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| Retro Girl Welcomes You |
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Diane@HappyRetroGirl.com If you would like to download any of my songs, please e-mail me with a list of the titles you'd like. Prices start at $1.35 per song and go down with each additional song you order. When I receive your PayPal payment, your files will be downloadable to your e-mail address through the yousendit.com service. For every four songs you order, you get a fifth one of your choice FREE.
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Moondrift
Danger Zone
Dreams Do Come True
Cryin' In Your Arms
Internet Love and Hate
What Is Your Name Again?
That's When It Happened
Open Your Eyes
Soon It Will Be Christmas Day
Can't Spot Your Lies in the Dark, Instrumental version.
Can't Spot Your Lies in the Dark, Vocal version
Doris Kenner Jackson of The Shirelles, whose essence led me to write a song called
The Lady Made of Diamonds, Silk, and Pearls, and she most
certainly was.
There has never been a more magnetic person on
this earth. Joey, I treasure every moment I spend in your presence, and I love
you more than words could express.
Alan, when you befriended me, you quickly become lodged
deep in my heart. I keep trying to cough you out, but I get nowhere.
In late 2008 Alan released a new CD. Check out his website:
www.alanoday.com
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I am my truest self when I am creating a new song.
"
(Wait till ..LUST.. stops playing before you click to watch this video. Then hover your mouse over the bottom middle of this video picture to see the "play" button.) Or click here to be brought to my You Tube page and see the video full-size.
So I finally decided to accept my niche: No matter how contemporary I try to be, my songs sound
as if they were hits in the early seventies. I think they're a cross between Carole King and
Carly Simon, with maybe a touch of a female Gordon Lightfoot thrown in. People say I
sound like Grace Slick of The Jefferson Airplane or Joan Baez or someone who would sing the
theme song to That Girl.
I used to write songs that could've been hits for Helen Reddy or The Carpenters, The Captain
& Tennille, Olivia Newton-John, or Anne Murray. I finally came to realize that instead of aiming
for the current music market, maybe my songs were meant to be in TV shows and movies that
are set in the 1960s and pre-disco 1970s. Or for any kind of project that needs a retro sound
and feel.
But then, in mid-2008 I "found myself" on another website, where my songs have finally been
exposed to the masses, and I realize that the breakdown of music into so many sub-categories
gives me a chance to reach kindred spirits who still like the sound and feel of a time
when songs were melodious and had meaningful lyrics, even if you can't dance to them!
I used to say that I offer my songs here for their potential to make their mark in their
own unique place: the past. And....that they may be kitschy but they sure are catchy!
BUT I don't believe that anymore! YEP, I still believe they're catchy.
But kitschy? Not so much.
I fully believe that almost all of my songs could be rearranged to fit today's current market.
And yes, that is a DARE...to any producer, artist or group, A&R man (do they still exist), music
publisher, or anyone else who is wise and talented enough to hear the HIT behind my arrangement.
into country; Moondrift Open
Your Eyes or Dreams Do Come True
FOR THOSE WHO SAVOR THE DETAILS..... Upbeat, carefree, and lighthearted is how I seem to come across, even with my saddest lyrics. Thus a new and valued friend began calling me "Happy Retro Girl". And so that I have become. Who are my influences, you ask?? The Beatles were my first conscious influence. In my early songs you can hear the influences of two quite disparate groups, The Eagles and The Cowsills. I recently realized that I might have been influenced by Maria Muldaur's Midnight at the Oasis. I was compelled to write songs every time I heard Dolly Parton's Here You Come Again, Linda Ronstadt's early hit Long, Long Time, and Lobo's Don't Expect Me to Be Your Friend. Two songs that made a deep impression on me were Crosby, Stills, & Nash's Our House and Simon & Garfunkel's Keep the Customer Satisfied. Both songs had such fascinating structures. The former bled seamlessly from verse to chorus and back, its tempo constantly changing. The latter's lyrics and beat were so all over the place, they were impossible to pin down. I was drawn to the complicated, the minor chords, and the ability to tell a complete story in less than three minutes. In my quest to be contemporary, I've tried to fashion songs that would be perfect for Cher, Whitney Houston, and even Boys II Men. I guess it didn't work. My dream is to hear Barbra Streisand sing Moondrift, a haunting and erotic melody that requires someone with a tremendous range in scale. A Mariah Carey or Celine Dion could do justice to it. Anyone want to drop them a copy?
I think one of my trademarks is that even in my saddest songs of heartbreak and most
joyful songs of love, my lyrics are tongue-in-cheek.
In The End of the World For Me the verses go,
In another song, one of tremendous pain and loss, is the line "Do they cover poison in my
health insurance?" And in yet another, inspired by the loss of the same love, is the line
"I gave up mental health for you," incongruously matched with an upbeat, rocking tempo. Most of my songs have been sent to me in dreams. One time in a dream, Alanis Morissette sang an almost complete song to me. I woke up and wrote it down, but was afraid to finish it because I was sure it must be an existing song that I'd heard in passing somewhere. (Truthfully, I stopped listening to current music when all of The Beatles were still alive. I'm proud to say, however, that I discovered Steely Dan in 1993 and Hall & Oates in 1999.) In that song, What Is Your Name Again?, is my infamous opening line, "I woke up early, had to answer nature's call. Where was that bathroom? I think it's somewhere down this hall." It's about a gal who spent the night at the home of a guy she met the night before. The lyrics all came from my dream, and it's one of the very few songs I've written that have absolutely no connection to my own life. I still think it's Alanis's. "Never been here with my baby snake" was a line I dreamed. The tune was good, but I don't have a snake, baby or otherwise, so I turned it into a song called "Never Been the Kind," and the lines, "Never been the kind to give when I could take..." and "Never thought a day would come when I could break." Within its melody is a subconscious homage to a couple of songs by David Gates and Bread and The Association's Never My Love. It's one of the few songs I have that lyrically can be sung by either gender, and it's about as close to country as I get. No minor chords. Well, maybe a couple.
My masterpiece, Moondrift, came in a dream as "Ride along with the mystic." I didn't see
where I could go lyrically with that, so it somehow became "Ride away on a moondrift." I
thought I'd made up the word. Boy, was I shocked to learn ten years later that Sammy Cahn had
co-written a song by that name. I now think of the opening line as "I'm a lonely fish stick." |
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