***** What follows is my first time in turning the reins over to someone else to describe how a song affects them. In the next few weeks there will be several more posts by musicians and non-musicians alike. Tabitha helped to do an early promotion on a song of mine called Hero Unexpected. Enjoy!! *****
I’m a Composition Already Written by Itself
by Tabitha Grace Smith
Song: The Dynamo of Volition
by Jason Mraz
I’ve been writing a lot lately. Blogs, articles, Twitter messages, song lyrics, short-stories, scripts, reviews, my novel — and I’m not even participating in the amazing challenge of NaNoWriMo! I’ve always loved writing, so when Jody asked me to guest post for him on Single of the Day I agreed. Even after all of the writing this past month I can’t resist writing just a little more.
I’ve always wanted to write and I’ve made job changes because of my desires. When I was a little girl I’d write story after story. I even enter competitions and wrote my first novel my senior year of high school. In college I used my writing skills to create a student film, to excel in classes and to host my own radio show. Now, being gainfully unemployed, I find my writing skills coming in handy in bringing in some much needed rent money.
Yet, sometimes when overloaded I have to remember that I write because it’s fun, because I have a voice and I want to use it. Usually it’s music that keeps me grounded. I can’t write without some kind of music and my tastes are widely diverse, from the acoustic strumming of Jack Johnson to rage-induced lyrics of Linkin Park to the twang of a steel guitar in a Rascal Flatts song. If writing is my life, music is my muse.
Today’s song, The Dynamo of Volition, is by one of my favorite musical artists – Jason Mraz. I love Jason for his intensely creative writing style and this song is probably one of the heaviest examples of his wordplay. The way he uses metaphors, internal rhyme and plays with the beat just make his music fun. Does the nonsense lyrics of this song mean anything? Probably, but the wonderful thing about Jason’s music is that sometimes you have to puzzle that out for yourself.
So I listen to Jason, to remember that life is fun. Writing is fun. Don’t take everything so seriously and feel free enough to play with the “rules”. After all, as Arthur O’Shaughnessy once said, “We are the music makers, and We are the dreamers of dreams.”