Farewells

The campfire draws us inexorably into the past, whether it’s to say good bye in real time or a fond farewell looking back. | Our hosts | Our venues | Our topics

Second Drafts
And why the third settles it

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The secret of the second draft?

Answer: You probably need a third.

First draft (sort of rough)

Second draft (getting better)

Third draft (audio version)

At least that’s the case with lyrics. And the untold story of the first draft is that it may have very well been preceded with an audio dictation. Really, writing is about getting your thoughts down, and refining. You know a draft is really coming to shape when the words on the paper talk back to you and tell you what to change, or what needs to be added, shortened or otherwise rearranged. People often mistake writing as a product. And just to be clear it is most definitely that, but more even more so and most of all it’s a process. Some may even say an art.

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Quotable: “You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” — Jodi Picoult

Old school angel
And why it took 14 years

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Believe it or not …

I sang my first song in 1999.

Playing to a packed audience at The Pavilion

It would take another 15 years to record my first song. The reason? For one, smart phones didn’t become ubiquitous until sometime around 2010. Another reason might be that my songs were never planned events. Sometimes it would be a day before a farewell party and I didn’t have a song. Or I had a song that was half cooked and still being very unsure if I would be ready for show time. But I learned my lesson quickly: People preferred any song to no song at all. And I was pretty much a persona non-grata if I showed up empty handed without a song to play. The question still needs to be asked: How many songs did I sing in the great “blacked out” period between 1999 and 2014. If I had to guess — and just counting farewell songs — I would say a good two dozen, maybe more.

Many of them I wrote down. Just as many I forgot the chords. But maybe that’s the most incredible thing. One song called The Ballad of the Florida Panther I only sang once, and really even then when I sang it I was just trying to follow the chicken scratch page of lyrics I’d scribbled together in the day before Krista left. The year was 2005. How I managed to reconstruct the song (and the chords) fifteen years later is anybody’s guess other than I’m 100 percent positive I remembered the correct chords. I’m not saying I’m a great artist, but twenty years after singing my first song and barely being able to play more than a few chords I have a pretty good webpage. Next steps: Live performance. Ready or not world, Bobby Angel is ready, willing and able to tour. But not until I get done my third album, yet to be named.