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Ida Clare, well Ida 2

 

We have 9 original songs on the new Ida 2 recording; Songs about love and death, friendship and betrayal, despair and hope. Really, they are just snapshots of what is happening in the world around us and how we react to it.

The craft of songwriting has always been interesting to me. The first time I can remember actually thinking about a song as a thing to create was when I heard the song Deep Purple by Nino Tempo and April Stevens. I was only ten, but I was standing in that garden as night fell and the stars came out. Something about the description of night falling in the garden, the sweet sound of the duet harmonies and the melancholy sadness of the lyrics really spoke to my 10 year old heart.

It is funny but as I am writing this and rereading the lyrics from Ida 2, I realize that I used one of the lines from the chorus of Deep Purple in the chorus of I Still Cry, the 1st song on Ida 2 “The mist of your memory”.




I Still Cry is a song Robin and I wrote. She had come up with a nice little tune on the banjo and one day we were talking on the phone about life and some of the things that have happened to us and the lyrics kind of fell out. This is a song about resilience. Life is tough! Lots of sorrow and loss. But, there is a lot of good, too. We must bang the drum and ring the bell. We must take what talent and opportunities we have and use them to survive.


Speaking of survival, “High Ground”, the second song on our new recording, is a song about what it takes to survive. There are a few things we can do to protect ourselves from the bad times. For me, the best thing is to have good friends. Not just the people you know but the people you go through life with. People who are with you through the good and bad times. Folks that you trust .


Jim

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