I am a writer. I write articles, books and songs. While I have won a few awards for some of my newspaper and magazine articles, I have never written a best-selling book or song. I have written hundreds of songs, recorded a few off them and lost or thrown away many others. My first printed book was a 184-page doctoral dissertation 31 years ago. They only printed four copies, and a dear friend actually bought one!
Not counting that dissertation, I recently finished writing my 11th book, which I’ve titled: “This Little Line of Mine.” Obviously, that is a play on words from the song, “This Little Light of Mine.” My book’s subtitle is, “Lyrics, Lines, and Rhymes.” With this latest book, I married my songwriting and my book writing. It is mostly a collection of some of the song lyrics I have written through the years.
Honestly, I can’t remember the first song I ever wrote, and I don’t know exactly how many songs I have written. I have forgotten a great number of then. That’s probably because they were forgettable. I do remember being a little kid and making up my own lyrics to the tunes of someone else’s songs. I have been guilty of altering the words of a serious song to make it into something funny. I can still hear my “Closet Puritan” mother say of some of those songs, “Son, that’s a gospel song.” The interpretation of her rebuke was that I should not alter the lyrics of a gospel song. I’m afraid I have not always minded my mother’s admonitions.
I picked up my brother’s old guitar and started “making noise” on it, while I was still in elementary school. Before long, I was making up chord progressions and adding my own lyrics to match. I believe I first thought it might be best for me to write my own songs after I had rendered my own version of a radio song I had heard. Mama was hosting a group of ladies from church in our living room one day when I broke out into an impromptu verse of, “It will either be the bottle dear or me.” Since I was only around 6 at the time, I didn’t fully understand why my mother didn’t like songs about bottles. Noah may have found grace in the eyes of the Lord, but I definitely didn’t find much grace in the eyes of Mama that day! I did find other songs to sing.
Some of my original songs were scribbled on scraps or paper or even the proverbial lyric napkins. Through the years, many of them were lost or thrown away, but I managed to keep quite of few of them. I still have the lyrics and chords for some but have no idea what they sounded like back then or now. Many of them are Christian songs that I used in church.
About 25 years ago, I created a story-telling/song-singing character called Bro. Billy Bob. Many of my original songs are lighthearted or humorous ones that I’ve used in those Billy Bob programs. My music has naturally fallen into two different categories, so my new book has as well. I called the first section, “Seriously – Let’s Get Serious.” I called the second section, “Silly-ouly – Let’s Get Silly.” Occasionally, I got the two confused and some silliness slipped into the serious songs and vice versa.
Beginning this weekend, I will be available in the coming months for a limited number of concerts of selected songs from the book. The book is available from me or online.
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com.
