<–To Everyday Lies - An Acoustic Collection by Matthew Moran

The Songs

This all acoustic collection of represents a few of the songs I’ve written over the past 10+ years.

As people have come to expect when I play live, virtually every song has a story - I have all the lyrics online, so here are the stories…

Lonely Mile Man:
One day, playing at a coffee house in Scottsdale, I met Jim Pipkin - a great player and Americana songwriter. I loved his tune, Tommyknockers, and after watching him - and having the unfortunate pleasure of having to follow him, I wrote the chorus to this song on the drive home. I sent him an email with the chorus and he really liked it - and wrote back with several verses. More than a year later, I sat down and wrote my own verses and completely altered the music I had originally planned for it. I don’t know if Jim has done anything with his version.

Sunrise & Sedona:
“She said it was sunrise & Sedona that made her lose her mind that way”
Someone told me that localized songs are problematic. People who don’t know the locale cannot understand why it relates to the song. Sedona, an hour North of Phoenix, is one of the most picturesque areas in the world. Laura and I were staying at little lodge above Oak Creek. I woke up early and took my guitar down a set of steep, uneven stairs, to the water’s edge. Sedona, while pretty touristy, is known for it’s Bohemian and mystic appeal. I imagined a woman visiting from out of town and never wanting to leave. I wrote the Chorus and the music that morning. It sat for nearly 2 years before I wrote the verses.

I Can Do It Again:
I wrote the chorus to this song driving to a couple appointments. I’ve taken to keeping a digital recorder with me. I liked the imagery, although I originally started the song with the old man being “15 miles outside of Albuquerque” - but “30 miles” has an easier cadence. The line, “It’s a long road to nowhere” is almost too cliché but I liked the way it worked in the song, so it remains. I really like the message of this chorus - if we don’t focus on those times we seem lost, which for me seems to be much of the time these days, we can get up and “Do It Again”.

Everyday Lies:
When things in a relationship get tough, you often buffer what you are really feeling to avoid conflict. The unsaid story of this song is a musician losing his girl to another member of the band. It is one of my favorites, personally. I just find the sadness of the “Everyday Lies” beautiful.

Lady Love:
This is one of my oldest songs that still gets played and perhaps gets the most comments from women. Laura and I were married in Las Vegas but neither one of us enjoys gambling. In fact, give Laura a roll of nickels and she will feel devastated when she loses that $2. I simply took the idea of trading Lady Luck for Lady Love - and finding a jackpot. It uses all those gambling clichés. Personally, we all think that this would make a great George Strait tune.

How It Goes:
This song is really meant to be a duet - verse 2 is from the woman’s perspective. Laura and I have struggled - mostly due to my mismanagement of various aspects of our life - and yet we have this passionate desire for the other person to be what we think they can be. I took that idea and put it into a song about two people who determine they cannot be together but still love and believe in and dream about the other.

Make You Feel (that it’s love):
This song is sort of a rip-off on the idea behind James Taylor’s Handyman. That is a song that women find romantic but the real premise behind the song is that the guy is really a smarmy womanizer. Listen to the song again in that context and it is really pretty funny. I wanted to write a song about the same guy. He’ll make you feel that it’s love.

2AM (living where good intentions lead):
There are times I wake up in the early morning and panic at all the mistakes I’ve made. The people I’ve let down, the nearly constant failures that get overlooked during the bustle of the day’s achievements. I’ve done this a lot lately. I wrote the entire song while driving through the Massachusetts countryside - contemplating returning to my family after speaking at a conference. At the conference, I am the published writer - imparting wisdom. At home, I feel less than that much of the time.

Slam Shut:
“That song is about me!” That statement is music to a songwriter’s ears. It means you must have hit upon a theme that is ubiquitous enough (call it vague) to apply to a lot of people. Once while flying on a plane to a conference, I had a short conversation with, what I discovered, was a high-priced “escort” - clientele centered in and around the NFL. She seemed okay with her vocational decision but I thought about a girl leaving a life of rougher decisions - a relationship - and wrote the first line. It isn’t at all about an “escort” but that conversation created the idea.

South To Mexico:
This was a “theme” experiment. I’ve been doing that a lot lately - take a theme and write a song to it. What I mean is I didn’t suddenly get inspiration, per se, but instead was making a list of potential song ideas or themes. I thought, so many songwriters I know have songs about going to Mexico - typically escaping something. I wrote the entire song - almost exactly in its current form - at one sitting. I love the way it turned out.

All Music & Lyrics by Matthew Moran
Copyright © 2008 - Matthew Moran
Sea Gypsy Music
www.MatthewMoranOnline.com
www.SeaGypsyMusic.com