Hi all,
Here is my latest original song called Red Line days. The story of how this song came about is as follows;
Here in Chicago the city transit system is known as the “L” (the elevated train network that has featured in several movies such as The blues brothers etc. ) This winter has been a particularly cold one here with most of January and February seeing sub zero temperatures. During these months a lot of homeless people travel the L from one end of the day to the other in order to stay warm (as once you access the train network it is possible to ride around all day on a single fare until you exit a station).
Last week I was traveling into the city on the Red Line to the Chicago Loop and the experience really hit me as to how desperate the struggles for some of these people were/ are. I came home and wrote this song…
Good thing I read your story first, it gave a lot of depth … it remains unbelievable how many people have to survive in this way or similar while there is actually so much to divide
Great song, Eddie. Meaningful, great lyrics, and I really liked how you used slightly different dynamics in the chorus. Well done! What model Guild is that? Is looks and sounds beautiful.
Moving, Eddie, hits hard. Seems to miss the point to talk about your playing and singing, but both were great and served the song perfectly.
BTW, I edited the post to embded the video. Not sure where that other form of link comes from that you originally pasted in, but works best to use the link from YouTube when the video is playing. Trust that is OK.
You’ve written a powerful and thoughtful lyric there Eddie. Well played and sung. I enjoyed the picked notes and bass runs.
Could you perhaps play some triads further up the neck during the chorus just to mix things up a bit?
Just a thought, what do I know?
Alway enjoy your offerings, Eddie, all the more when they are originals
This one does not disappoint. I esp. like the added background story. That can make a song so much more personal.
Keep it up!
I’m so curious how that performance ultimately got created. Looks like he is outside singing the song , yet the sound is like it was inside a studio with a microphone on the vocals. Any insight on how that video/vocal got created to sound so good?
@Coda Thank you so much Tomasz for checking this song out. @roger_holland thank you Rogier, of course these are problems that I knew existed and that every city has but it is still tough to witness. Thanks as always for taking the time to listen and comment. @ToshS thank you Tosh, much appreciated. The guitar model is D 240E. It’s a sweet little guitar, very light and easy to play. @beejay56 thank you Brian for the kind words. @DavidP thank you David and of course I appreciate you updating the post to embed the video. I normally do it like that so don’t know what changed with this one. @sairfingers thanks Gordon. I Might just take your suggestion but first of all I will need to learn some triads @brianlarsen Thank you Brian, with any original I write I like to provide some context so as the listener might better understand the songs message. Thanks as always for checking it out. @rileyman Hi Brian, no trickery at all with the production. It’s just me sitting outside on my back porch (it is closed in during winter) and it’s just the acoustic guitar unplugged and recording on my ipad nothing else. I guess the acoustics on the porch seem to work. Thanks for checking out the song.
Eddie, there is an alternative URL structure that begins “youtu.be”. It does point to the video and opens it up in YouTube but when pasted into a post doesn’t result in the embedding. I have know idea where it comes from. So if you see your post with just a link then just open the video, then copy that URL, and edit the post to replace the link.
@rileyman Brian, you are asking the wrong person, @Eddie_09 can share the details. My guess would be the video is recorded with a well positioned phone. And the quality of mic and camera on a phone these days is really good.
Above excellent, Eddie. Very touching tune. It’s amazing how much we can learn about each other and how we cope to live just by taking the time to look. Fantastic writing, playing, and singing too! I could tell you felt the song. Thanks!
Thanks Jim for the positive feedback. Just taking a look around and noticing things is usually where I get inspiration for anything I write. Sometimes an idea for a song is right in front of you.
@Eddie_09 Hi Eddie,
What a lovely song - wonderful Ballade really! It is heart touching, so well composed, sung and played! Congratulations - this is a big time winner!
I could see the people riding the L to keep warm when I heard your song, Eddie. Great again. I know what you mean. I’ve had a tune come to me, or think, “I bet there’s a song in there,” when I’ve seen something. I find I have to let a song come to me. If I try and force it, even if I already have a basic idea for it, it doesn’t work.
That was very touching, even if I couldn’t understand completely the Lyrics. I love to see that you’re adding embellishments to your compositions…they give the idea of your progress along the way !Thanks for sharing, it’s a beautiful song.
@andyPlays Thank you Andreas for the kind words and I am glad that you liked the song. @Silvia80 thank you Silvia I am glad you enjoyed it and apologies if some of the lyrics were hard to understand. I have been working a lot on embellishments lately in trying to improve my playing.
And the message it carries is so important. Great work.
