Last Thursday I wrote a song about the Mississippi River flooding, not realizing that a mere week later, it would be on the news.
My sweet friend, Ginger, who is the proprietor of grand-central-station-of-all-things-Southern posted about us (thanks!) There were also lots of tweets and emails and messages. So, thanks everyone - we are over the moon!!
For whatever reason, the interview is not embedding in this blog post causing me to, yet again, curse Blogger. But you can access it here.
So, this is how it all happened. Obviously, inspired by watching the events unfolding across states and cities worth of devastation from this enormous act of God and hard-headed will of the river, I wrote "Flood Waters."
John, who plays mandolin came over a couple of days later and we worked on the chorus melody together. Then I set the song down to mull how I wanted the rest of it to sound. I was a little nervous because I really wanted to make sure we have a couple of news songs for our recording session next week. But honestly, I like to give myself the time and space to let a song take its course, simmer a little and not rush it.
The verse melody came to me Tuesday afternoon during a few quiet moments I sat at my desk at work, as a matter of fact. And it just stuck with me. At the time no one was around and I sang it really low into my phone's audio recorder. That felt so silly at the time! I worked a little longer on it that night when I got home and knew I'd run Scott, John and Travis through it the next day at practice.
The guys came over Wednesday night and we started learning it together - and they filled in the gaps with their insight and input and it all came together. So I thought, I'll record this so that if they to listen to it later, they'll have it.
The next morning (Thursday), I listened to a few of the takes and we had one really good one. I sent it to the guys and also to a few others, including my mom. She called me immediately and encouraged me to send it around to a local news station because she because not only was it powerful song for what was going on and people needed to hear it.
So, I contacted my friend, Susan (bless her!), who knows the folks at WLBT and then I turned around and called the news director. He was interested in hearing the song, so I sent that email on over and within 30 minutes got a call from Mike McDaniel, who said they wanted to be the first to break the story. And it just went from there!
I called the band, found out when the soonest was they could get over for the interview and we met that night with Mike. All in a matter of 24 hours since they'd first laid ears on the tune, 6 days after writing it...and we were playing it with conviction with a camera in our face. We were a bundle of nerves.
We got so nervous before it aired and texted each other. The thing that made me laugh the most was a comment Scott had about the interview. He texted, "I have been trying to spend the past 24 hrs trying to remember what it was I really said." That summed things up perfectly!
Lyrics are below if you would like to read along while it plays.
Have you seen that gal o' mine
Been lookin' since the river hit 'yea' high
This thing looks like it's 9 yrs wide
Never seen this in my life
Little dove perched way up there
Sittin' on a limb without a care
Will your feet touch the earth again?
What sign bring you from the skies?
Chorus:
Ebb and flow
Them flood waters creep up slow
The tide it turns but this got nowhere to go
Two feet left of saving grace
Fly me to those pearly gates
My heart can't take no more
My heart can't take no more
My sin's buried 'neath the mud
Scared to death it'll float back up
What you tryin' to do, Old Man?
Guess our lives are yours for to cleanse
Chorus
(c) 2011 Grits & Soul Music
Lyrics by Anna Kline
Music by Anna Kline, Scott Anderson, John Looney, Travis Pinkston
Visit our ReverbNation page if you would like to download the rough draft of the song we sent in to the station that you heard above. Also, do us a favor and "LIKE" us on Facebook! You can hear other songs there and on MySpace. Those are also the best places to find out where we're playing next.
Thanks for your shared excitement...we've been in shell shock but it's the good kind! Music is the love of our lives. We can't wait to do more of it!
Hope you enjoy the song. We'll be recording a cleaner version of it next week and will let you know when it's available for download or if you'd like a physical copy, we'll have those, too! See you soon!
