Introduction

I started writing songs in high school. The first lyric I remember writing was for a song called "Chic East Sider," inspired by a satirical black and white poster featuring a foppish and pretentious fellow emblematic of the intellectuals and poseurs who frequented Downer Avenue on Milwaukee's East Side in the 1980s. (A subculture to which I would join in a few years- ha, ha - hopefully, not as a poseur).  The song featured all major barre chords and a staccato new wave rhythm. It wasn't very good, but it was a start.

This blog will serve as an archive of the song lyrics I have written since then, with an eye a toward publishing a print book of them in the future. It is not a "completist" project; I am just collecting together the song lyrics of mine that I really like. For most of the older lyrics, I am simply typing them up from memory. The lyrics were composed in a notebook or in my head and then memorized. It has been gratifying to dictate the lyrics into a document and to collect the songs in this way. I can see and hear melody influencing imagination, rhyme provoking narrative, the inner emotional life seeking images to express itself. 

Songwriting is a medium of the people and, unfortunately, this means it can be practiced merely as a way to amass wealth and affirm crassness or ignorance. Composing popular song also lacks much of a foothold in the academy, so its practitioners miss out on the benefits, support and social respect which that status confers. I am 56 years old and gifted songwriters I've known have died early, live in poverty, struggle with mental health, have stopped composing or work in obscurity. Perhaps collecting these lyrics together is a way to affirm the value of lyric writing, and thus, lyric writers. Our work remains vital and I am glad to be part of the community of people writing verse to be sung. 

-- DH, Chicago, August 5, 2023

Feel free to throw a few bones to support the cause at Buy Me a Coffee right here or Venmo @Dan-Hanrahan-7