Freddy Bradburn: Workshops/Press

Roundin Third

Wave me through, wave me on,
If I have to go down let me go down strong.
If I have to die let it be known,
I was roundin’ third and headed for home.

Written the morning my father-in-law, Woodrow Roberts died. I also often think and dedicate the song to my father who taught me how to play baseball and my lifelong friend and teammate, Bill Kehler who committed suicide in 2003.


Pink Flamingoes

And what can be sadder than a broken trampoline.

And maybe it’s the aimless snow around me blowing.
Something that is nameless, something that is going,
You never thought would go.

Inspired by a chord riff in CGDGBD tuning. It was intended for Chelsea to sing (my Teenage singer) since it is a young girl’s story, but the chorus and the mood of it seems to give it a universal feeling of loss.

Expect Nothing Less From Love

Love in our life is like the sky.
We look for our guiding star.
Sometimes it’s invisible to our eyes,
Sometimes it is too far.
But I will say whoever you are.
Expect nothing less from love.

Just real life, I guess. As I see it. (in Dropped D tuning)

My Frankenstein

Wish I had somebody. I wish I had a clone.
Then I could leave myself alone.
Stuff him with sorrow. Give him a poet’s mind.
Send him out into the world my Frankenstein.

Oh beautiful monster. Sorrow’s flesh and bone.
Now that I made you leave me alone.

Sometimes when I have trouble coming up with something to write about I just try to come up with an evocative line or two. So when I got the line about having a clone I just followed it and that’s how it turned out. I love evocative lyrics that are specific but can be interpreted a variety of ways. I’m not sure nor do I really want to know what this song means.

Little Bo

Men are men and sheep are sheep.
Love me strong and hold me deep.
Hold me strong and we will pass.
Kiss me gone into the looking glass.

I went to Las Vegas just to get to the Utah wilderness, but was struck how Las Vegas seemed like such a fake town, a cartoon town. People on the sidewalks handing out leaflets for hookers and such. I just combined the fairy tale cartoon side of Las Vegas with the darker side. The question is: Is she really Little Bo Beep?




Film Noir

Outside the night grew blacker.
As we walked to your room.
You loved me like a trash compactor
Placed in an ancient ruin.

I’m always looking for a new way to write a love song. This is another from the dark side. I just tried to build it around the most unusual similes and metaphors I could think of for love. The Film Noir chorus came a long time after I had the verses.

More Than Meets the Eye

I wrote this one morning at the Wildacres Writing Workshop after talking to friend and poet, Rebecca McClanahan who I hadn’t seen for awhile. She was one of my first inspirations as a writer. The song came out of the wonderful connections people make not often enough.



The Beautiful Cliché (The Idiom Song)

And it’s one for the money in the old rat race.
Two for the show in the old goose chase.
I was three sheets in the wind and a pillowcase, pillowcase.

This song came out of a class exercise I do in one of my classes at the community college. I wanted to construct a song made up entirely of idiomatic phrases with a twist or two.

Think Hard

I looked deep. What did I want to keep?
Did I love her all or just some.
It’s all moving too quickly,
Oh my lips are all thumbs.
Okay, she said, I could fall in love,
Or I could fall from the sky.
Are you going to catch me?
Or watch me die?
She was falling from deep inside.

I wanted this song to be like a play. A dialogue between two people who are having one of those important conversations where the man knows the next thing he says could have dire consequences. It’s a song in three acts.

Time I Wasted

You said it’s just a game, so is everything else I do.
At least the game had a name, and when I lost at least I knew.
Like playing twister with my little sister,
Well, I tell you mister. The time I wasted.

Well, I do waste a lot of time. The board games were a way to unify the song. I have a fondness for the word Ouija.

The Great Wide Open

I pinched the statue of Venus.
Right on her behind.
Nothing there between us.
The flesh and the divine.
Nothing there between us, but the ocean of time.
And the great wide open world.

Philosophically, this is it for me, I think. “I’ve got Cupid’s broken arrow lodged inside my brain.” Inspired by Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Fly My Shadow

Make my shadow out of stolen corpses
from the pauper’s grave.
Stitch their faces into the darkness.
Make me a cross with a shovel and a spade.

This is another song driven by the first two lines. I had no idea where those lines would take me or what it meant. I teach a class in Southern Class where we do family history. I talk about the grandfather I never knew who was a poor dirt farmer in Madison County, N.C. who moved his family down to work in the Cotton Mill. My father worked at the mill when he was 14 and worked until his death at 63. I live in the house I grew up in and now I’m a grandfather. The song took me there in a way.

Want What We Want

Had an old dog. Dog had a bone.
We lived in a big house all alone.
I stole his bone. He called the law.
He bit me on the ankle. I bit him on the paw.
He got a rabies shot. I dug a hole.
It was the best dog gone bone I’d ever stole.

Finding satisfaction is not easy. I like the silliness of all this attached to the seriousness of the chorus.

Nothing This Perfect

Nothing this perfect. Nothing this sublime.
It’s always passing by us.
On the outskirts of time.

Written in the fall of ’04 in the Gazebo at Wildacres Retreat. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

Busy Morning

There’s woodpeckers and Tit Mice
So watch out boys and girls.
The birdsong meets get it on.
There’s even a flying squirrel.

A silly song that has a complicated story attached to it. What might a County Commissioner’s opposition to the distribution of condoms by the health department have to do with the rituals of spring when the animals become twitterpated (not sure how to spell this. It comes from Bambi.




Live from an Empty Room

Acoustic Guitar/ Vocals: Freddy Bradburn

Electric Guitar, Electric Slide, : Steve Blanton
Baritone Guitar

Harmony Vocals: Lisa Stevens

All Songs Written by Freddy Bradburn
© 2006 FreddySongs

Recorded by Steve Blanton at Blantone Music

Engineered, Mixed and Mastered by Steve Blanton

Produced by Freddy Bradburn and Steve Blanton

Photography by Susan Bradburn

Graphic Design by Steve Blanton

Duplication by Steve Blanton


Thanks and Acknowledgments:

This was a three person operation. Steve Blanton, who lives a mile from me as the crow flies (literally), I did not really know before we began this project, but we quickly became friends and besides his recording skills I love the fact that I have his guitar playing on the disc. It gives many of the songs a nice rock n’ roll edge. I brought in my good friend and singing partner, Lisa Stevens. Lisa and I have been a duo for several years and have been friends several years a long time. All the songs were done with a minimum of takes, usually two. I wanted them to have a live feel and to feel a bit loopy. Like my life.

I want to thank my wife, Susan, and son, Orion and the rest of my family. Thanks to the many students at McDowell Technical Community College whose stories and lives weave in and out of these songs. Thanks also to The Wildacres Writing Workshop, Solatido Songwriting Workshop at Wildacres, Minnow Media, and Mike and the gang at the Crooked Door Coffeehouse. Special thanks to Steve Blanton for working on and becoming an important part of this project, and thanks to Lisa Stevens for her soulful harmonies.

Songwriting and Creativity Workshops

I am offering workshops that are any where from a week to a day long. The workshop topics may vary from Songwriting, creative process, writing humor, guitar for songwriters, using the partial capo, alternate tuining, and any combination of the above. I have taught storytelling, readers theater, theater appreciation at the communtiy college for over ten years plus teaching at Duke University Writer's Workshop, and teaching privately. If you have an interest in any of these areas please contact me.

Chelsea Richardson and Freddy Bradburn: Shining Alone.(Brief Article)(Sound Recording Review)
Sing Out!; 6/22/2005; Page, Angela



Search for more information on HighBeam Research for freddy bradburn.

Kira 2468

Many modern songwriters attempt a child's view in their works, and some are more effective than others. Shining Alone is a collection of childhood situations. Chelsea Richardson takes lead vocals and shares some co-write credit with Freddy Bradburn, who accompanies her on guitar.

Among the situations portrayed here from a child's eye view are: watching parental fighting, resisting temptations to follow the crowd, awaiting the birth of a new family member, and traveling to America by boat from Ireland. The lyrics are well-crafted and with Chelsea's vocals, they allow the scenes to come to life and seem almost touchable. Chelsea delivers this effect easily because she was barely a teenager when this was recorded. There's something riveting about a kid's view sung by a kid. No quality is lost because of her youth, in fact, she is stunningly engaging.

The duo's track "Cartoonland" won Best Song, and was also the Grand Prize Winner, at the 2004 Mountain Stage New Song Festival and was performed on Public Radio's Mountain Stage. In the song, Chelsea morphs from the helpless child to the superhero. One minute she is turning up the volume on the cartoons to drown out arguing parents, and the next she is brandishing a powerful sword and using admonishing words; flipping the parent-child dynamic.

Other poignant songs include "Once Upon a Time" about a young child and a grandma learning to read together and "A Mother's Love" sung at a mother's grave side. The production throughout is simple and clean.

Since Freddy Bradburn's former co-writes have included Cosy Sheridan, David Wilcox and his wife, Nance Pettit, Chelsea is in good company. Let's hope she plans to stay hooked on folk. I'd love to hear more.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Sing Out Corporation

Freddy writes songs like no one else in the world. His songs are little movies with great special effects. He is insightful, touching, and hilarious. He is also warped. Wonderfully warped.

On the CD, "Shining Alone"

Poignant in it's depth and scope, Freddy Bradburn has found a provocative way to communicate the often complex world of today's child with both empathy and wisdom. Chelsea Richardson's voice beautifully complements the songs that no adult could ever deliver with such a disturbing yet delightful juxtaposition.

Freddy's songs are quirky, funny, deep, and powerful.

"Cartoonland" is one of the best written songs I've heard in a long time.

This song ("Cartoonland") had me on the floor. I immediately went home and played it for my wife. We played it over and over. Just amazing. What a gift. Thank you.