Songs for the Missing Keys of Life

Cooper: One of the most original "born again"
Christians out there.  

I was driving home from work on the last Friday of teaching, and ironically (or rather coincidentally) Alice Cooper's seasonal radio hit "School's Out For Summer," came blasting through the road noise, and I joined the anthem at the top of my lungs.

Understandably, this song only connects to a certain audience at a certain time of year. It would be almost painful if some prankster played that Cooper song in the midst of a pep assembly in October.

Why aren't their more seasonal songs, or songs about transitional stages in life?  Why do we have billions of songs about love, and only "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," by Paul Simon, when we don't want that loving feeling anymore?  Why is "Pinball Wizard" the only song about playing pinball?  Why isn't there psychedelic songs about all the numbers, instead of just "Revolution Number 9"?

There are so many overdone themes in music, like:

• Breaking up and making up...
• Making out and making it...
• Shaking your groove thing, or getting your groove on...
• Love, love, love, sex, love, love, love...
• Being constantly angry at everyone & everything (for the headbangers)...
• crying, emo stuff, and depression... 

Poor 1985 grads. two songs by Wham in the top 4...
reunions must suck.  

That's all fine and dandy. But contrary to Billboard Top-100 belief, the average person doesn't go from love--to hate--to love--to passion--to crying.  We have a myriad of emotions. And music is the perfect pathway to those emotions, and we need more routes to these "other" moments in life.

So I wrote some songs about the "lesser moments" in life.  Some of the themes which need further musicological depth are:

• Puberty ("Don't Look Now, but Something's Changing")
• Divorce and child custody battles ("Brenda Doesn't Got Her Baby No More") 
• PMS ("She Aint Right This Week") 
• Losing the big game ("We're Runner's Up, My Friends")*
• Seeing an old friend who has lost and/or gained 50+ lbs ("Woah! What happen...I Mean, Good To See You").  
• Seeing someone you know who is now a tweaker ("Throwing It All Away")
• Finding out you are NOT pregnant ("Phew!")
• The perfect plate of nachos ("Libre Mis Nachos, Bufón")
• Getting released from prison ("Sleep Well, Inmates")*
• Finding out the person you testified against is getting out of prison ("I'm Moving Out")
• Realizing your insurance doesn't cover it ("I Hate Fine Print")
• Almost saving someone's life ("Misapplied the Heimlich") 
• Getting released from the hospital in a wheelchair ("Cause I'm Free, Freewheeling") 

I decided to embarrass myself by recording three songs which need to be heard. I'm a writer, not a singer, but I wrote these because there was a desperation in my soul to hear them...you'll understand after listening.