Why Clumsy Fingers?

I think the song’s message is pretty clear, but for those who have questioned it, “folded paper promises” are simply paper money (basically worthless, absent the promise of the government to stand behind it, and often folded to be put in a wallet, purse, or money clip).

Sometimes the best things in life are unplanned—the things that you never see coming

I have always loved singing and making up songs, but in my teens and early twenties I was big into sports. While a lot of young musicians were practicing power chords and learning how to mimic their guitar heroes, I was a scrawny little kid who spent his free time lifting weights to try to get big and strong enough to keep up with the competition. After college, came work and a family, with little free time for much else. An hour plus commute to work was often spent making up songs in my head and jotting them down at the traffic lights.

At the age of 45, after my kids were done with organized sports, I had a little more free time. I decided to stop making excuses as to why I could never learn to play guitar and bought my first guitar and started to practice.

It took about 5 years for my clumsy fingers to become comfortable enough on the guitar to be able to both play and sing at the same time. Almost 20 years after I first picked up guitar, I still consider myself a song writer, a singer, a performer, but not a musician. I am just thankful to be able to play enough guitar to write my own music and accompany myself (and to have some excellent musicians join me on my studio albums). And, while “Clumsy Fingers” may not be the most inviting name to have chosen for a band name, it reflects how I arrived at where I am. Just as importantly, I think it reflects the honesty with which I write. Not all my songs are factual, but even the ones that are completely made up are true to who I am and what I believe.

After my wife and I dropped our oldest son off for his freshman year at college, I started wondering what path he would choose in life. While wondering and praying for the best for him, I started thinking back to my college days—having so much drive and ambition, wanting to accomplish something, to get somewhere in life, and to get there fast, but having no idea where I was headed. Turns out the one with the “shiny fenders” had a lot better idea of his destination than this “faithful junk-heap”. Of course, I am still not sure where I am headed, but I am no longer in such a hurry to get there.

When writing songs, I often play little sections of it over and over again while trying to find the right chords or melody to go with the lyric. I didn’t realize how irritating that must be to someone listening until one night when I got out my guitar and my wife asked me where I was going to play it, and she “nicely” suggested I might want to consider playing it in the basement. About an hour later she came down with a shot of whiskey for me and gave me a kiss to let me know that my banishment to the basement wasn’t personal.

I met a former grade school/high school classmate for dinner, who I had not seen in over 20 years. In reminiscing about some of our former classmates, I found myself smiling when he mentioned a few of the names. They were the names of young ladies I had gone out with for a brief time, maybe to a movie, or a dance, or maybe we just sat together on the bus for a class trip. At the time I was heartbroken that their interest in me lasted for such a short time. But, somehow, in looking back, it made me happy thinking that for that month, or week, or day, I meant something special to them, and, of all the boys in the class, they had chosen me.

The original version of this lyric pits Popeye against Darth Vader. After watching the movie Invictus, in which Morgan Freeman plays the part of Nelson Mandela, I thought real life role models were warranted and rewrote the lyric.

A long stem rose / An alluring women / A lofty ambition—one or all of these—you decide

I have never been on a skateboard. I wrote this lyric for and with the help of my younger son who was big into skateboarding in his teens. I recited this as a poem for years, and had actually recorded it as a spoken word track for the album. At my wife’s insistence, I came up with music for it just as we were finishing up the album.

This song is courtesy of my daughter, who spent 2 years in the Peace Corps, in the former Swaziland. She was stationed in a remote village, and to get to the nearest town, it was about an hour ride via a Khumbi. The Khumbi is a small bus designed to carry 12 passengers. According to my daughter, the average occupancy was about 20 people and several small animals.

Based on a 13 day trip my wife and I took in which we toured various state and national parks in the southwestern United States, including the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

My love of music starts with my love to sing, which I inherited from my father. He was never in a band or choir, but he used to sing a lot of the old standards a cappella around the house. He was small in stature, but had a big voice. He had a condition called Charcot-Marie-Tooth, and the most noticeable effect on him was that it caused the arches of his feet to be curled up and twisted. He had to wear specially made shoes and walked with a distinctive limp that earned him the nickname “Hoppy”. I reference some of his favorite songs in “Crooked Shoes”.

My wife and I are fortunate to have three grown children who are good, hard-working, responsible adults. If I would have tried to predict what each of my children would be when they grew up, I would have guessed wrong, three out of three. For all I may have done wrong, one thing I got right was to let them choose their own path—knowing that trying to force them in a direction I thought they should go would only have slowed them down in arriving at the great people that they are.

A throwback to my teenage years—dreaming of love

My motivation for learning to play guitar was to be able to write the music to go with my collection of lyrics and to be able to accompany myself during performances. As I became more comfortable with playing guitar, I realized how enjoyable it is to be able to play a musical instrument.

A songwriter, a sculptor, a painter, anyone who creates something unique reveals a part of themselves in their work.

My wife, who had summers off from work, took a two week vacation to the southwest with the kids, while I had to stay at home and work.  

During live performances I like to introduce this song by asking who in the audience knows the song “The Weight” by “The Band”. Usually they are several people who then get excited that I am going to play that song. Then I indicate that I only mention that because “Maple Syrup” has one very unusual thing in common with “The Weight”. The title of the song is never sung.

I spent most of my working career at a desk. At the end, the data I worked with was too voluminous to print out, so it only existed in electronic format, and a week’s work could be erased with a single keystroke. I am thankful for the 35 years of steady employment, but it is much more satisfying having something physical to show for my labors now.

This was inspired by one of the first pictures of my second grandson. His eyes are closed in the picture and he has just the hint of a smile on his face. My wife indicated he looks so peaceful and brand new, like his spirit is still with the angels. I responded, then he must be “Sleeping with the Angels”.

When my first grandson was 2 years old, he loved playing in the kitchen sink and watching the water run down the drain. I started to wonder what was in his head that he was so fascinated with the running water, and then I took off into a 2 year-old’s world from there.

A throwback to 40 plus years ago—young, single, not having a girlfriend, and not knowing how to start a conversation with a young lady who caught my eye

This was inspired by florescent orange toe-nails on a girl wearing a matching florescent orange tee-shirt. She was sitting with her legs dangling over the railing of her front porch. She looked like she had nowhere to go and nothing to do, and was hoping that at least someone might notice her. This brought back some small town memories of my own.

The original version of this song goes back to 1998. I wrote it after watching one too many episodes of the CSI television series, and wondering exactly what fingerprints are made of. The lyrical version of a cold case, I revisited this 20 years later. Realizing it was among the worst songs I had ever written. I rewrote it, scrapping all but the idea and a line or two of the original lyric—hopefully solving the case, and proving that not all fingerprints are the physical kind.

Every once in a while I like to try to write a song from someone else’s perspective. This was written after watching a couple young ladies at a wedding who were just having fun dancing together.

This was inspired by a full moon looming hauntingly low in the clear night sky. It seemed completely alone and brought back feelings of heartbreak from a long time ago. This is one of my wife’s favorite melodies.

I wrote this after seeing one too many advertisements glorifying gambling and suggesting that you just needed to be lucky to win. I have nothing against gambling as long as you look at it as a form of entertainment, expecting to lose and setting a limit based on what you can afford. Of course there are the rare exceptions—pros who know the odds and seek out the games and/or opponents where they can shift the odds in their favor. But never under-estimate Lady Luck.

My wife has always had poor eyesight. When she looked at me one day and called me handsome, my first thought was that it was time for her to go back to the eye doctor and get a stronger prescription. My second thought was that this could be to my advantage.

Two of my grandparents passed away before I was born. A third passed away when I was about 5 years old. The only grandparent I know much of anything about is my mother’s father who was around until I was about 12 years old. Wishing I knew a little more about my grandparents, I started to wonder how much my grandchildren will remember about me. Hopefully I will be around long enough for us to really know each other.

Most of today’s software applications include a back arrow icon that allows you to undo the last action that you took. Often, you can hit the “Undo Button” multiple times to reverse additional actions. I started thinking that it might be nice to have a personal undo button in life to undo your mistakes and get additional chances to get things right, but then again . . .

When my daughter Katie turned 16 her grandmother gave Katie her Plymouth Reliant, commonly referred to as a K Car, Although the car was the same age as Katie, her grandmother seldom drove, so it only had 48,000 (48 K) miles on it. It was good basic transportation, but a white, boxy, 4-door sedan with a small 4-cylinder engine wasn’t a very cool car for a teenage girl to be driving. However, Katie liked to paint and sew, and between her artistic skills and a couple of flame decals she plastered on the sides of the car, Katie’s K Car became one of the most recognizable vehicles in town.

Falling Up

My 3-year-old and 6-year-old grandsons were running around in their backyard. The 3-year-old fell and got up and started walking towards me with a pained look on his face, I knew I was in trouble as Jima (grandma) was inside with their baby brother, and a hug and kiss from Pops is no substitute for a hug and kiss from Jima. So, as he got closer, I questioned him as to whether he had fallen down. When he tearfully nodded yes, I pointed to the sky and told him it was a good thing he had fallen down because, if he had fallen up, I wouldn’t know how to get him down. He looked at me quizzically thinking this guy we call Pops is a strange one, that I’m only 3 and even I know you fall down, not up. At that point his older brother called him and he forgot about his sore knees and ran off to catch up with his brother. In the meantime, Pops started thinking about gravity and Falling Up.

Chapped-Lipped, Itchy-Skinned, Wintertime Blues

One particularly cold, snowy winter my friend John Turner gave me an illustration of a gentleman desperately trying to scratch the middle of his back. John explained to me that he had the itchy-skinned, wintertime blues, and asked if I would write a lyric to go along with his illustration. I agreed, except that chapped lips bother me even more than itchy skin.

Coulda Woulda Shoulda

This was one of my mom’s favorite songs.

Before You Find Cool

This was inspired by a John Turner illustration in which the main character is wearing a fancy suit and a hat with a feather in it. He is walking hunched over, almost spider-like in trying to act cool. The onlookers think quite differently of his over-done apparel and affected posture.

Well-Worn Shoes

On the train heading for another long day of work and feeling a bit worn out when I looked down and noticed that my shoes looked a little worn out as well. Perhaps it was time for a new pair, but they were comfortable.

Smirk

This was inspired by a John Turner illustration which had a sea of faces in it. The face that caught my eye was one that was hanging out in the corner with a smile that said he was up to something.

Good, Clean Money

My wife started our kids doing their own laundry when they were in grade school. My older son picked up the process fine, and so did my daughter. My younger son had a tendency to overlook one particular part of the process.

Old Man Workin’ Out at the Gym

My younger son bought me a 3-month gym membership for Christmas. It had been years since I had done any serious weightlifting, so I told myself it was going to take more than 3 months to get back in shape. So I decided to use the gift, but that I would be “realistic” and allow myself 6 months to a year to “show ‘em how it’s done.” There was only one problem with this plan. In the 26 years that had elapsed since the last time I had lifted weights gravity had gotten a lot stronger.