I originally started playing music because I wanted to write songs that people loved. But finding inspiration or creating perspiration is tough!
Welcome to Celtfather Music & Travel.
In the last podcast, I talked with Mikey Mason about our shared love of Firefly. I had a sort of secret agenda in talking with him. I thought it would be brilliant to create a Firefly podcast with Mikey as a means to promote our Blue Sun Holiday Spectacular Tour.
Mikey is pretty practical though. I know I like to jump into projects pretty easy. But he needed a convincing reason.
Mikey’s reason was, instead of just reviewing episodes like other podcasts have done, he came up with the idea of writing one new song for each episode of the series.
I love this idea!
It makes me think of my favorite song on my new Firefly CD, As Long As I’m Flyin’. That song is “She’s Shiny!”
When I sing the song live, it has a great intro. It’s not just about Firefly. It’s a universal theme. It’s about men who have trouble talking to women.
In this case, it’s about Malcolm Reynolds who has a crush on Inara but can’t or won't tell her. So much so that at the end of the song, Mal is saying the whole song is actually about his ship Serenity.
What a great story idea!
Yes. I throw in lots of references from the show. But when the average person listens, they hear a great rhythm and fun, easy-to-sing chorus.
Yeah. They may miss the punchline at the end. But at live shows it has fairly universal appeal.
I love it.
This is what gets me excited about doing a Firefly podcast with Mikey. I want to write more songs like “She’s Shiny!”
You see, the toughest thing about writing music is coming up with the song idea. That’s why I have long loved the nonsensical songs. They’re easy to write. But they're also not as an engaging.
It’s fairly easy writing songs that have a story that actually happened to me. But to write an original song when you don’t have a thematic idea, it’s tough.
Firefly is a great story. It has a great story arc. Each episode has its own story arc. Sometimes they have multiple themes. Just watching the first episode recently, I saw many, many different themes.
The trick is to verbalize them. What about each episode or character or scene is so great.
That’s why I want to chat with Mikey Mason about this. I want us to pinpoint those themes and write.
And not just about Firefly either. Rather, I want the ideas. And I want to make them my own. I want to write powerful songs with universal themes, just like “She’s Shiny!”. I think this experience will add to that.
Someone recently recommended the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. I listened and loved it.
It wasn’t just about Harry Potter. It was giving Harry Potter the religious text treatment. The idea is to look at Harry Potter and see how it could improve your life, looking at different themes.
What a creative way to approach a book, or a tv show, or whatever!
I think Firefly has a lot to offer today’s people. It’s about the average Joe struggling to make end’s meat. It’s not always smart. But it’s often right.
As Shepherd Book used to say, “If you can’t do something’ smart, do something right.”
The rich get richer. The rest of us are just trying to survive. To feed our families. To make it to the next paycheck so we can start all over. Maybe we’ll even move ahead.
Now it’s possible I could do all of this on my own. I could sit down and start writing my own album without Mikey. But I admit what I love about this is having a songwriting workout partner like Mikey Mason.
When Jayne is working out, he has Shepherd Book holding the weights for him, to push him to do more weights. It’s the same with me. Mikey is an inspiring partner. He’s writing a lot. He got an English degree in college. He’s the guy who looks for those underlying messages in shows. And admittedly, we brainstorm well together.
That’s why I committed to the idea of doing this podcast and songwriting goal.
But it’s not happening yet. We set another goal to get you involved…as patrons.
I’m looking for 6 new people, who love my music, who want to see this succeed, and who won’t break their pocket books by pledging $10+ per month as my patron.
You will get behind the scenes podcasts and videos. You’ll be the first to hear new music.
You’ll enjoy live concert recordings and get digital downloads of several albums. Plus, I will include your name in the thank yous of each of these Firefly podcasts and with the digital downloads of any Firefly music that comes out of this project for as long as you are a patron.
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Follow me on Spotify to listen to this song or just look for a link in the shownotes. You'll also find a great Firefly playlist of music and all of my Firefly tours at FireflyDrinkingSongs.com.
If you enjoyed the episode of Celtfather Music & Travel, please subscribe to the podcast at Celtfather.com. While you're there, you can sign up to Celtfather News, that's my newsletter that will keep you informed of all of the new projects I'm working including: new music, new shows, new podcasts, videos, and more. It's totally free to subscribe, and I hope to bring another smile to your face with each email.
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