Maybe Sunday – Song and a Chat

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Episode #160: Maybe Sunday (Song starts at 4:45)

During the recording of an episode a few weeks back, the lyrics to ‘Maybe Sunday’ fell out of my song book. I said at the time “Hmmm maybe I should do an episode about writing that song.”

Today I picked up an old cassette tape an I discovered an old demo of ‘Maybe Sunday’. That clinched it.

This episode has turned into a quite a light and breezy episode, which is probably a reflection of this song.

While it’s a song of perhaps longing, wondering and dreaming, the style I wrote in was really a mid tempo sort of song with acoustic guitar strumming in mind.

Creating a song is an exercise in being lost in the moment. Well, lost to the world around me, but for me, it’s not a case of being lost. Every action and thought is quite a decisive thing.

It’s like ‘playing with a purpose’- and letting go of the outcome. It’s a great of example of just enjoying the ‘doing’. Perhaps that’s a big key of songwriting.

There’s an element of performance, I think, too. You lift yourself, you trust yourself: that your fingers on the keys are going to do good things, as you improvise and accompaniment for an as yet imagined melody – which you then ‘wing’ over the top.

It’s a fascinating process. It’s fun analysing aspects of what is really quite a complicated thing. For me it’s instinctive. How can that be?

Having the theory and playing chops under your belt certainly gives you confidence – and this: freedom. You’re free to have fun. I think having fun is huge part of the songwriting process.

So I wrote the lyrics one evening, back in 1993. Wow, I’ve just realised that was 30 years ago (goes silent for a moment) … time passing is not something I dwell on too often.

That’s one of the great things about being a very active creative person, fully engaged in a number of disciplines. You are so often fully engaging so much of yourself in the moment, the past and future are forgotten about for the moment.

This amount of focus is the key. But for me, it’s not sort of furiously involved, it’s a gentle engagement, it’s free feeling and – again – it’s fun. A joy, if you well.

At the time I wrote ‘Maybe Sunday’, I was alone, thinking about someone – a potential romance, wondering whether it was going to happen.

At the same time my life was rapidly changing. I’d left town, was as free as I’d ever been. I was gigging when I could, fishing when I felt like it and… songwriting.

This sense of personal freedom is something that I constant allude to in my blog writing, as it turns out.

On that note, I’m very grateful I’ve chosen this creative path. Yes it has its challenges, but it is just so rewarding.

I enjoy composing in different genres. On this episode I mention and play a bit of Albertine for the album ‘The Unfolding’ – Gentle piano solo.

Then there’s ‘Mobile Phone’…from the album ‘The Roughest Cut’ – total rock.

I also paint seascapes, and draw cartoons animals …yes, there’s variety in my days.

I mention these other things as I did say I’d put my blog in the show notes: www.petepascoe.wordpress.com

I hope you enjoy hearing about how ‘Maybe Sunday’ came together.

Here we go…