Record Mime.

"I can't wait to come back home."

January 2nd, 2013 - I am not sure where it came from, but that sentence could not escape me.  It meant so much to me, and it made more sense than ever now.  I had my first melody in ages and most importantly, my first opening line to a song.  And it came to me while I was refereeing girl's basketball?  In all sincerity, a lot of my lyrics/melodies were created on the basketball court.  Just call me Dikembe Mutombo...wait, on second thought...

Finger waving-aside, I had something meaningful on my hands.  Now, all I had to do was build something around it.  Before writing a song, I always want to write about something I believe in.  Otherwise, it's not worth singing about.   When I hear a tune(s) like "I Wanna Be Your Dog" or "I Wanna Be Adored" or "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," I BELIEVE Iggy, Ian,and Joey (Sounds like a dysfunctional version of Full House except it'd probably be called Fun House) when they sing those songs.  That's what I want to feel.  That's what I want the listener to feel as well.  I had to go back... to 1995.

Yup.  That's me.  6th grade.  Alamo Middle School Cubs.  I wore my Dookie shirt that day because I knew it was picture day.  And at the end of every day, I couldn't wait to come back home.  Home to a cold can of Coca-Cola Classic, some nachos, Darkwing Duck on TV, and most importantly, my stereo.
Now, it was extremely important to me to get in "Ram, the Rock Star" time before mom or dad came home at 5:30p.  To be more specific, what that entailed was me standing in front of a mirror in my brother's room (because my room didn't have a mirror!), putting on my favorite music at the highest volume, and lip-syncing every word and pantomiming every strum of the guitar as if my life depended on it.  This was usually my favorite album to listen to when doing so...

If the cassette was stuck somewhere between "The World has Turned and Left Me Here" or "Buddy Holly," I had no choice but to rewind it and start with one of the greatest track one's of all-time, "My Name is Jonas."   The last minute of that song changed my life forever.  "I want to be a rock star when I grow up.  Either that or a Foo Fighter, because that sounds like a fun job." I would record mime the entire album from beginning to end.   Then, as fate would have it, during the climax of "Only in Dreams," my mom storms into my brother's bedroom when I'm mid-jam out w/ my left-handed air-guitar.  I sprint and hit the STOP button on the stereo.  "What in the world are you doing?" she asks.  "Practicing," I mutter.  As I perform the walk of shame, I ask "So what's for dinner?  Chicken?  Or chicken?"  Embarrassing.  Simply embarrassing.  But it's a moment that lives on and plays frequently in my memories.  That's what inspired these opening lines...

"I can't wait to come back home.

I have a Mexican Coke and a fist for a microphone

And if the telephone should ring,

I'll pretend to know how to sing, "Only in Dreams."

January 8th, 2013 - While on a long, long drive to Weimar, TX, I wrote those lyrics.  Of course, I didn't write them down in my notebook while driving.  That's just plain stupid.  Okay, okay, so I did.  I was really careful I swear.  I made sure to do it at red lights and in the Shell parking lot when I picked up some mediocre beef jerky in Flatonia.  Long story short (or longer), I had written the first verse of my first song in almost two years and it felt great to be back home.   

~Rammers