Brad Dunse: Brad's Blog

Story Behind The Song: In The Margins Of Life

My shortest song to date clocking in at just under two minutes minus any instrumentals. When I wrote this song it wasn't so much groove based. It has a very simple country bluegrass feel to it. Really nothing special musically… I wanted focus to be on the metaphorical lyrics.

When I sat down and came up with this music motif I got to thinking about the different life styles folks live. As I began to muse on that, as most songwriters do, I began to think of references to my own life and those around me.

Ever since I married my wife of 25 years, there has been a difference in our parent's lifestyle.

One set of parents is very conservative having been offspring of folks that came through the Great Depression. A lot of frugality and doing without or doing with little became a very comfortable lifestyle. The mentality of "pay as you go and we don't live on credit" was the belief structure they saw; they grew up in and also raised their kids [...]

It was getting late, getting on about 6:45 Am and I was getting ready to head out for the day. I decide “yeah sure… I’ve got time for a quick bowl of oatmeal” so I microed some water, tossed in the fixin’s and it was steeping in the bowl on the counter. My wife gave me a kiss goodbye for the day and off she went. I thought… “The weather guy said this is one of the coldest mornings this winter… I better go start the truck”. You know this was way back this winter now, all the way to last week or so. So I grab up the truck keys, tell our pup Buster… “I’ll be right back pal”, walk out the door into the garage, and back out the side door of the garage. As I shut the door I thought to myself “Did… I… just… crap I did! I just locked the door when I shut it!”

Faster than Clint Eastwood’s cheroot clamped draw… I would have left him for dead… I made for a quick jab to the left front pocket… no keys. In practically the same movement went a quick slam to [...]

Back in the 90’s the buzz word was paradigm, as in “paradigm shift”, a new way of thinking. Although we’ve played that phrase out in conversation as much as the songs of the day “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and “Achy Breaky Heart” were played on radio and never want to hear them again, that doesn’t mean the word doesn’t have a useful core minus its scriptic outer appearance.

Basically we looked for new ways to look at things, a purposeful breakout from old ways of thinking or doing in hopes we’d land on something that worked or wasn’t being done by someone already. Well today’s belated blog deals with just that topic. Changing an old methodology of thinking to serve our purpose.

What seems to be the focus over the past year? Well I’ll *money* give you a small *prices* hint as I go *recession* along here and *cutbacks* hopefully you’ll see *budgets* what I’m about to use as *do with less* vehicle for my point.

Ok. So I over did the old Saturday Night Live [...]

Old Town Road is sort of a conglomeration of a bunch of memories I had as a kid. The idea for the song, as is in many cases with my writing, came out of the basic chord progression and groove. Many times I will sit down, play a groove, and get a feel of what the song should be about and let the feel of the groove just take me somewhere. This is one of my favorite parts of writing… totally free forming.

In this case I was whisked back to my childhood days growing up in Mount Pleasant, WI… a suburb of Racine, which was about 25 miles south of Milwaukee, WI. I was taken back to my old friends, neighborhood games we’d play and bits and pieces of my growing up to a ripe old age of 10 when we had moved away from that area. Later as an adult we would travel back to the Racine area from Michigan to visit family, and would always drive by the old place. I remember once we stopped in to the man that bought our house and we got a grand tour after not having lived in it for ten years… that [...]

Computer technology, as complex as it is, you might find it interesting that the moving video on your screen, the MP3 playing on your computer, and even the text you are reading now at its most basic form is a simple matter of reading combinations of 1’s and 0’s. On or off. Very simple but how complex a thing. People communicate in a similar way. Either on or off. What do I mean? Have you ever been in a disagreement with someone and got the “silent treatment”? In case you hadn’t guessed that is “off”.

We communicate in the most basic form of either responding or not. Whether we say anything or not can mean many different things depending on the situation.

For example if I asked you “What is the meaning of life?” You might sit silent for a few minutes and are thinking what answer to formulate. Another example might be if I said “Take 3 minutes and say nothing.” You are then just being courteous and honoring my wish.

Akin to “saying something in conversation” [...]