First written in 1997, this song is based on a story about a young women with what she considered an 'inoculated' life style. She also had, perhaps, an over-simplified view of life. Her Grandmother - a deeply religious individual, prayed daily by name for each of her fifty or so grandchildren. With this spiritually prophylactic life philosophy, my protagonist felt immune to her actions... i.e. I'll do whatever I feel like because I know my Grandma is praying for me. When Granny crossed over to the other side, a dose of reality hit. Hard to believe, perhaps, but a true story.
I never was completely satisfied with the lyric, even though I had performed it many times over the years. Recently I refreshed the lyrics after reviewing my notes on it from work-shopping the tune at the Manitoba Independent Song Circle and and the Winnipeg Folk Festival Retreat. After some reflection, I slashed an entire verse, re-ordered some other verses, and tweaked a few lines in the first two verses. This new and improved version feels a lot tighter.
The evolution of this tune has been a great process, if a long one. I invite you to give it a listen on the player at the top right of this blog post, or here, and comment on the song.
Finally I'll repeat a theme from another post: If you don't have song-writing informed friends who can be constructively honest with you about your songs, I highly recommend finding a few friendly critics and mentors. There's not a song I've written that hasn't been improved by some helpful critique from some really smart folks in my circles.
My hat is off to all of you. Thanks!
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