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Printable lyrics? Downlaod PDF of ALL Lyrics from 'I'm Growing'

Mastered By: Bob Katz, Digital Domain
Cover Art: Irana Sheperd
All other art: Gunnar Madsen
Produced, Engineered, Mixed by: Gunnar Madsen
Recorded at: G-Spot Studios, Berkeley, CA (2007)

Love & Thanks To: Irana Shepherd, Richard Greene, Carrie Madsen, Kent and Vanessa and Finn Sparlowe, Kathryn Keats, Lorenzo Keats, Madalyn Kenney, The Irrationals (Linda Sanderson, Gwen McElwee, Tim A. Lukaszewski, Reneé Hayes & Sam Rogers), Marcella and Quinn Madsen, Beth Blenz-Clucas, and EveryBody in my life, for giving me so much support and inspiration!

All Songs published by Mop Mop Music, ASCAP All Songs ©2007 Gunnar Madsen EXCEPT: Mozart’s at the Window ©2007 G. Madsen (gunnar wrote all the lyrics and arranged it - Mozart did the original music); Simple © 1991 G Madsen; There’s a Bowl of Milk in the Moonlight ©2004 G Madsen; Raise Your Voices ©1994 G Madsen; I Feel a Waltz Coming On ©1994 G Madsen & Kathryn Keats; Shenandoah (Public Domain)

May we All be Blessed with Peace

I'm Growing

This is the first CD I've managed to squeak out since our son was born 5 years ago. Oh, sure, I knew parenthood would take me in unexpected directions. But I wasn't expecting these particular unexpected directions!

What am I doing?

I'm busy raising my son. I never dreamt I could get along without being deeply involved in music, but really, for the 1st couple years of his life, music took a seat way in the back of my mental bus. During that time, when I had projects that needed finishing, I did my musical work with gusto, but what I really wanted to get back to was being a dad.

I never expected that.

Oh, is this page supposed to be about the CD? Sorry. Where was I?

So, like I was saying, for a couple of years I had no desire to make new music. Then, desire started to gather, like wisps of vapor, slowly coalescing into cumulus clouds of passion, then piling up into towering thunderheads of musical need. I became crazy again to make music!

At the same time, I was awfully busy being a dad. So writing and recording these songs took longer than I expected. But the slow process allowed me to work the songs in a new way for me, with lots more time to perfect them. I became a better songwriter. A better performer and producer. I was sometimes frustrated with the slow pace, but by the end I was enamored of what was coming through me. I LOVED the songs. I recorded them with a new kind of care, with new skills that seemed to come with, well, being a dad.

Did being a dad make me a better engineer? Producer? Singer? Not in a direct way. Heck, I'm much more exhausted than I've ever been in my life (our boy is a light and mercurial sleeper). Maybe the exhaustion allowed me to let go of the unnecessary and focus on the essential. Maybe the upwelling of love and care did it. Maybe I'm too bleary-eyed to know :)

I do know that more than ever, I care about what each song is trying to say. Music is, for me, an emotional language, and songs are their best when they have an emotional core that they're expressing. While I've always believed that, and tried to express it in my previous recordings for children, this time around I 'trusted' it even more. The result is that while some songs may not seem like 'childrens' songs, I felt that their emotion and melody was strong enough to draw a child in and pull them along. Thus, while a child may know nothing about being alone in a foreign city ("Walkin' Back to Texas"), the longing to be home, to have a parent's forgiveness, is something they can definitely key into. And once they're hooked on those issues, they can begin to wonder what it would be like to be alone in a foreign place, far from home. Or not. Maybe they just like humming along.

I once heard Paul Simon interviewed, and recall him saying how important melody is :"It's not just what the words say but what the melody says. If you don't have the right sound and the right melody, it really doesn't matter what you have to say. People don't hear it. They only are available to hear when the sound entrances and makes people open to the thought."

That's how songs, to me, need to be. It's what I like to aim for as I write. I hope this recording brings you pleasure.

peace and love,

Gunnar