"With Love, Charlie" genre: Soft Rock
	lo fi play (dial-up) hi fi play (broadband) download (3.7 MB)	email track to a friend	add to My.MP3
	A slow song on the 12-string about a book of poems written by my dad's uncle....
	CD: Raisins and Other Small Snacks Credits: Words and Music by Craig Gilden
	Story Behind the Song My dad's Uncle Charlie wrote poems to express his feelings. The poems, unknown to family members, were found when Charlie died. Charlie finished all of his poems with the line: "With Love, Charlie." His daughter put the poems together in a book called "With Love, Charlie." Many of the situations in the song came direcly from poems. The second verse ("I mostly wrote...") was from a poem of how his daughter could make him happy even when he was sad and wanted to be by himself. The third verse (I wrote about the loves...) contained the story about his pharmacy which burned down. In his poem, he talked about the constant struggle against the fates. To be accurate, the pharmacy burned down in '31 or '32 but '29 sounded better in the song and placed it closer in my mind to the Great Depression. I hated putting the line "trouble and strife" in the song because it sounds like such a cliche...so I qualified by calling it a cliche - that made me feel better about adding the line. I interviewed by dad's cousin on video to get family history. She talked about how they found Charlie's poems after he died. I was so inspired upon watching the video that I wrote the lyrics in about 15 minutes. The last verse was actually an afterthought (I thought I had already finished the song) but came so perfectly that it ties up the song nicely. Lyrics Stories written on a page Thoughts are passed from age to age Writing down what’s on my mind I didn’t know they’d pass through time Stories written on a page I mostly wrote when I was down When I wanted no one else around And as I tried to hold it tight, You came around, a shining light You made my happiness abound So take my soul and take my inner thoughts And bind them nice and neat It’s my gift to all of you With Love, Charlie I wrote about the loves all my life Cliches of the trouble and the strife And how in ’29 my worked burned down And brought my dreams down to the ground The constant struggle against the fates So take my soul and take my inner thoughts And bind them nice and neat It’s my gift to all of you With Love, Charlie These tell a history of you Of stories that all of us went through These words I write, not tears Communicate my deepest fears And after years they’ve brought me back to you So take my soul and take my inner thoughts And bind them nice and neat It’s my gift to all of you With Love, Charlie

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).