Hearing the Muse -
Learning to Write A Song Worth Singing
The craft of songwriting is what separates musicians who just like to jam from those who create. As a one-man-show and cover artist who has made a living performing songs written by popular artists I always felt that in order to be a legitimate musician I needed to write and perform my own songs. I always had the ability to write something silly and improvise on the spot but nothing with any real story behind it.
And so, over the course of the last couple of years I have been working on listening a whole lot more. And then it happened! I changed and the songs followed. Since then I have written a handful of songs that I’m very proud of and I look forward to a future of writing more, growing as a writer of both songs and stories and sharing them with the world. One of those songs is something I wrote after making a long awaited pilgrimage to Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Robert Johnson had created his legendary catalog of songs and the tale of selling his soul to the Devil at The Crossroads. My journey to that town, the experience of playing there for a week and the song I wrote about it changed my life and gave me peace I'd never had before.
The following is an exerpt from the lyrics to that song, "Free Will and Four Rollin' Wheels". Since writing it, I've gone on to write about the Covid-19 pandemic in "Carrie's Boogie", about civil unrest and the Black Lives Matter movement in, "Let Love Rule", as well as being an Outlaw Cowboy in "Cowboy Blues", a reflection of the lives of my musical heroes who have passed, Billy Joe Shaver, Jerry Jeff Walker and Guy Clark.
Free Will and Four Rolling Wheels by Rod Fraser, all rights reserved.
(Chorus)
"He’s got free will and four rolling wheels,
And he’s trying to get a bead on the way he feels.
Those six-string Blues are all he’s ever known.
And rollin down that open road is when he really feels at home,
Yeah man, he’s got his free will and foooour rolling wheels!
(Verse)
His gift comes back calling in the middle of the night
When he’s pouring out his songs up there in the red hot light,
He’s headed to the Crossroads gotta make a deal!
And then it’s back out in the darkness paying for the toll.
Wondering what it cost him, is he really gonna sell his soul...
For free will and four rollin’ wheels?"
A highlight of my career is seen here and in the
background photo of this page when I performed
songs written by myself and by my father at this
show. It was an honor to be the opening act for
Willis Alan Ramsey, a legendary songwriter from
Texas and Louisiana, at Jensen's Guitar Shop in
Longmont, Colorado in 2017.
My dream as a boy was to live the life of a traveling American musician. Singing and playing my butt off from town to town and moving people with a gift I felt deeply about since I first heard Bob Dylan. Well, I was very lucky and able to do that. Then, I made it to the Crossroads, played there for rooms full of people, didn’t lose my soul to the devil as Robert Johnson claims to have done, and wrote the songs I always wanted to write. I’m still on that road, writing more songs than ever before by learning to listen more these days. I cherish the thought of writing beautiful music that will reach some young boy or girl, being their "Bob Dylan" and opening their soul and ears to an amazing world of music.
I hope you enjoyed my story. I talked about my awakening, about my joy of performing live, and my incredible adventure involved in chasing the muse and writing original songs. I hope it inspires you to chase your dreams and share them with others. Until we meet, keep love in your soul and a song in your heart.
Thanks for your time!.....Rod Fraser
You can find my original songs and videos of past performances playing both covers and originals at my youtube site.
