I've Got the Music in Me: How I Write Music

I thought it would be nice to preserve for myself and posterity how it is that I come up with parodies. As my toddler daughter and her friends will readily attest, when Mommy is happy she often sings and dances, especially in the kitchen. When I was younger I would choose a topic and then a song that conveyed the mood I wanted. For an upcoming family reunion the music was chosen for me and is a song I know well: "Follow the Prophet". Each married couple among my grandparents' descendants is to come up with a verse about their small piece of the family tree.

I started by jotting down a few key words and phrases of events or titles I should probably include. While humming the first few lines in my head, those phrases were easily embellished to fit into the meter. Cadences were locked into place once I simultaneously figured out what I wanted to say about these keys phrases and which rhyming words would allow me to string them together in a coherent fashion.

As I went along I came up with three possible verses. There were things I liked and disliked about each one. Then it became a game of English analysis. I wanted to be deliberate in how I presented myself and my family. How did I decide what to include? Read on.

I wanted our verse to show how we view ourselves and to highlight the things that are most important to us. Ironically the draft that did this best did not initially mention physics or music. (Physics is what my husband has studied throughout college and grad school; it represents his love for solving problems and learning how things work. Music represents my expressive nature and my desire to find beauty in everything then share it with those around me. I sang before I could talk.) I swapped out the phrase "high school sweethearts" for singer and physicist, since I felt these labels to be more accurate.

Initially I wanted to possibly mention our waiting for child #2. Instead I chose not to mention our secondary infertility at risk of making people uncomfortable. We're not trying to complain or look for sympathy, but it is so often on our minds. Also, since Greg's little brother married my little sister and they just had their first child, the lines about weaving our two family names into one and having a daughter are not as unique as one might think.

Draft #1

Out in Rexburg, Idaho Greg met Danielle:

Romance quickly followed,

A mission as well.

Now he studies physics out in Illinois,

Victoria, their daughter, is their pride and joy.

Draft #2

Once their was a singer who loved a physics nerd,

Through college and a mission in case you hadn't heard.

Weaving Hart and Eaton into a family,  

We have a sweet daughter: Victoria is she.

Going through all the drafts, the one I like best includes only our starting location. The more I think about it, the more limiting of our future it could be to end the verse with our current location. Obviously Illinois is not an ending in our lives, but ending a verse that way doesn't leave the listener following us into a hopeful future.

Here's the final draft:

A singer and a physicist in Rexburg, Idaho:          
Studying together, our love did grow.                                  
College, mission, more school, a daughter joined our clan!
We're a happy family thanks to God's great plan.

I like how the first few lines don't have an obvious beginning date. Our friendship in high school grew and blossomed into a lovely marriage from subtle beginnings. I like too that the second line is not as specific as it could be, implying how together we study anything. (It's true. From calculus to the scriptures to opera, we enjoy it all.) I love ending with our testimony. God's plan for all His children has been the overarching goal in everything we do. Its doctrines enrich our perspective and color even our day to day actions. And there you have it.