Week 15 - Surprise Song
Can someone tell me what day it is? It’s Saturday? You’re kidding! I lost track of the time. Well, that’s not entirely true. It was true Monday morning, but by Thursday afternoon I think you could call it sheer laziness.
The reason I haven’t updated is because I no longer have a computer at my house and it takes some aligning of the planets to get up to my husband’s studio to update. Actually, I think now is probably a good time to end this thing. There are, of course, lots more songs I could post, but the truth is, it’s gotten a little hard for me to keep up with. Even with it being just once a week. This past Monday morning, around 2:00 am, I woke up and realized I hadn’t updated the site and I wasn’t going to be able to for several days.
I think I got a pretty good idea how my husband’s songs would be received if they ever got out there. And, in fact, there will be a time when he will make a professional cd of his songs and have them available for sale. I just don’t know when that will be and I can’t really keep posting songs until that happens. I’ll keep the site up for a while so you can still listen to the songs I’ve already posted and because the experiment is officially over, I guess the songwriter’s identity doesn’t need to be a secret anymore. So for this last song, I’m going to put up the song that made my husband, Elliott, a number-one songwriter!
This song was written by my husband around the time our daughter was born. He jotted down a few simple lines and recorded a simple melody and filed it away. Then, four years later, he had a co-write with a veteran songwriter named Walt Aldridge. Because Elliott was the lesser songwriter, he brought out all his ideas and they couldn’t seem to get any of them to go anywhere. Then, just before things got awkward, Elliott pulled out that piece of paper with a few lines jotted down on it. You can hear the rest of the story in an interview that Elliott did for a radio program called "Story Behind the Song." And, of course after that, you can listen to the song. I don’t have a recording of Elliott singing it, so you’ll be hearing Walt Aldridge’s voice, but it’s a really nice version.
Story Behind the Song
I Loved Her First
I just wanted to add that I have really enjoyed sharing my husband’s music with you. You’ve been very kind and generous with your comments and your time. I am confident Elliott’s music will find it’s place. God is doing amazing things in his life and I can’t begin to guess what He’s going to do next! Thanks for listening!
Woo hoo!!!! Love it.
I’m sad that there won’t be any more new songs here, but I also understand the need to move on and not have an extra obligation each week.
Another beautiful song. Like Tammy, I am sad there won’t be any more new songs to listen to and critique.
Thank you so much for sharing your husband’s talent with us over these past several months. Would it be possible for you to let us know when the CD comes out?
May God bless you all even more than you dreamed possible!
Karen
I’ve loved listening to all the songs. Like Karen, could we know when the CD comes out? I’ll miss listening to the new songs here!
God bless!
You may not believe this but about the only country music we listen to is when our daughter sings…but somebody told us to listen to this one by heartland and it made my husband cry. He started thinking about when he has to give our girl away and it just touched him.
I can’t believe Elliot is your husband, the songwriter…yes I can his stuff is just good. Thanks for lettin us get a glance, so we can say hey I know that songwriter.
Tell him if he writes a good one for a young girl voice remember my daughter, Whitney. She writes a few too. Go look her up on myspace, Whitney Rodriguez.
Thanks again!
Glenda
I will be sure to let everyone know when Elliott releases his first cd!
This was awesome! Please let us know when his CD is out. I’ve enjoyed listening to the music.
Pam (and Elliott),
Hi, my name is Paul Cook. I have thoroughly enjoyed devouring every part of your website relating to the music business and Elliott’s awesome music. (I bow in his general direction!) I too am a songwriter and became aware of Elliott’s success with “The Song” going to number one for Heartland. I have been writing songs for 25 years and just started recording them this past April at Big Note. Terry Mashburn mentioned Elliott’s story to me and it greatly encouraged me that if I could somehow pen a wonderful song, it could make it to the bigtime even though I’m a total outsider. I just stumbled across the website looking for songwriter sites through Google and was hooked (no pun intended). My wife, Maribeth, and I and our two daughters listened to every song and my girls had to listen to Once Upon A Time every day. We love it.
I am a surgical therapy consultant for Medtronic and cover everything from Wichita Falls to Abilene to San Angelo and even Midland/Odessa. I drive more than 60,000 miles a year and assist in almost 200 surgical implants a year. My oldest daughter, Tailor, is going to be a senior at Graham High School this year and my youngest, Carleigh, will be going into 4th grade. Tailor is getting serious about a career in the music business after co-writing some pop songs with me and recording them at Big Note. Carleigh also has a very big voice for 10 years old. I am also interested in seeing if Elliott might want to illustrate some children’s books I am working on.
Sorry to ramble on here but I told you all that to humbly ask whether you might be willing to let the songwriter’s experiment go on and allow some outside submissions to be posted at your discretion and commented on by the loving and honest audience you have garnered? It is such a nice website and I hate to see it stop. Also, I would love to meet Elliott some time just to shake his hand, buy him a cup of coffee and confirm that it really can happen even for those of us out here in the outer circle. Greg Young helped me out on a song while he was passing through at Big Note one night and I understand he and Elliott have played together and done some writing.
Anyway, thanks for reading this. If you want to know more about me I have set up a myspace at http://www.myspace.com/wpaulcook.
Thanks for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Paul
325-518-8488 cell
940-521-9161 home
Thank you for leaving this blog up… once a week or so, I come over here to listen to a few songs.
Thanks for sharing your great music!