January 18; Lyric Idea: "She Calls Me Daddy"

Let's talk about the lyric for one of the newest additions to the MATB play list, "She Calls Me Daddy." Here's the words:

Well, I got a little girl

She’s the light of my life

A bright ray of sunshine

When things ain’t goin right

She calls me Daddy

Daddy all day long

She’s my little girl

The reason I sing this song

Now when she does wrong

I have to take her to task

And I have to come up with answers

To all the questions she asks

But she calls me Daddy

Daddy all day long

She’s my little girl

The reason I sing this song

(Solos)

Sometimes we argue

But most times we get along

And I feel so sad

When my little girl is gone

She calls me Daddy

Daddy all day long

She’s my little girl

The reason I sing this song

Ya know I got a little girl

She’s the light of my life

I know one day she’ll grow up

And be some lucky man’s wife

But she’ll still call me Daddy

Daddy her whole life long

She’s my little girl

The reason I sing this song

The subject of this song is my daughter, Meghan. She is 12-going-on-35, and every bit the moody handful a pre-teen should be. Don't get me wrong, I love her to death, and I know that someday we'll be past all the emotional ups and downs that go with this age.

Anyway, Jon brought in a musical idea that was to be an instrumental at first; kind of a lazy feel to Freddie King's "Hideaway." (we talked about Freddie King in the last post, and there's alink if you'd like to know a bit about him) As we worked a bit on this idea, he suggested using a bass line and rhythm pattern from a Roomful of Blues tune we were thinking of doing, but never got around to, and adding some lyrics.

Now, sometimes I will use lyrics I have already written with a musical idea that Jon has. Other times, I need to think about what he's laying down, and then put a lyric to it that I feel fits the mood of the tune. This time around, it was the latter of the two instances. I thought of the lyric pretty much as it appears here. The verses came together in the order they appear and everything. Sometimes, this is just how it works for me; a song will come to me in finished form, no need to arrange it or modify it in any way.

Let me tell you about how I work out a lot of my lyric ideas. I drive a delivery van for an electrical wholesaler, and during my delivery route, I have a lot of time to think of song ideas, lyrics, the eventual conquering of the world by Mojo & the Boogieman, my Grammy acceptance speeches, etc. When you have a lot of "windshield time," it's nice to have something to occupy your mind besides all those road-related things. As I drive, I can sing the melody, sing the kind of musical accompaniment I'd like, and work out arrangements as well. The best part is no one can hear me do it! Some folks sing to the radio while they drive, I sing to the songs in my head. I guess it beats talking to the voices in there! I'll get inspired by a song on the radio or a CD, and try my own lyric to a similar rhythm pattern or progression.

Jon and I talked about this particular song idea one day this past fall as I was on my delivery route. As I continued driving, I worked out the idea for the song. The original idea started out as another "love song" but as it went along, I thought it would be cool to disguise the real meaning until the last verse, and have it be a father talking about his daughter. Meghan and I had been having some "rough" days at the time, those father-pre-teen kind of days, and I kind of had her on my mind.

The original vocal melody was loosely based on the Roomful of Blues song I mentioned earlier. As we started to put the song together, however, the melody more closely resembled Eric Clapton's version of "Got You on My Mind." (In an upcoming post, I'll talk about "borrowing" musical ideas.) I'm really happy with the vocal melody now, because it has elements of both the songs I mentioned, and something completely of its own. The Clapton influence can plainly be heard in the "chorus" part of the verses:

"... Daddy all day long
She's my little girl
The reason that I sing this song..."

and I try to sing the song with the clean tones of Sugar Ray Norcia former lead singer/harmonica player for Roomful of Blues (now a solo artist). I've always loved Sugar Ray's voice. It's so clean and mellow, and my voice is usually so gruff, that naturally I wanted to sing like that someday.

One of my favorite things about this particular song, is that it is totally unique. It's a little blues, a little country, a little soul ballad, and all Mojo & the Boogieman! I also like that I can now say, "Here's one for my little girl, Megahn." Of course, now I have to write one for my son!