For the last few months I’ve been busy recording in my home studio. The tracking process is done and I’ll be mixing and mastering over the next few weeks. While I’m wrapping things up I had an idea.
First off: I’ve decided to call this release ‘Cowboy In The Sunshine‘.
The title is based on an old family story from my childhood. I grew up in the woods in Byng, Oklahoma. Our family used to camp a lot out on Clayton Lake. Mom tells a story about one of our campouts when I’d stand on a big rock and entertain the family with a song called Cowboy In The Sunshine. This album has a southern rock/country lean to it… so I thought it’d be the perfect title and a nice full-circle moment for my lifelong journey with music.
For this album I thought it would be interesting to release the lyrics first before the music. I’ve never seen it done before but it seems like a good way (maybe the only way) to get people to read the words to the songs.
I’m not sayin’ you have to read ‘em or that these lyrics are especially well written or some kind of poetry. I just think that for some of us… knowing the stories inside of the songs make the listening experience better.
When I was a kid the music listening experience was different than the way it is now. These days most folks give a song a quick listen on their phone and then go back to whatever they were doin’.
But in my youth we went all the way. First you bought, borrowed or stole the album and brought it home. Next you opened the album with your hands and looked at all the pictures. Then you sat down in front of a stereo and listened to the whole thing from start to finish while reading the lyrics that were printed inside.
That is the process through which I fell in love with all of my favorite bands. So this lil’ lyrics foreplay is for the people out there who are like me. The folks who want to experience music as deeply as ya can and squeeze it to the last drop.
And I hope you enjoy it now and when the music comes out I hope you’ll enjoy that even more. That’s it. Now get to readin’.
I thoroughly enjoyed Malan’s foreword about how he went through the process of getting the album and bringing it home and unwrapping it to get to all the good stuff that was on that album cover, inside and out. That’s how I did it too. We had a stereo next to the dining room table at my grandmother’s house where I lived. I would lay on the floor under that table with my headphones on and album cover in hand and my feet up in the woodworking of that table and listen to the entire album many times over. This one is only different because I’m not on the floor or under a table, and it’s not vinyl, AND I get to actually tell the artist what his music has meant to me. I can honestly say that I’ve listened to this album so many times that I’m learning the words by heart. At some point, maybe the tears will stop flowing and I’ll be able to sing along. I’m gonna say they are good tears. They needed to be let out. What a phenomenal album!