Working on Songs

(MQMurphy photo)

Yes, that's right - since I have no plan for how to support myself when I can no longer carry heavy ladders, tools and lumber - I've decided that my salvation will be songwriting. You can help by sending your money in NOW to MQMurphy at P.O. Box 484 Cape May, NJ 08204.

Here's some raw (very raw) material from which I'll be trying to fashion a hummable ditty that'll become a radio favorite. There are other tunes, actually - some of them a bit farther along in the fashioning and polishing process - but I thought it might pique your interest to look at a bit of the raw material, so to speak.

So, you throw your bag in the back and you get in the car with your sister. She'll drive, because she likes to. It's four hundred miles, give or take, to that town above Boston where your Dad grew up. His brother, the last boy from that family of eleven kids, has finally moved on to the next phase.

We listen to music and we talk - talk about George's hundredth birthday that we celebrated with him last year. We'll see the cousins - now we're THAT generation, since there's no more of the other one left.

"Did you like the character that guy played on that other show?" What has that go to do with anything? "I don't know I was just wondering . . . passing the time with some idle chat . . .

he played a bad cop - but maybe not a bad guy, just a conflicted guy - stuck in a bad situation - anyway, he died. In the show, he died"

Can I make something out of that? You'd better believe it.

I have to believe it - because there's no Plan B.