Liner Notes

Abstract

For most of my adult life, my primary mode of artistic expression has been songwriting. Liner Notes consists of one part song lyrics, one part reminiscence on the events that sparked the songs, and one part commentary on the songwriting craft itself. Even the most successful song lyrics will "fall flat" when divorced from their music, and the lyrics herein will probably suffer a similar fate. What they lack in poetic refinement, I hope they make up for in their honesty, humor, and musicality. The memoirs have been shaped by my reading of numerous contemporary writers who work in multiple genres, most often in memoir and poetry. An examination of what motivates these writers, and how "meaningful" they view their own lives, comprises the majority of the introduction. The examining of the craft, and the re-examining of my past, have been undertaken with hopes that a "fountain of creativity" might be discovered.