Category: Personal Musings

April Wensel encouraged us to write a list of our one hundred favorite things. Okay. I’m in.

Though I couldn’t come up with a full one hundred at the time, I’m updating this until I get to that.

You might also like to read 100 Things About Me.

https://twitter.com/aprilwensel/status/1162355926025867264

Here are my favorite things in no particular order:

1. 1. 1. Hydrangeas
      2. Sweat Peas
      3. Filet Mignon
      4. Butter melting on bread
      5. Ginger ale
      6. Casamigos Tequila
      7. Angels Envy Whiskey
      8. Big Sur
      9. The smell of pine trees in the morning
      10. The way light filters down through trees in the late afternoon
      11. The sun on my face
      12. Salt air filling my lungs
      13. Watching the sunset
      14. Kaymak
      15. Everything Bagels
      16. Candy Kiss Perfume by Prada
      17. Crater Lake
      18. Feeling understood
      19. Singing ballads
      20. Watching jazz live
      21. Olukai flip flops
      22. 400 count cotton sheets
      23. Sleeping in on a Sunday morning
      24. The way sloths smile
      25. Playing Gin Rummy
      26. Laughing with others
      27. Inside jokes
      28. Shared glances
      29. A secret
      30. Kit Kats
      31. Red Vines
      32. Lemon meringue pie
      33. Citrus scents
      34. A long, hot bath
      35. Time alone
      36. The sound of children laughing
      37. The smell of bread baking
      38. The way a kitten’s paw feels
      39. Giving dogs belly rubs
      40. Feeling safe
      41. Paisleys
      42. Argyle
      43. Penny Loafers
      44. The feeling off hot coffee down the back of my throat
      45. The intimacy of your hair being washed
      46. The sound boats make as they bounce up and down at the harbor
      47. A lightning show in Fort Worth
      48. Poems that make you feel alive
      49. Songs that bring you back in time
      50. Friends who see you
      51. Giggling for no reason

The song Shallow in the recent remake of A Star is Born is simply an unfinished song. As a former songwriter and musician, here’s my analysis.

Why am I writing about songwriting?

I’m normally more vocal about marketing and copywriting. It’s true. But Shallow by Lady Gaga and Bradly Cooper is really just two unfinished songs (at worst) and one (at best).

I realize you all love this song and you love it because of the emotion of the movie and Lady Gaga’s voice and how handsome Bradly Cooper is. Heck, I’ve been swooning over him since he was in Alias. But the song is what it is, a narrative vehicle for a musical. But it’s not finished.

The character in the movie drags her on stage after hearing part of the song in a parking lot. Barbara Streisand’s song from the previous movie was finished. This one is not. Here’s why. (more…)