Notes for Mitchell, both for this song specifically and for my general process and "goals" for MM. This will hopefully help explain where I'm coming from as a writer and why I make certain choices.

In general, I use this group to sharpen my writing and discipline for consistency, push myself to learn more in terms of production, tools, etc. and also generate real material for various projects that have evolved in the 4 years + of doing the group - being my Gan Family Rocks family band, some solo songs, and creating instrumental tracks that Flytrap uses for licensing and to write new songs w/ other artists. And from week to week (and depending on how the song comes out or which direction) I try to find a home for it in one of these lanes. I just want to explain this, because often times I create a musical track and that kind of drives the direction of the song - and ultimately the lyrics may not be something that are used with the piece of music, which happens quite often. I still push myself to write a song/story, knowing that it won't ultimately be used.

Specific for this week / this round. I am taking to heart the dedicated writing (journaling) each day, and will try to do that each day. For this week, I spent the first 3 days of my week writing for 3 minutes each day - not songs or lyrics, just whatever popped into my head. On day 4, in parallel I started creating a musical track, and on day 5 I sifted through the words I had been writing and developed a "story" for what the song would be about. At least for this week, the theme of the words and vibe of the music didn't really match so much, but I went ahead bc I don't have time to start over and did the best I could. For this round, I plan to work on a lot of track-based music - so the process will hopefully evolve and I can make more meaningful songs, but we'll have to see.

I do most of my mm work sitting on a bus dropping off / picking up the Gan kids (on Garegeband iOs) so that often dictates how / what I compose. Also, I've never considered myself a great lyricist or even someone that paid that much attention to lyrics, as much as catchy choruses or hooks (both in my tunes and when listening to other writers). So... I am going to take it as a personal challenge for this round to pay more attention to lyrics and push myself to focus on the quantity of lyrics and melody. But... given the reality of time and life, sometimes there isn't enough time!

This week - structure is something that comes very easily to me, especially when working in iOs where you are basically building sections and then assembling the song. For this one, started with a vibe, built an open / intro section, and then built that up to a chorus. I often like to start a song w/ a tease of the chorus. For the verses, the music led me to a double-time feel, with fast flow... when then opened up into a smooth, long flowing bridge - and then into the chorus. intro/Ch/v1/b1/Ch/v2/b2/Ch2/Ch-out

For lyrics, it was hard to sift through all these random thoughts and find a coherent theme - but I had an incredibly busy week, being solo-dad this week along with a lot of outside projects, work, etc. The theme that kept appearing was mind running, trying to keep up, etc. I have a friend in the building who always tells me "slow down" - take care of yourself, and this song was basically me trying to talk to myself and encourage to just take it slow. Anyway, there's nothing at all great in the lyrics and almost certainly not a song I would ever use (but we will use the inst). Hope that is what you're looking for in terms of "showing the work" and promise that in weeks to come, there won't be so much explanation at least in my general approach.