Mixed by Scott Spelbring @ Dragonfly Studios
Mastered by Brad Blackwood @ Euphonic Masters

(Special thanks to Roger Joseph Manning, Jr for contributing piano)

© 2013 Scott Lester

11.  Hope & Madness - Eighteen Seconds

www.whatwouldlennondo.com

What Would Lennon Do
Songs are a mystery. You write them for different reasons throughout your life as a songwriter. You start out writing them because you don’t want to just copy, you want to make your own. Kye and I are around the same age and share a similar journey and like so many writers our age it started with the Beatles. We knew they we different . They weren’t a manufactured pop product, they wrote their own songs. They started out writing well crafted love songs but within a few short years they wrote anthems. They wrote about what was going on around them. They wrote about what we were all going through, they opened doors and we followed. 
John Lennon in particular seemed to write songs without a filter. He wrote with such simple truth and conviction that it was almost painful at times. A message of peace and love that echoed the times and our youth but managed to be timeless. Kye and I didn’t set out to write a tribute to the philosophy of the 60’s or the Beatles but these things are so much a part of our creative DNA that one instrument (An Epiphone Casino like Lennon played) led to a few chords that led to a melody that resonated with Kye and led
her to write something that didn’t emulate Lennon as much as continue the conversation. 
There are voices of Peace and Love in every generation. It's a message that is both personal and universal. I guess our hope for this song is that it might serve as another reminder that we are all in this together.
http://www.whatwouldlennondo.com

What Would Lennon Do

I’m lonely, so lonely - washed up on the shore
Untie me, unchain me – I can’t breathe no more
Been holding out so long for you to rescue me
And when tomorrow comes I’ll still be waiting, anticipating

I’m stranded, I'm stranded, stranded, so stranded 
On the edge of love, 
Stranded, stranded, so stranded
On the edge of love – on the edge of love
On the edge of love – on the edge of love

Please save me, I’m falling – a castle built on sand
I’m waving, I’m drowning – just reaching out my hand
In dreams I hear you calling ‘sail away with me’ 
But when the morning comes I’ll still be waiting, anticipating

Chorus

So hear me when I call – don’t sail away from me
Cos when the morning comes I’ll still be waiting, anticipating

I’m stranded, I'm stranded, stranded, so stranded
Oh stranded, stranded, stranded, so stranded
Don't leave me on my own, no
I'm lost and all alone
Don't wanna live, I don't wanna live my life
On the edge of love, on the edge of love
On the edge of love, on the edge of love

STRANDED

Thirty days of rainfall
That don’t seem so painful
Gazing at my boots when I’m alone
Cos soon I’m in my Chevy
Before the sun sets on the levee
That’s why I call Louisiana home

Lying in my hotel room
Listening to some Cajun tune
I’m crying to my folks there on the phone
Get me on that jumbo
Fix me a sea of Gumbo
That’s why I call Louisiana home

Catch the 16:30 fast to Evangeline
I can’t wait to see you again
If I thought that I was bound for New Orleans
Well I just might outrun the train
Yeah, yeah

The world’s a big old kitchen
Still I get to itchin
Wherever these here southern feet may roam
I can’t get no higher
Than walking around the bayou
That’s why I call Louisiana home

Take me home

My Louisiana, my Louisiana, my Louisiana home (repeat)

MY LOUISIANA HOME

Winner of the UK Songwriting Contest 2022 (Adult Contemporary category)

Lyric video: https://vimeo.com/452241536

I can hear your song from a place inside my room
And I understand that you’ll be leaving soon
Didn’t think that I would see you again
But here we are together my old friend

When we talk – we talk about those ordinary things
The simple pleasure that a conversation brings
But when all is said and done
And you turn towards the sun
Remember me this way
Then spread your wings and fly away 

You’re a bird of beauty and of wisdom I know
As surely as the gentle breezes blow
I can feel the sting of something in my eye
As I watch you swooping through the endless sky

When we talk – we talk about those ordinary things
The simple pleasure that a conversation brings
But when all is said and done
And you turn toward the sun
Remember me this way
Then spread your wings and fly away

I can hear your song from a place inside my room
And I understand that you’ll be leaving soon
Maybe you came here to mess with my mind
But I know you’re really not the hurting kind


Cos when we talk – we talk about those ordinary things
The simple pleasure that a conversation brings
But when all is said and done
And you turn toward the sun
The words we shared I won’t forget
Nothing’s lost – I’ve no regrets
So feel the wind upon your face
Me to you - a last embrace
Remember me this way
Then spread your wings and fly away
Then spread your wings and fly away

WHEN WE TALK

ANOTHER PLACE & TIME (orchestral instrumental)

My Everything
I ran across lyrics posted on a songwriting FB page posted by someone I didn’t know - but the words really spoke to me. As I read the lyrics I heard melodies and music in my head. So I reworked some of the lyrics and recorded the song in my home studio. What you, hopefully listen to here, is the end result. 
What I found out later was that the writer of the lyrics does not play an instrument or sing…he writes poems and lyrics. Poems and lyrics that deserve to be complete songs. I encourage anyone that’s a writer to connect with other people to reach that end goal. In my case; two strangers now fulfill what’s deep in their souls by not being afraid to share what they love to do most…write songs.

My Everything

It wasn’t meant to be part of the plan
To let someone like you slip through my hands
To stand here while my head is spinning round
To call your name and then to hear no sound

Too many words I can’t forget
But not enough said to forgive today
Too many hours that I regret
But without you how can I live today?

I still see there on the floor the tears that I chose to ignore
A few short steps away
And very soon they’ll start to dry like raindrops from the sky
Or they’ll be swept away

The air I breathe inside this place is you
The walls I touch have you inside them too
I close the window just to hold you in
I can’t let you escape me once again

Too many words you can’t forget
But not enough said to forgive today
Too many hours that I regret
But without you how can I live today?

I ask the mirror to reflect the thing of beauty that I wrecked
Before you turned away
Does the world need more than one, one more slowly setting sun
But I can’t look away

Today – as I listen to the rain 
I hear the storm clouds shouting out your name
Today is all I have now you are gone
And tomorrows that go on and on and on

Too many words you can’t forget
But not enough said to forgive today
Too many hours that I regret
But without you how can I live today?

If I could I’d turn back time just to take your hands in mine
And fan this dying flame
I close my eyes but cannot rest without the face I once caressed
Oh how I wish that it was yesterday
Wish that it was yesterday today
I wish that it was yesterday today

TODAY feat Dan Chettoe

A canyon stands between us, you and me
As deep and wide as our love used to be
Little stones have turned to mountains
Both my hands have lost their grip
And two sailors risk a drowning as they leave the sinking ship

I watch the changing colours in the sky
And know this sunny day will soon be night
Can I stand to pull the curtain?
Shall I reach to draw the blind?
This time there’s no escaping, no mistaking all the signs

Games that we play no more
Words that we say no more
Is there still something for my heart to do?
Too cool to care we are
Like dust in the air we are
Is this the last hurrah for me and for you?

I count the passing strangers on the road
But where they may be heading I don’t know
We could dance around in circles
Like the moon up in the sky
But I’d stop the world from turning if your lips could tell me why

Chorus

THE LAST HURRAH

My (faithful as can be) cover of one of my favorite songs - "Ghost At Number One" by legendary Bay Area powerpop outfit Jellyfish. Anthony Brennan's transcription really helped me assemble the whole thing.

Kirk Howe - all vocals
Hans Becker - harpsichord
Andy McRory - Höfner bass, all guitars, drum programming, mixing
Liam McRory - cello

Ghost at Number One

I am a songwriter that is bombarded with song ideas daily…so I write, sing, record, and play all the instruments in my humble little home studio; TradeMark Recording Studio. I take what I hear in my head and share it on a musical format. I don’t claim to be a singer or an established musician but when you write all your own material - you do what you have to do to get the songs recorded. At the end of the day I’m just a songwriter wanting his songs to be listened to and hopefully enjoyed. 
Peace.

My Everything

Mark Oliver

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