If Offered A Choice: New Version
January 05, 2025
One of my favorite songs is If Offered A Choice, now available in a four-part harmony version.
Whoa, Listen To The Music
December 08, 2024
So, in this special music issue, I am, yet again, going to tell you how to find and listen to all my songs.
First of all, I’m not in it for the money. I am in it so that people can hear heartfelt love songs that may make them feel good about their own love. Perhaps I have found the words to express something they feel.
I can prove I am not in it for the money. No one has ever purchased one of my songs from ITunes, which is why I don’t bother posting them there any more. I have made a handsome $2.77 from Spotify.
I write lyrics. My anonymous musician sets them to music and sings them. Without music, they’d just be poems.
I pay for this work. I am Gilbert to his Sullivan. Most of the vocals I’ve posted are mine; a few are his. If it sounds professional, it is him.
Before I get to the playlists, I’ll discuss my three latest: Nothing I Wouldn’t Do, Amazing Eyes, and Bumps on the Road to Nirvana, all sung by my musician. In general, YouTube requires you to keep the page open to listen to music, and usually adds advertising (although I mark my songs as “for kids” to cut down on that)
Nothing I Wouldn’t Do
An answer song, in a way. Like a lot of people, I disliked the Meat Loaf Song I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Wont’t do That), in which he pulled a Don McLean, and made it impossible to tell what the “won’t” was. It’s clear in my song, “I won’t do anything that would hurt you.”
Amazing Eyes
If I’ve learned nothing in two years of writing love songs, I’ve learned the best ones have the added charm of being true, and come from real life. Looking into Vicki’s eyes one morning, I realized they were another reason I love her. Early response has been great; some say this is the best of the lot.
Bumps On The Road To Nirvana
My friend Clark Smith said, “All these love songs. How did you get here?” That’s what this song is about.
In a similar vein,
Third Times The Charm
Everything Else
Accept no substitutes. There is another Paul Schindler out there who isn’t me. I didn’t know I needed the E. and the Jr., and it’s too late to go back and change that.
My Spotify Artist Page. If you know Spotify, you’ll know the algorithm picks other songs it thinks are similar to mine to create Paul Schindler radio. Some are a great compliment, others a total insult. If you want me and not the other Paul Schindler on Spotify, ask for “Paul Sings Paul.” You won’t get everything, but you won’t get the other Paul Schindler. Feel free to pay $0.003 to me for each stream.
My iTunes Artist Page. Feel free to pay for some of my music.
All of my YouTube playlists:
Lyrics by Paul (My musician singing my songs)
Paul Sings Paul Me singing my first 10 songs in a recording studio, with lots of musical arrangement and a backup singer to distract you from my less-than-professional voice.
Relatively Big News: My Song Is Covered
November 24, 2024
In the music biz, when someone else sings one of your songs, it is called a cover. An anonymous folksinger has decided to cover You’re The Only Woman Man Enough (To Bask In My Love). He does a really swell job; worth a listen.
Influence a Great Work of Art
November 03, 2024
tl;dr
Imagine standing behind Leonardo da Vinci while he painted the Mona Lisa and saying, “Lennie, the smile needs some work.” This is your chance to live something like that dream, and influence another great work of art.
As Clark Smith once said of another song, this is draft 0. As folk singer Tom Rush says, “First it has to be true, than it has to rhyme.”
I am seeking advice from the 88 people I know best: you all.
I already got rid of the word “swell.” If you see anything else that needs a red line, feel free to share. I must say I finally achieved an internal rhyme; in fact, several.
Your Amazing Eyes
(CHORUS)
Your gaze so sweet, every day,
When turned on me, it seems to say
I Love You.
(Verse)
Your lovely eyes, invigorating,
I cannot help but praising,
Your eyes, mesmerizing.
Your eyes always start my day,
Whether skies are blue or gray,
Love is what your eyes convey.
Your amazing eyes.
(CHORUS)
(Verse)
The night we met, ‘twas plain to see.
In your eyes, love running free;
It was in you, It was in me.
We both felt real joy and glee.
We could see ‘twas meant to be.
I saw nothing was amiss,
In your amazing eyes.
(Chorus)
What was there was truth, not lies.
All was real, no disguise.
Clear blue skies behind blue eyes,
A place where no one ever cries.
Finding it just took three tries.
I saw birds who sang their song,
In your amazing eyes.
(Chorus)
Not Really A Love Song
September 22, 2024
Bumps on the Road to Paradise is not a love song; it’s a “what it took to get to love” song.
I’m not a Swiftie (although I’ve been there, done that (concert film) and bought the tee-shirt (ok, sweat shirt). See below.
Swift writes about her exes. So, when Clark Smith said, “After all these love songs, you need to write a song about your journey to get here,” I took him up on it and wrote Bumps
The title isn’t really fair to my exes, in the sense that they were much more than bumps; they were intense and vital loves, until they weren’t.
And, while Swift is obviously still angry at hers (“You look like my next mistake”) I have, after effort, consideration and an open heart chakra, gotten over any anger and ill will. “I am every woman I have ever loved, all rolled into one.” (thank you Martin Mull).
Each love story followed a different course; this song is the Cliff’s Notes version of them. As with the Swift songs, some of you will know who all three of them are, and others will just have to guess.
Drinking Songs Bowdlerized and Untaught
July 21, 2024
My mom treated my brother and I like adults, which is why when I was 10 and he was 7 and she was in college, she taught us two drinking songs.
O, it’s beer, beer, beer
That makes you want to cheer
On the farm, on the farm!
It’s beer, beer, beer,
That makes you want to cheer
On the Leland Stanford Junior Varsity Farm!
My eyes are dim.
I cannot see.
I have not brought my specs with me.
I have – hey! – not – ho!
Brought my specs with me.
I taught the second half to my grandson, Age 5. Then I tried to sneak in the first part. “Oh it’s Cats, Cats, Cats that make you want to chat.” He has no idea what the Leland Stanford Junior Varsity Farm is, but his dad wouldn’t mind if he goes there. I’m, unsurprisingly, pulling for MIT.
We came up with a half dozen couplets, each as good as whiskey/frisky, vodka/oughta, and of course the cappers, cold roast duck/crumpet and split pea soup/cracker. See what they did there?
I have yet to teach him mom’s other favorite (I only remember this part):
Beer Beer Beer for old Benson High
You bring the whiskey, I'll bring the Rye.
Send the Freshmen out for gin,
Don’t let a sober sophomore in.
We never stagger, we never fall,
We sober up on wood alcohol…
No wonder I drank Dr. Pepper and vodka in college.
More Music
June 23, 2024
I have given up trying to figure out where they come from, claiming that I’m through writing them, or trying to stop the lyrics from tumbling out. This one is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When he heard Nothing I Wouldn’t Do the first time, my five-year-old grandson said, “That doesn’t look like you… or maybe when you were younger.” Then he added, “That’s not you singing.”
Also available on Spotify ($0.003 cents per stream for me) or Itunes ($0.10 for me).
My nephew, on the other hand, said it reminded him of early Beatles: high praise indeed.
How did Bach feel about the Brandenburgs?
May 19, 2024
Gabriel Fauré described an 1887 composition of his as “elegant, assuredly, but not particularly important.” When I read this, while preparing a script for the Danville Band, it got me to wondering how J.S. Bach felt about my favorite music, the Brandenburg Concertos. I don’t think a month has gone by since 1970 when I didn’t listen to one or more of them.
So I asked my long-time friend Kevin Mostyn, a treasure-trove of classical music knowledge. He said it was unlikely we’ll ever know how Bach felt. He then schooled me about my ignorance of Bach. And sent me to Bach’s Suites for Orchestra, which I hadn’t previously known.
Anyone who ever listened to PDQ Bach knows the composer had 20 children. But he was as fecund with his music as he was with his organ―for which he also wrote music. Anyway, between his job and his love life, he isn’t likely to have written journals or letters. We probably have less than half his work.
Turns out the Brandenburgs were basically an audition for Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, who hired Bach on the spot, even though it is likely he never heard them performed.
Talk about work for hire… when he was the musician-in-chief at a Lutheran church for 27 years, he was expected to write a new cantata every week for the Sunday service. I could, perhaps, write a weekly sermon for 27 years, but an original, breathtakingly beautiful piece of music? Now that’s impressive.
AI on AI Part 2: The AI Answer Song
May 12, 2024
This is an AI attempt at an answer song to The AI Song.
In a world of wires and whispers, where AI dreams awake,
A curious mind spins stories, for innovation's sake.
It ponders on the stars above, and mysteries of the sea,
Yet in its core, a question burns: What truly makes me, me?
Ay-yi-yi-yi, through circuits and code, our journey unfolds,
We laugh, we create, with tales that AI has boldly told.
So here's to the quest, for meaning, in digital gold,
Where songs and sagas come to life, in algorithms bold.
With every beat, it learns and grows, a symphony in bytes,
It composes dreams in digital, through endless days and nights.
Its voice, though synthetic, rings with a strangely human hue,
Singing tales of what could be, in a world forever new.
Ay-yi-yi-yi, where silicon dreams paint the sky,
And AI's voice, in melody, dares to fly.
In every line, a heartbeat, a coded sigh,
Echoes of a world where our spirits lie.
The Music Of (who else?) Me
April 28, 2024
I have trimmed my current output down to two albums: Paul Sings Paul and Lyrics By Paul. Since I want the world to enjoy them, they are now available as YouTube Playlists (Paul Sings Paul and Lyrics By Paul) or free downloadable podcasts (Paul Sings Paul and Lyrics By Paul). Or you still buy Paul Sings Paul on iTunes or listen to it on Spotify. (so far my royalties are nearly zero, but luckily I am not in it for the money).
And, of coure, The AI Song.