Before we begin, I added a new link. This will take you to a "portfolio" of sorts that contains original compositions of mine. It is split into two categories: projects I have made using Garageband for a Digital Studio Recording Class at school (the reason I made the site in the first place) and recordings of songs that I have written and recorded with Pro Tools. Okay, enough with the self-promotion!
What would you say if you only had four minutes left to speak? I ask this because it's happened to me before. Okay, maybe not literally, but still. One of the schools that I applied to, Belmont University in Nashville, has a songwriting program for which you have to send in a CD of three songs you have written. But here's the rub, they have to each be only 2-4 minutes long. I understand why. They get a lot of applicants and can't spend all their time listening to really long songs. I suppose they also are looking for more commercially viable songs (apparently, our attention spans aren't long enough to handle lengthy songs). Still, four minutes is too short. How can you say all that is wrong with even a tiny part of our world in only four minutes? How do you express your love and adoration to the Lord in only four minutes? How do you pour out your soul to someone you love in only four minutes? How do you mourn the loss of someone close to you in only four minutes? And how do you make it sound pleasing to the ear in only four minutes?
I don't know if he really said this or not, but in the movie Walk the Line about Johnny Cash, record producer Sam Phillips tells Johnny (after stopping his audition) "If you was hit by a truck and you was lying out there in that gutter dying, and you had one time to sing one song. Huh? One song that people would remember before you're dirt. One song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth. One song that would sum you up. You tellin' me that's the song you'd sing? That same Jimmy Davis tune we hear on the radio all day, about your peace within, and how it's real, and how you're gonna shout it? Or... would you sing somethin' different. Somethin' real. Somethin' you felt. Cause I'm telling you right now, that's the kind of song that truly saves people." Unfortunately, none of the songs that would fall under that category for me are under four minutes.
So what would you say with just four meager minutes more on this earth? What would your last song be?
