Player track 

All these people who claim they were abducted by alien UFO’s
They say they took them up onto the spaceship and examined them from head to toe.
Most people think those stories are made up, but what if they’re actually true
It kind of makes you wonder what motivates those aliens to do the things they do
If I ever get abducted by aliens from outer space, I think I might ask if I could hitch a ride off this crazy place. 
People who believe we couldn’t have built the pyramids without alien assistance
There’s days when I can’t find my car keys without lots of searching and persistence. 
Maybe we’re just 2 legged creatures and the earth’s an exotic alien zoo. 
And they come here on safari to see what we’re up to
If I ever get abducted by aliens from outer space, I think I might ask if I could hitch a ride off this crazy place. 
Even if they don’t consider me to be much better than a trained monkey
I could play my guitar to cheer them up whenever they feel grumpy.
They say the speed of light is as fast as you can possibly go
Maybe those aliens have access to information we don’t know
Maybe they just look at us in the same way scientists study bugs
They read the work of our most brilliant minds and they just shrug
Maybe someday if we start World War three, they’ll stop the missiles from firing
Or maybe they’ll just let us blow ourselves up because they find our behavior so tiring
Maybe someday if they think we’re ready, they’ll land a spaceship in times square
And although they’re usually naked, they’ll put on some underwear
If I ever get abducted by aliens from outer space, I think I might ask if I could hitch a ride off this crazy place. 
Even if they don’t consider me to be much better than a trained monkey
I could play my guitar to cheer them up whenever they feel grumpy.
There's days on earth when it feels like it might be kind of nice to get away
And getting abducted by aliens just might be okay.

If I Ever Get Abducted

Music: Little Man & Janne Hennie
Lyrics & Vocals: Janne Hennie
Instruments & Mix: Little Man

Lyrics:

1
When I was younger, I had big dreams
Where did they go.....?
I was fearless, the future me
I didn't know....

Chorus:
Life became so much tougher
Everything so much rougher
But living has made me stronger
Than I was, when I was younger...

2
I changed my colors so many times
Had so much doubt...
Was I purple, or maybe red..?
How could I know...

Chorus
Life became so much tougher
Everything so much rougher
But living has made me stronger
Than I was, when I was younger...

3
So many secrets.. It was hard
Not to reveal
But I believed what I was told...
Was so naive....

Chorus
Life became so much tougher
Everything so much rougher
But living has made me stronger
Than I was, when I was younger....

Living has made me stronger
Than I was, when I was younger...

When I was younger, I couldn't se
The future me....

My Future Me

I have added some vocals to the track and think its getting there. Please feel free to comment as i really appreciate the feed back.

Mental Escapade

A Ghost In The Home - Original Demo

I am amazed at the level of talented artists encountered on this site.  Sharing and providing feedback is such an effective way to nurture the creative process.  I am so inspired by many of you.  My songs consist of mostly live instruments and voice.  An organic approach to song writing with a few surprises in the mix.  Please feel free to comment and download if you like!  Todd

Darkness Falls

tbone711

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