Hey, Ebbie:

Thanks. I wrote the songs to be sung. Be my guest. It would please me greatly if you learned any of them.

Today in writing class our teacher read a short section from the book "Writing Down The Bones" by Natalie Goldberg. In it, the author was encouraging writers to write about every day objects and experiences. It is a good way to see. (I'm very big on learning to see.) Immediately after the commentary, she asked me what I had brought to class that I had just written. (She had asked me to write something relating to one of my songs, as she wanted to play a song from one of my CDs.) As it turned out, I had written about Old Blue Suit. How mundane can you get? I remember the first time that I sang that song, it was for Ed Trickett at a FOlk Legacy festival. We were just sitting around, playing stuff, and I did Old Blue Suit. Ed was really excited about it, which I found very mystifying. Sheesh! It's just about an old suit!! He dragged Gordon Bok and Annie Muir in to hear the song, and they ended up recording it on Annie's solo album for Folk Legacy. That song, and Handful Of Songs are the two most requested songs of all the ones that I've written. Handful Of Songs talks about my Grandfather's hammer and his old railroad watch with the casing all worn, and my Grandmother's bible. Truth is, we are awash in the ordinary. It's people we love who make them treasures to us.

Jerry