Goodbye

About a month ago, I wrote a country song for my lyrics class called, "Goodbye."

The teacher told me he loved it and that I had to sing it at the singer/songwriter festival Weber State has twice a year.

Like, in front of people.

What the what?!

A guy in my class, Gordon, plays the guitar so, so, SO well and agreed to put music to the melody in my head.

Unfortunately, because of a lot of things, we didn't get the music written until the day before the festival (which was last Friday the 2nd).  Gordon came over on Thursday and we practiced and practiced and I realized just how much music can take mediocre words and make a pretty decent song.

Gordon could tell that I was freaked out of my mind a little nervous about singing in front of people, so he suggested I go to The Copper Club in Ogden that night (Thursday) to their open mic night.  He is one of the hosts and said that he would be there and we could have a practice run-through.  I agreed and met up with some friends from our class around 10:00 PM at the Copper Club.

The problem was, when I got there, Gordon and his band were playing.  Oh my gosh you guys, you have NO idea how good they were!  I immediately chickened out.  Gordon spotted me and came over saying, "You ready for tonight?!"  

Nope.

I told him I don't sing after people who are really, really good.

He asked if I would agree to sing if he found someone who was crap not so good to go before me.

Like an idiot, I said yes.

He did it and the guy before me was a wannabe Bob Marley, except he was off-key and had the worst lyrics ever.

One of the guys in Gordon's band came up to me a couple of songs before I was up and he looked like he should be hanging out in a biker bar (a.k.a. he was slightly on the scary side).  He was the bass player and turned out to be such a sweetheart!  He put his hand on my back and said, "So, I hear you're going to be singing tonight?"

Me, "Um...I guess so."

Him, "Well, don't worry about it.  You'll do great and you'll have a whole band to back you up."

That's right.  Gordon got his band to play my song!

I had a guy on the keyboard, a drummer who was CRAZY loud, the uber nice bass guy, and Gordon on the main guitar.  It was the most fun/scary thing I've ever done!

My only complaint (and the reason why I'm NOT posting the video I have of it), is that the band was SO LOUD behind me, that I couldn't hear myself at all, so I sounded completely tone deaf.

It was partially my fault.  If I had been singing closer to the mic, I would have been able to hear myself a bit better.  But I didn't want to be eating it!  Gordon told me after that you HAVE to practically eat the mic.

So, yeah. I "sang" my song and got applause (people are nice), and then got a few high-fives and "great jobs" from some guys afterwards.  It was fun!

SO.  On Friday at the festival, it was just Gordon and I (doing the song.....that sounded weird....there were lots of people there-including my mom and her hubby!).  I could hear myself, obviously, so the song was a little better.  I'm not posting that video because Gordon accidentally went into the chorus instead of the bridge, so it sounds like I messed up bad.  

Anyway, I will post a video of Gordon when he came to my house and we were practicing.  He re-did the bridge (it's much better than what I had come up with) and I recorded him singing it so that I could practice.

Just some background really fast, it's a song about a woman who sees her husband/boyfriend with another woman.  Now the bridge will make better sense to you.  Enjoy my buddy, Gordon!

  Isn't he fabulous?!