Song of the Week, December 4th, 2020

This is one of the first handful of songs that I wrote. It dates back to at least 1984 in my sophomore year of high school for the original piano version. I used to love playing this one. In general it's a very happy song, which given the mood of my total body of works, it is now in the minority. I can't recall entirely who I had a crush on when I wrote it. It was probably one of two or three people. By fall of 1985 in my junior year I was crushed a number of times, and it took a very long time for me to get out of the resulting negative creative funk, probably about 10 years. Even through the various evolutions and remasterings I've never been quite satisfied with how it plays when I'm listening rather than playing it. But lately when I do listen to it the feelings evoked make me feel good, and I don't immediately get downer vibes from the crushed feelings that followed. So when it came to naming, or more likely, renaming this song, when it got relegated to the Off The Shelf album, it seemed appropriate to call it Before the Fall. I've been trying to avoid some of the darker works when deciding what to share each week. Some "balance" will probably result as the dark days of winter are reached, giving me an oppotunity, or least an excuse to get them out there and over with.