Author: Gregor McCole

I really like this one. There’s really nothing commercial about it—it just encapsulates a dark place. I’m a little worried it’s a little too dark for the site but…well, you know…this type of song is part of what I do.

It’s also example where I’m not the narrator, I’m the subject (I’m singing AT me, not from me). The song came after I had failed at something, and I wrote it in the dark, with headphones. This one came in the years that Tasha (our dog) and I would go into the music room, late at night. She would sit up over the edge of a couch monitoring cats and squirrels outside, and I would write while watching the shadow of her head move back and forth on the wall in front of me (her shadow was created by street lights outside the house). She would rarely stop before I did.

This is the second studio recording of this song. I recorded a version of this many years ago, and it was terrible. Bad singing. The big bass from the electric keyboard taken out. Dumb lyrics. It didn’t work. I hope this version is better.

I took off “From San Francisco to San Jose” this week. As usual, let me know what you think at gregorsongs@gmail.com.

This one is a metaphor about being wedded to something that isn’t healthy for you—family, bad habits, a spouse, etc. Pick your poison. In reality, there are all sorts of things I was screaming at in this song but…not one of them was my actual wife.

We took off “Align to a Purpose” this week. Thanks for listening.

This one is about my regret on how I handled a certain friendship / not friendship over a couple decades. This individual and I crossed paths in a number of ways over the course of junior high, high school and college. We were close at times, but we had a unique ability to get under each other’s skin. After about 10 years, we wound up at odds.

Long story short, several years ago, he was murdered by a jealous ex-boyfriend of a woman he was seeing. This song came in the aftermath of trying to absorb it all. It’s a little non-linear, because I’m processing two things: one, the horror of the situation (“it should all be different”); and two, the crystal clear realization that I blew something that was a lot of effort and should’ve been a bigger part of my life.

I’m certain his response to this song would be: “smh…here we go, he took this situation and wrote a song about himself!” And I’d say…”wait, wait…I’m processing real emotion here, however it comes off!” And…we’d both be right, in our own way. Would we resolve it? Um…no.

He was beloved by a lot of people.

We took off “Moving in Circles” this week. Thanks again for listening.

This song got buried after I wrote it, for at least 8-10 years. When doing the reconstruction project five+ years ago, I did some heavy editing–adjusting the lyrics, cutting out a verse, cutting out a bad bridge, etc. It looked better to me after that.

If you visit the site every so often, you’ll find I’m not a big fan of long songs. 4 minutes is the most I want something to be. If anything starts to approach 5 minutes, I start cutting. Eliminating bridges, choruses, intros–anything. I always try to err on the side of too short. 

We took off “Raging Storm” this time.  Thanks for listening.  

The source for this one was actually a newspaper review of a movie I never saw. The review stated that this song’s topic was too complex to cover in a 2 hour film. Of course, I thought it could be done in 3 minutes, with short lyrical lines.

I think this is one of my better songs.

We took off “Let Him Win” this week. Thanks for listening.