There's this thing that happens. Just like when I was younger, I bring home a new record - but it's from the "piece of paper and a pen," not Rock Bottom or Sessions. And I can't wait to hear how it sounds. Sometimes I have a vague idea - but it's new. I've never heard it before. I put it on and play it. I get to hear it, but only if I keep playing. And singing. I have learned somehow to mostly remember how I did one verse for when another comes along. I can often remember several parts now, to return to them that way. I'm not sure anyone knows what this is like. You must. There must be a lot of people out there who do this, starting from whichever bits they tend to start from. I usually write words first. And I am looking at them and I start getting excited. I want to hear them. I know painters who do this. I'm thinking of naming the new/next album for a Barry Cowsill song ("My Car Don't Lock"). Barry finally lost himself - we finally lost Barry - to the post-Katrina flooding and chaos. He already had too much chaos. Maybe 'Two Seats No Locks'. I like '... No Doors,' my first idea, but it could be taken the wrong way. Not so much a CJ or a Moke but an interrogation room. But maybe I like that wildly diverging ambiguity. Maybe I do... ok, then. 'Two Seats No Doors" it is. Sand between your toes. But as I was saying: No one else has ever heard it before, either. Not until I play it. And often times it's not like any other song I've heard before. This has been happening every two or three days on average now for two solid years, and only a bit more slowly for a couple of years before that. 7/25/25 
© Huw Powell
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