On Creativity and Inspiration/On Valentine’s Day

Written by Becky

This is Becky’s husband, Josh.  I’ve hijacked Becky’s blog today for Valentine’s.

For years Becky supported me as a singer/songwriter/traveller.  She came with me to the fun places like Portland or Seattle or Vancouver and I went alone to the other places that will go unnamed here.  Becky is an exceptionally bright and intelligent person, so for her to defer to my career meant a lot to me, since of the two of us she is more creative and has more potential for greatness.

In early 2012 I wrapped up an album that completely taxed all of my musical creativity.  After my CD release concert in Salt Lake City for that album, I was content to call it quits indefinitely.  I wanted to settle in to Utah, travel less (for work purposes) and enjoy a life in our home in the city we both love so much.  Effectively, music was done and I was happy and excited to support Becky in food endeavors and food writing. Through that, we joined up with some folks and started Charming Beard Coffee all while both serving at our local church, Missio Dei traveling only for pleasure.

Our hobbies, work and pleasure for the most part put us in the same room working on the same projects and through that we’ve grown closer and become a formidable team that seeks the best for our city.  All the while, my personal songwriting and performing stayed perfectly in the background.  Becky always encourages me to play music and likes it when I write.  I really feel like she’s a fan of mine.

All of my songwriting buddies said that when I have a son or daughter that I’ll start writing again because they’re good for inspiring the type of creativity good for writing.  Not true.  My son inspires me significantly, don’t me wrong, but I was never driven to my guitar with a melody.

Two years later Becky is spending the evening with some girls and with a wine glass in hand, I pick up my guitar.  Not out of boredom, but inspiration.  I played some chords and the words that came out of my mouth were “don’t just pray for me tonight / come sit by my side.”  Words that Becky completely understands and from there I wrote something I only intended for her.

A few weeks later, I finished the song and recorded it and that’s what you see above.  I was again inspired.  Becky inspired me.  I don’t really get it though.  She’s always inspired me, it comes out in how I father my son, run my business, support her in her business and pastor my church.  For some reason, this time she inspired me to write a song about how we live and love each other and how all the roads that we go down in work or play lead to each other.

If love was a road
I’d always go where it leads, I know it leads to you
The future’s unknown
Every breath’s a hope that we’ll live and die the same day

When I recorded this song I said to the band in the studio, “for years now I thought I was done with music, but Becky inspires me to write and you guys inspire me to play.”  I think the best gift I could give to Becky today is to do something that only she could inspire me to do so that she would know that without her presence in my life every day, I don’t have this in me.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

By the way, it’s hard to do a project of this scale and keep it from my wife.  I somehow needed to sneak around for a total 20 – 25 hours over the course of 6 weeks to pull it off.  Special thanks to Michael Green from Metcom Studios, Mickey Raphael (harmonica), Peter Jensen (upright bass), Ben Robie (guitar/vocals), John Francis (fiddle) from Amour Spreads, Evan Lewandowski (vocals), Austin Wright (videography).  All of the guys playing in this video are ones that Becky knows and loves.

This project was an honor on every level.

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