Six months after I’d sung “Where Love Lives,” just in time for the indie flick Karaoke Man, and after Dr. Yingchun Chi—and, I believe, prayer—helped pull off a “throat-polyp-removing” miracle, I went back into the studio to sing again.
Melodically, the song wasn’t too demanding, so I thought I’d gently wade in and piece my way through it.
It was co-written with Dan Lavery during an all-day session at his home studio in Los Angeles, starting with us dropping off his son at kindergarten, volleying ideas on the way there and back, and then immediately heading into the studio. Back and forth we went all day until we picked up his son. Of course, we stopped to hear how his day went, but then we continued.
Dan cooked pasta for his son—and enough for us to nibble on—while I sat at the piano, and we yelled lyric ideas back and forth from the kitchen to the piano—ideas that might or might not work. Lots of stupid stuff, which brought lots of laughs. We follow the mantra that you need to go through the dirt to get to the diamonds. So we’re not afraid to toss out cudah—a fake Arabic word my Aunt Selma Seroogy used to say to me, which she claimed meant shit. ☺
Evening descended on our tired heads with no break. His son went to bed, and I had to leave early the next morning to catch a flight. We left the session with one line still missing from the chorus.
Appropriately, his son helped set the tone, and we ended up with a message that spoke not only to our kids—his son and my three—but to both of us. The song is called “What You’re Looking For (Open Doors).”
On a phone call a few weeks later, with him in his studio and me in mine back in Madison, Wisconsin, we started trying to find that elusive line. Dan, perhaps inadvertently inspired by how much we had struggled with this one lyric, said, “Trouble less.” I shot back immediately, “Surrender more.” And we both said, “That’s when you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
SONG DONE!
We laughed. Finishing things feels good.
Is there a lesson here? Maybe it’s this: “Trouble less, surrender more. That’s when you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
Full chorus lyric from What You’re Looking For (Open Doors) with audio below:
“The best things in this life
Find their way through open doors
So trouble less, surrender more
That’s when you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
Thanks for reading.
Let’s “make this journey a smoother ride.”
—Michael
Check out “What You’re Looking For” off my Side of the Road (Deluxe) album:
You are so proficient at unlocking your creative doors !
Love and Ease