"Just Another Rainy Sunshiny Day..." (reflection on the writing of a song)

... "Dennis is one of the most clever, articulate songwriters ever...eloquence personified..."

... Gary Peeples ( guitarist/songwriter; member of Jackson Delta (blues band) and Al Black's 'Steady Band' -February 10th, 2019. ...whew... that's quite a quote (unsolicited) from a friend and peer on Facebook, in relation to some reference to songwriting, I suppose. I came across it on an envelope yesterday and it gt me to thinking about songwriting in general and this song in particular. As I've delved through 'my back pages' in the creation of this blog, I've not been concerned with any sort of chronological order, and have skipped through eras and traumas as the spirit moved me. I've never considered songwriting as 'craft' so much as 'vocation''; and over the half century or so that I have aspired to the sobriquet (there's a word that hasn't cropped up lately) 'songwriter' I've mostly waited for the lyric to come to me. most often in near complete form.  ave not pursued commercial reward or appeal as a motivating factor, and don't go looking for 'topics' or engage in 'co-writing' (much, at least not regularly or successfully). But when my brother Peter directed me to write him a song, of course I said I would. He only gave me the title: "Just Another Rainy Sunshiny Day"; and I dutifully scribbled it down in my notes at his bedside.

    I came up with a stanza or chorus of some sort either before or shortly after he 'crossed over', and I was actually at his side (with guitar in hand) when he did. I'm pretty sure I described this experience in the notes to "Jesus, My Brother..." (earlier in these 'pages'). below, that effort...

it's just another rainy sunshiny day...

clouds of my making, keeping blue skies at bay

I suppose, I surmise; that these tears in my eyes

come with 'just another rainy sunshiny day'...

    and so it sat... he died... I regretted not having knuckled down and written a damn song for him before he did. Over these past months I have had access to 'The SLAB'; the lovely little performance space behind Phil and Yvonne Connor's house here in town; and in some of my indolent hours there playing guitar and singing to an empty room; the lyric coalesced and became a song... for my brother; who always regretted getting a gun (.22 Cooey single shot rifle) and not a guitar as requested for some birthday in his teens. He had a paper route and a record player with a growing album collection in the years that we shared a room in the little 'war time' house in East City (Peterborough) and  I fell asleep to Roy Orbison, Gene Pitney, the Everly Brothers, Buck Owens, Hank Williams, etc., etc. ... quite a education in song, in retrospect. 

    Peter slipped into psychosis, and spent much of his life a mental health in/out patient living close to the street in Toronto, where he died. This song is for him, and will be the next one recorded when cousin Michael P. O'Toole and I (hopefully) get back to regular rehearsal and recording after 'the pandemic' has (hopefully) passed. maybe on a new page. love to all, d.

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