First Dozen Song Lyrics Now Available
Post date: Oct 25, 2015 2:21:06 AM
I have finally forced myself to locate and type up the lyrics for all of the songs on the Moon Dreams album (released back in 2004). Go the Moon Dreams album page, then click on a song title subpage from the list.
www.scottcooley.com/albums/moon-dreams
Each individual song page now has complete and nicely typed lyrics displayed on the left pane. Although the album has 13 songs, the last one is an instrumental, so obviously no lyrics for that one, although I did post its chords. Heck, to make it even easier, here are the direct links:
click a song subpage link to view lyrics & song info:
Several people over the years have asked if my lyrics were available online somewhere, and now they are...for this album anyway. It was just a matter of me deciding to finally do it, and it wasn't as much of a pain as I thought it would be.
I am now thinking I can do the same for the other 5 albums in the near future. An ambitious, yet realistic expectation might be that if I do one album every Saturday, I could easily have all my released songs done by the end of 2015, this being late October. Knowing myself, I wouldn't want to promise such a timeline, however, since I know I'll likely be prone to forget all about it, be busy with other things I'd rather be doing instead, or simply not feel like doing it during some of the next several Saturdays. That means the great lyric posting project might spill over into next year. Heck, I've procrastinated doing it this long - over 10 years for Moon Dreams, so what's a few more months. The good thing about this renewed interest of mine, and for any demand there might be for them out there in the world, is that I'm now talking about months instead of years or not at all to make the lyrics to the songs I've written available on this web site for people to read.
The thing that pushed me over the edge of motivation was that I just happened to be cleaning up a few things on some song pages anyway, and decided to put a "placeholder" text box for lyrics on one song page. Then I thought I could just do a copy/paste thing for the rest of them. Once they all had blank lyric boxes, I then thought I would try one, which led to another, then they told two friends, and so on, and so on. Next thing I knew, the whole album was done.
Another motivating factor here is that I do want people to know what the lyrics to my released songs are before I die. Not that I'm about to die or anything, but it would be a shame for the actual lyrics to remain a mystery forever and die with me. Getting them "out there" gives me a similar satisfaction as releasing the songs themselves. Even if hardly anyone ever buys my music, I'm glad to know it's available, just in case. Like the t-shirt slogan I read on a shirt for sale in a songwriter magazine I was reading a while back that said "don't die with the music in you," I could relate, and now want to be sure I don't die with the lyrics in me either. I doubt my wife would sort through my old scraps of notebook paper and attempt such a thing after I'm not around anymore, and my songs are seriously among the things I'm most proud of in my life, believe it or not.
You never know when people will misinterpret the lyrics. I'm not the best singer in the world, and although I believe I record my vocals fairly well, and sing the lyrics in a way that make them clearly discernible, it could be some are not. I know there are many songs out there I've gotten wrong over the years, and once I found out what they truly were, now have fun laughing about them....
"I'm not talkin' 'bout the linen (movin' in)" - England Dan and John Ford Coley
You also never know if after you're gone, your songs live on and find renewed interest and increasing popularity. It's happened before, and will again, and it could conceivable happen to me, and when/if it does, people will want a reliable source of information to get the accurate lyics to these songs. Lots of people like music, and lots of people are curious for more information about the music they like. More than one might initially think. It's why wikipedia and imdb are among the most visited websites in the world, and it's why there are so many websites dedicated to providing popular song lyrics. I've looked up lyrics on the internet to songs I like before, from fairly reputable sources, too, and I just know they're incorrect. Admittedly, I've gotten way, way too carried away with this website in many ways, but one major reason for its existence, now that I've released music out into the world for people to buy and enjoy, is to create and maintain a single, authoritative source of information about that music I created.
Check back later this year, and you'll likely find a similar announcement about the next album, Lakeside Landing, as I work forward in time in release order from older to newer.