Taylor Swift

So since Austin Kyle Renfroe has a song out on itunes called "Taylor Swift" (& it's really good by the way), I decided that I would play my hand at the friendly, family "& now it's my turn" moment. (And no, I totally didn't mean that in the Arkansas kind of way either.. moving on). Basically this was just a really fun & creative songwriting ex. for me. All of the Guitar stuff for it is still in my head at this point since it's 3:36am now lol.

If I had to sum this up I'd say this is a song from a songwriter to a songwriter about love of all kinds & its' potential.. in music.. in life.. in fantasy.. but more than anything it's realization in reality & what that can mean.

This may be the first song I complete & put out over the web for obvious promotional & marketing reasons :P

*****THE LYRICS*****
This is a love song, I hope that you can hear it.
I hope that you adhere to it just like those books with great advise.
This is a heart song, I hope that you can feel it.
I hope you want to steal from it & make the feelings that I'm talking
come to meet you in the real life.

And if my greatest words just fall short of who you are...
Well then the greatest kiss will have to wait & greet you in the dark.. oh

To feel you now, to touch your skin
To understand the shape I'm in..
To love me just for who I am...
To not believe that all love is pretend

To tame the stars & watch them fall over you..
To watch the rain, but not a minute too soon..
Maybe I'll know that I love you then...
Maybe you'll know & still the words will be
so small.. but still like wine

This is a love song, I hope that you can hear it.
I hope that you won't fear it, like a pathetic stalker with a fist of cheap fixed lines.
And if I'm played out to you, then just give me a decent chance..
to bring about a sweet romance
& when the sun comes up I'm betting you'll love me still.

No more, waking the dawn to find an empty pillow with no face.
No more, chasing the curb to find the pavement wants to meet you face to face.
(cause I'd rather kiss you anyway)

To feel you now, to touch your skin
To understand the shape I'm in..
To love me just for who I am...
To not believe that all love is pretend

To tame the stars & watch them fall over you..
To watch the rain, but not a minute too soon..
Maybe I'll know that I love you then...
Maybe you'll know & still the words will be
so small.. but still like wine
so small.. but still like wine..

And I am finding that love is an intoxicating,
it's an exhilarating, it's an unchanging, a belief that I've found..
And when you wake in the morning & always have a first kiss to find,
And you always have another gift beside you
And you always have a another rush in her eyes...


This is a love song, I hope that you can hear it.
I hope that you adhere to it just like those books with great advise.
This is a heart song, I hope that you can feel it.
I hope you want to steal from it & make the feelings that I'm talking
come to meet you in the real life..
make it real oh make it real now..

To feel you now, to touch your skin
To understand the shape I'm in..
To love me just for who I am...
To not believe that all love is pretend

To tame the stars & watch them fall over you..
To watch the rain, but not a minute too soon..
Maybe I'll know that I love you then...
Maybe you'll know & still the words will seem
so small, just like the perfect date with sweet red wine
just like the lottery odds, so small..
just like the fate of the Saab, so small...
like chances that Elvis died.

Are we in Paris yet?
Are we in Paris yet?
Are we in Paris?

I open my eyes, look in the mirror & I'm seeing you...
put in a verse of mine

Easier than breathing (not to say you're easy) :P

 I want to teach to you about learning..
This is a lesson of laws about learning..
This is a lesson of laws about learning the right way to spell:
“You & me”

I took my best guest and put the R before the vowel sound..
I took my next guest and made a simple funny sound..
at least if I can't get it right then I can make you laugh..

But seriously.. I just want to breathe...

And she said.. that's just what it is..
Because the best way to spell a truer love than all the others
is “It's easy as breathing”

And when you put your foot to the rubber..
You will find that you can't run from her..
cause the biggest of your fears start to drown beside the years that you want to love her.

And that's it... because it's easy as breathing..
Oh that's it... you make love as easy as breathing.

I want to teach you the words to my version
of the incessant, automatic better version.. of this..
oh yeah & if you take the time to listen I would say:
“You know that it's you.”

I want to take the time to memorize your number
even when I have predict-a-text & auto-dial..
because the meaning of the season that I find myself believing in
is calling for style (not auto-tune)

and it's leading me into your eyes, can I stay for awhile?
But seriously.. I still need to breathe...

And she said.. that's just what it is..
Because the best way to spell a truer love than all the others
is “It's easy as breathing”

And when you put your foot to the rubber..
You will find that you can't run from her..
and then the biggest of your fears will start to drown beside the years that you're wanting to love her.

And that's it...
Oh that's it...

And we can joke about salvation history,
And we can talk about this crowded, tangled, web we weave..
but amidst the crowded room, I will always meet your eyes when I open that door.

And we can talk about semantics & the words we see,
or we can live them like we mean that they're not make believe..
and when we live them like we mean them in our living room...
then we will surely be free...
or we could think just a little farther.. outside.. of our box...
because love does..

I want to teach you a lesson about learning..
This is a lesson of laws about learning..
This is a lesson of laws about learning the right way to spell:
“You & me”

I took my best guest and put the R before the vowel sound..
I took my next guest and said a simple funny noun..
at least if I can't get it right then I can always make you laugh..s

But seriously.. just laugh once for me...
But seriously.. laughing & breathe!

And she said..
Love is not a number or a spelling
but it's easy as breathing..

And I said..
Love is not a number or a slumber
case it's easier than breathing..

And when you're around..
I can't depend on my lungs to even make a sound
because I'm dreaming of a feeling where I'm kissing you and leaving all the “oxygen-kind”.
And I'll take you in for the rest of time.
And I'll breathe you in for the rest of time.
And I'll take you in cause loving you is easier than breathing,
but that's not to say.. that you are easy.. no!

Your loss

So I realize this is a LOT ironic. I started this song yesterday and wrote some more on it today after the Taylor Swift special.. um.. I could finish it now.. but I feel like I want some of tomorrow's event to soak in and maybe have some kind of lasting effect on the overall shape of the song. Right now it's about a bad relationship, bruises and being left & just deciding that in life we have the option to wallow or to move on and make the most of our future by learning from the past and all of the coupled blessings & injustices that are somehow thrown our way. WE can learn & achieve amidst and through both of these seemingly opposite things. Success & failure aren't really all that different... The wise person realizes that success can't truly be measured until the end of a story.. defeat is only assumed when you allow yourself to believe that you are stopping your history & future to dwell on current or past events. Keep moving. Learn from things and make the next step better. I'm like a child learning to crawl and talk and walk in love.. so are you. Step forward and fall.. but get back up and do it better the next time!

Somehow I know that there's going to be more than that message to intertwine in this song.. tomorrow I deal with a funeral and then working almost 8 hours in Jackson during crazy Friday madness... I will birth art out of the situation though.. I really will. And if for some reason I was to be horribly injured tomorrow or die even.. someone else will see this and they will be inspired to live with urgency and to love with passion and to voice it in word & action. This means that no matter what happens tomorrow.. today was a success.. but the story is still unwritten.. so we can't call it success yet.. now can we?

***Preliminary lyrics.. (unfinished)***
Break the dawn & tell your story,
I could tell that you were lonely in the hands of time.
Fight the book that's on your shelf
& feed the fish that live inside your soul to calm the seeds of time.

These rhymes can only go so far
it seems that love's made like a Gar
to catch & slip away...(any day now)

The book that sits upon my shelf is writing me into a selfish
prayer to pray in vain...

This is a metaphor of how a double door can let you in and spit you out with a bitter taste.
This is a metaphor of how a rubber soul can run your heart to the ground & laugh in your face.
And if it seems that I'm a little bit selfish, I've earned the right to fight without a bruised fist
It's you that did this,.. it's you that did this to me..
Your loss is my victory.

A summer's wedding in winter

I just thought of a melodic structure of semi-jazz, semi-classic influenced guitar to use with this & may appropriately arrange piano for it. There is some French used in the Outro as appropriate from the previous word painting used. This is meant to be a proposal between two lovers left standing after an almost Shakespearean (though modern) tragedy. I'm not marking verses or choruses due to not wanting to interrupt the flow of the wording. Enjoy! If I ever did a song along the lines of a Michael Bublé, Frank Sinatra, Rufus Wainwright style..   THIS WOULD BE IT!!!


I've got you painted on these pictures,
but “in my mind” is always far away.
I'd prefer if I could sit or stand beside you,
& admire the way the sun lights off your face.

Oh, an afterglow of a summer spark
at the kissing tree when you were young.
Oh an afterburn from a summer kiss
like a wedding ring that's born to fit.

And you stand only cause the rest of them fall,
and I'm standing here beside you
and I'm left to gaze at what was won..

And I stare only cause I'm left in total awe
and I'm standing here beside you
til the kneeling part & the fancy words to follow.

I've got two lamps upon a shelf,
And one of them is for my faults,
to ward off a once cold, dim heart..

And two is for the nights of “me & you”...
though grammar has some power I'm left
to discard all my prose & rhymes when..
words can't come to make you move..
my lips will come to make you swoon
And this is love

And you stand only cause the rest of them fall,
and I'm standing here beside you
and I'm left to gaze at what was won..

And I stare only cause I'm left in total awe
and I'm standing here beside you
til the kneeling part & the fancy words to follow.

Take a look at my humanly flawed eyes
& see if you can see my former self.
No doubt, the perfect woman made me perfect too..
and she is here and she is dancing in my arms...
a Venus goddess bows to you.

And you stand only cause the rest of them fall,
and I'm standing here beside you
and I'm left to gaze at what was won..

And I stare only cause I'm left in total awe
and I'm standing here beside you
til the kneeling part & the fancy words to follow.

Outro (in French)
Et ils viendront et vous embrasseront sur vos bouts du doigt, mais j'embrasserai vos lèvres d'offre.
Danse, danse pour moi. Rappelez que nous sommes vivants dans le monde parfait de l'amour et libres.

{translation}- Outro..
And they will come & kiss you on your fingertips, but I will kiss your tender lips.
Dance, dance for me. Remind that we're living in the present perfect world of love & free




Letters to Juliet

V1: This is the story of a love history
       Of a boy that once was marred in defeat
       Until the laugh of a girl & her smile & her hair
       Took off the boring & victory was sweet.

       The weight of golden light & love butterflies,
       A night of roses & a fist full of white lies,
       To tame this garden & to uproot all the weeds,
       It was told, I was bold, she was gold…
       She melted & covered me.

Pre-chorus 1:
And your letters marked the time of a love & a grace from above.
And your lips were a garden of songs made of songs that came to wake the dead & revive the  weak.

Chorus 1:
& letters from Juliet remind me that love is a story but more than just rhymes.

Your letters from Juliet remind me that love holds the power to beat all our crimes.

V2: This is the story of a girl & her feat,
        A boy that swept from under them when they would meet..
        & the times hold a key to our mechanical lines..
        Loose the chains of youth to shed our eyes from public disguise.

      To take the “our” with 7 golden lamps that help us to see..
      This church is miles & miles from where my mind wants us to be.
      To grow a garden & to fill it with love…
I was sold from the cold into the wedding throws of emerald love.

Pre-chorus 2:
And your letters mark the time of a love & a grace from above.
And your lips sealed on me like a spark that’s sure to set my mind to love..
I surrender.


Chorus 2:
& letters from Juliet remind me that love is a story but more than just rhymes.
Your letters from Juliet remind me that love holds the power to beat all our crimes.

& you will find that love is a life of the joys & the pains & the pleasures & frills
But letters from Juliet can renew a fragile mind to a lifetime of thrills.

Bridge: You’re here with me.
              You’re here with me.
             You’re here with me.
              You’re here with me.
        (my love, my love, my love for the perfect victory)

Chorus 3:
& letters from Juliet remind me that love is a story but more than just rhymes.
Your letters from Juliet remind me that love holds the power to beat all our crimes.

& you will find that love is a life of the joys & pains & pleasures & frills
But letters from Juliet mark my mind..
To remind me …

But letters from Juliet mark my mind…
To remind me you’re mine forever…

But letters from Juliet mark a mortal mind..
To bring the heavens tonight.

"Barton Hollow" | The Civil Wars | OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO | [HD]

it's too late to be thinking these deep thoughts...

"I yawn & yet I yearn. A part of me wants to sleep & a part of me dies to live. To yawn, to yearn-- to sleep & dream or to live a life of the dreams that dreams dream of? To yawn & slow to the doldrums of settling or to yearn & yell at the top of my lungs that I will not be shaken? This is the conflict."-- Me (at 12 something in the A.M.)

I often think that I think too much (Do you see the paradox?). This would prove true no matter how wise one would gauge me to be (or not to be). What I mean is that thinking in and of itself does nothing. Thinking does not perform a function.. to think merely for the sake of thinking is foolishness. What purposes do theories solve? Unless they are put into the further stages of testing and then (ultimately) being proven or disproven.. they mean nothing. AND SO IT IS WITH THOUGHT! So then, any amount of thinking is too much thinking. Does this mean my parents should cry because of spending money on my private school education? NO!!!! It simply means that they should cry (and so should I) if thought is the limit (and end) of my education. Thoughts are nice: thoughts of love, thoughts of falling in love, thoughts of freedom, thoughts of God...

However.. thoughts are thoughts.. it is our actions or lack of that proves or disproves these thoughts. (be it love or our concept or profession of Who God is & what he's like & what we think of him & how we live for him)

What does the above quote have to do with this, you say?
Well, it is kind of similar in a way. I'm glad you asked.

Have you ever read Philippians 1? Good, I'm glad you have. Oh, but YOU.. you haven't. Oh, good thing I've included a nice, nifty little link to an online translation of it here (copy & paste in your browser window)

----------> http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Philippians+1



See, Paul faced this same type of predicament. He had a paradox of living or dying to deal with. In the idea of thinking too much.. we see a paradox. We are taught to think. In fact, teaching is thinking in advanced form. So how then could we say we could think too much? And yet, thought of any form without follow up action.. is just that. Meaningless.

With the quote at the start of all this madness, we see the same thing. To yearn & to yawn can become strikingly similar and in fact the same thing apart from the difference of follow up action. So then we see also in Paul's case that living and dying can be the same thing.

Living is death apart from Christ & yet IN CHRIST dying becomes true living. To die becomes gain when we see that we are really going home to be with Christ! And yet, there are times where it is more profitable for our own sakes or for others.. to live on and minister even in the less valuable earthly state (and yet even though it is "less desirable" it becomes "more desirable" when it is the will of Christ)!

Do you see the train of paradox being continually added to here? And yet people would claim that the bible contradicts itself. Does it? NO!!! It is simply paradoxical... just like our lives ... go figure.

We can't understand the natural paradox even though because we are too busy thinking and not adding action to our thoughts. How then could we ever hope to understand (the much more simple-complex) spiritual paradox?


See, we can even go deeper than that. When you first read my quote.. at the start of this.. I bet you thought the words like "sleep, dream, yell, yawn & yearn" were literal? And yet, they weren't. I meant them in a figurative & metaphorical fashion. I meant that to sleep is to die (figuratively or literally).. and to dream is to stay in a unconscious realm of thought without action continually.. and to yell is to really live consciously and know that you are doing so... and to yearn is to yell & push forward to strive for Christ even more in the paradoxical realm of dying to live by dying to self...


So then, everything takes on new meaning when transferring from the flesh to the spirit.. even when put in secular terms... sleep is no longer simply "sleep".. to yearn is no longer simply "to yearn".

Maybe even... just maybe.. "loving" is no longer simply "to love" but something much more deep and profound only found by continual prayer & pouring over the scriptures & seeking the Father in Heaven... who is the only good one.

So then, by that, the "good" of the world isn't even good.
The "good" of the Christian isn't even good unless every time we say "good" we mean "Father in Heaven"!

See, a deeper meaning.

What if the "love" of the world is also not love.
What if the "love" of the Christian is also not even love unless every time we say or do "love"..... it is a reference to that love which is the love that IS the Father (since scripture says that God is love)...

Wow...
yehhhhhh.

I also see Romans 7 & 8 all over the quote at the start of this. You should go read that.

I mean let's re-examine the quote..

"I yawn & yet I yearn. A part of me wants to sleep & a part of me dies to live. To yawn, to yearn-- to sleep & dream or to live a life of the dreams that dreams dream of? To yawn & slow to the doldrums of settling or to yearn & yell at the top of my lungs that I will not be shaken? This is the conflict."

yawn= thinking but not moving beyond thought.

yearning = desiring to move beyond thought & being at the point of considering it but not yet doing it.

sleep = to die (figuratively or literally)..

to live = to not sleep or die.. or willingly die or sleep so that another may not have to sleep or die against their own will. (denial of self, self sacrificing, non-selfish. fruit that is shown through actions-- peace, joy, love, respect, honor, mercy, willingness to give, willingness to suffer, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..)

dream = dream is to stay in a unconscious realm of thought without action continually.. (which is also to never have to choose or face conflict but also means never facing the rewards of good choices and good blessings and mercy)

yell = to really live consciously and know that you are doing so... so that "to yearn" becomes "yelling" & pushes forward to strive for Christ even more in the paradoxical realm of dying to live by dying to self... forgetting what is behind except in area of growing in wisdom & Godliness.

And you ask, "What about dying?"

I haven't defined dying in the new paradigm, I believe that if we define the others...in the light of Christ.. Christ will see to it that the paradox of death stays true so that death is really no death at all.. but a (Colossians 2) type realization of who our true self really is in Christ.. to no longer see as in a mirror dimly.. but to see and know fully now (Corinthian's concept) even as we have been fully known by Christ!!!

That my friends, is a beautiful concept..
but we are thinking too much.

Let us begin action so that it may be realized & not merely thought upon.
Christ is no theory, he is in fact & is. He IS that he IS.
He says, "I AM".

He is... he is not a theory that is going to be....
but he is proven. He already is.. and was.. and will be.

So, let's get out of thinking and theory mode & move into the realm of what we do with proven entities.

Even in science, we don't just sit around all day contemplating something when it's proven. We put it to use. We act upon it. We find out how it applies so that it may heal & repair & grow & nurture life.

NO, we don't just sit around talking. We don't just sit around hypothesizing. We PRACTICE. And practice entails that failures come, but it's okay... because practice is also what leads to success!

Let's do that. I want to do that.