Original Song Lyric: My Love

Unfortunately, I never dated any of my early songs; I simply scribbled them out onto any handy scraps of paper - I was usually in a hurry to record them before they were forgotten. Once I was satisfied with the lyric, and that usually meant with the melody as they often came out of my head (?) together, I carefully copied them out into a hard-backed note book using a fountain pen (remember those?) and in my best writing. I reckon I could have been a doctor with that skill level.

The same  applied to the guitar accompaniments really, in fact the chord structure often suggested how the melody progressed. However, in this case I rarely bothered to make a note of the chords and any instrumental flourishes. I never developed longer instro pieces because it was all about the songs at the time. Surprising, you may think since my main inspiration was Hank Marvin and The Shadows. But both sides of my music were kept apart and never the twain did meet. But I digress ...

Over the years, I must have written hundreds of songs, a lot were never written into the notebooks because they were inferior for one reason or another or reminded me of another song which I may have heard on the radio or TV. I was scrupulous about that. But certainly not all survived to find favour by winning a place in my notebooks. I now have to rely on events, people and places to try and date the songs, that is why the dates I quote, when I do, are so loosely defined. Nowadays I write song much less frequently, and they are immediately typed into the computer where I keep a journal since they can be easily edited. I am also adding my older songs to this journal slowly but surely. Which is what sparked the idea for this whole project.

But for now, here is another of those very early songs, I have no memories of any sort about this song; why, when or where it came from. It is entitled, "My Love":-

MY LOVE

My Love, 

What have I done to hurt you, won't you tell me?

What have I done to make you turn against me?

oh my Love, Oh my Love

My Love, 

Did you really mean those things that you said to me?

Did you realise how those things cut right through me?

And hurt me, deep inside

(bridge)

Won't you give me another little chance?

Tell me where I went wrong.

I'm ready to take all of the blame,

If you tell me where I went wrong.

My Love,

What's it gonna take to get us back together?

There's really such a lot could hold us two together.

Oh my Love, stay my Love

Oh my Love, stay my Love ….

Hear the song on my blog, Guitar Bashin' or maybe on the musical story A Ukulele Journey. It may take a little while to post to both sites as it is now past my bedtime, well I am getting on a bit. Back with more on this project and more original lyrics soon,

A new companion site to this blog

With the imminent release of my second book to be published on Amazon, I have decided to set-up a new static web-site to  promote any and all of my boooks which are currently in the pipeline.

The second published book (of 32 pages) will be live on the Amazon site this week.

In the book I share my experiences over the last 25 years as an amateur artist who has been helping to run a local art group. The past 5 years I have been the treasurer and now act as membership secretary and take the chair at group meetings. Although I do have support in many areas, I am working hard for the continuation of the group. I hope that this book might help thoseartists who for one reason or another cannot find a suitable group in their own location.

The web-site will be part of my promotional activities to drum up potential sales for my books, and although I will continue to post new books on this blog, I do not want to swamp my readers with continued reference/links to these publications.

For your reference the site is called "Poetry By John", not terribly original but all I could think of in a rush. Must have had an off-day, LOL

Published My First Book Of Poetry

I have finally done it!

I struggled through the process at CreateSpace, the site owned by Amazon to publish my first poetry book. I am waiting anxiously to see a proof copy before it goes on sale.

I say I struggled, but really the process itself is quite simple however I have always struggled with the images which accompany my poems. I originally posted copies of my first three ebooks on Scribd anad made them freely available for download. I have also embedded them into posts on this blog in the past. The images did not create a problem either on line or in printed copies.

They are mostly my own photographs which are at a resolution of 72dpi, but they are large so need to be considerably reduced for the ebooks. However, CreateSpace prints books at 300dpi and so rejected the intial images. I had to create images which were reduced but by a smaller amount for the createSpace proofs. hence I want to see how they really look.

Next time it should be much easier, having understood the issues. Or I could simply publish without the supporting images, which I don't really want to do.

I have selected my second volume (as published on Scribd) to be my first on Amazon. I have my reasons. However, I will be making the Scribd ebooks available for a fee once the physical books appear on Amazon. The e-books contain 37 - 40 pages but some of that is photos and notes about why I wrote a particular poem. If you want a copy of the ebooks then head over to Scibd and download soon whilst they are still free.

I don't honestly believe I will sell many copies of these books, although there are a couple of useful non-fiction books which are already written and which I will be adding to before publishing as physical books. I have higher hopes with these.

I would love to have a decent physical copy of the poetry books in my hands however, call it vanity but I do love books and have a large library. Much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife.

I will mention this again when I get the proof copy of that first book, so don't forget. If you are interested, head over to Scribd and download whilst still free.