We're Even: Favorite Day

In the fall of 2009, I found out that my sister, Selena, and her husband were expecting their first son, Landry. I was so excited about having a nephew on the way and I wanted to create something just for him; something that would be original and heartfelt and would be something he could keep forever ... And then one day the song, "Little Bullfrog," just showed up in my head. I immediately ran to the guitar and figured out the accompaniment that I was hearing in my head and finished writing the song. After that, I decided this song would become one of a few that I wrote for my nephew, would record before he came into the world, and would give to Selena and Brian as a shower gift.

And so, I did. It was amazing how quickly the rest of the songs came to me and I enjoyed writing each one of them for different reasons. In addition to these 6 original songs, I also recorded the song "Octopus's Garden" (by Ringo Starr) because Selena designed her nursery around this song.

The mural in Landry's nursery

And the last recording on the album is "Jesus Loves Me" because it is just a beautiful, simple song about the love that Jesus has for us. And I think every child should grow up knowing that song.

After I wrote all of the songs (and made sure I knew them like the back of my hand) I contacted an old family friend, Dick Brunning, and asked if he could help me record the songs. I didn't need anything fancy - just technology simple enough to get my voice and guitar playing on CD but technology better than the ability my laptop possessed to do this. So, Dick and his wife, Sarah, invited Chris and I over one afternoon in March of 2010 to record all of my songs and to have dinner with them that evening. I should have known that Dick was not just going to "record." He is a man of many, many talents, and he not only helped me get all of the songs recorded in a space that lent itself to great acoustics, but he also added sound effects to some of the songs, encouraged me to sing harmony on "Prelude to the Sun" and overlaid that track with the original melody and guitar part, and he worked tirelessly (and until about 2:00 the next morning) to get a rough copy of each song onto CD for me to take home. Oh, and who designed the album cover and the inset? Dick Brunning. Yep, he is amazing!

He worked on the tracks for a few more weeks, emailed each file to me, emailed the cover artwork to me, and told me how much fun he had doing it all. He even fussed at me when I sent him a Trader Joe's gift card to him and Sarah as a thank you, because any kind of payment was "out of the question." We all have family friends like this, yes?

The copyrighting process was actually pretty simple (what?!) and could all be done online. The hardest part was waiting for the confirmation letter to come in the mail telling me that my songs were approved and were officially copyrighted. That was a fun day!

Anyways, here is the song list: (I sang and played guitar on all of the songs, and wrote and copyrighted the following songs that are listed in bold):

Favorite Day (Mallory Even)

Octopus's Garden (Ringo Starr)

Waitin' on the Weather (Mallory Even)

Maddie (Mallory Even)

Time With You (Mallory Even)

Little Bullfrog (Mallory Even)

Prelude to the Sun (Mallory Even)

Jesus Loves Me (Traditional)

{to all of my musician friends out there: please take a moment to appreciate the fact that I recorded the guitar and voice tracks at the same time on each song. So, if I messed up the guitar part half way through a song but had the vocals perfect, I still had to re-record the whole thing. No pressure!} :)

Next project? Getting all of the songs that I have written for my twins, Parker and Reagan, out of my head and onto something more permanent. I also have another nephew on the way in just a few weeks and would love to write some original songs for him! The challenge? Now that my husband and I have twins, I feel like I have less time than I used to ...