Blog Posts

I’m one of the many people who follow the webcam of Friends of Big Bear Valley. FOBBV has two live cameras that watch a mated pair of American Bald Eagles named Jackie and Shadow.

For the last two seasons, Jackie and Shadow have had a hard time and the eggs that Jackie laid each year never managed to hatch.

Last year I created a song called Jackie and Shadow about these two majestic birds in support of FOBBV that stirred the emotions of many fans of the eagles. I promised the community that if Jackie and Shadow had success this year that I would make a replacement song and video.

This year, as in the last, Jackie laid three eggs. Thankfully, the weather proved mild enough that two of the eggs hatched almost on the same day, but the third egg wasn’t showing any signs of hatching. I immediately set out to write a new song and video called Eggs to Eaglets and rushed to post it on YouTube with lyrics about the two chicks and an egg.

Well, egg #3 proved to be just a little late and a few days after its siblings hatched, chick #3 managed to break out of its egg and join the nest. Of course, this means that my original song version about two chicks and an egg were now useless. So, back to the drawing board and I made some strategic changes to the song so that it now reflected the current state of affairs. The replacement Eggs to Eaglets was posted to YouTube a couple days after the original.

I hope everyone enjoys watching Jackie and Shadow as much as my family does, and that everyone takes time to support Friends of Big Bear Valley in keeping up their fantastic work.

I realized that a lot of the songs that I’ve been creating are seasonally or event themed (i.e. Fall, Winter, Thanksgiving, Valentines, etc…) which severely limits the playability of these song year round. So, I got to thinking about making a more generic country song.

Someone once told me that the quintessential Country and Western song was “My girl left me, my truck broke, and my dog died” I figured I’d see if I could make myself a classic country tune, in the style of ole’ time country, called “Country Blues” and yes in the song the girl leaves, the truck breaks, and the dog runs away.

Having made Country Blues, I got thinking that it really wasn’t fair leaving our cowboy all emotionally torn up like that, so I made a second tune in more modern country shuffle style called “No More Country Blues” where our cowboy finds his dog and a new cowgirl to keep him company.

I combined these songs into a two-song album called Country Blues Suite now available on all the streaming sites including iTunes/Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, etc…

The lyric videos are available on my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@davet9713

There was just enough time before Valentine’s Day 2025 to get one more song completed and mastered. Valentine Blues is about a country fella who has his heart broken when his girl runs off to the big city with a rich guy.

The song hasn’t hit the streaming sites yet (Apple Music, Spotify, etc…) but the Capify lyric video on my YouTube channel @davet9713 as part of the Valentine’s Day playlist is already available for watching.

I’ve started a project to remaster a bunch of older songs and update the distributed audio files. I’m also taking the opportunity to leverage Capify to create lyric videos for YouTube for the remastered songs.

I will be updating this blog post as new songs get remastered and posted, but here is the initial list

Be My Valentine is from 2024, one of two songs created for Valentine’s Day that year (the other song is Disco style).

This tells the story of a fella who has decided to pop the question on Valentine’s Day

The new lyric video for Be My Valentine is available on YouTube.

Tax Man Blues is a tune for tax season, all about the ridiculous amount of money that we all seem to have to pay to the government for taxes. This was one of the most popular songs of 2024 despite being released near the end of tax season.

The new lyric video for Tax Man Blues is available on YouTube.

My 2025 song for Valentine’s Day is a little country shuffle tune called Country Valentine.

Light and cheery, this song is perfect for a cuddle in front of the fire, particularly given the crazy cold weather we’ve been experiencing so far this year. The song is online and streaming on Apple Music and Spotify, and should be appearing shortly on all the other streaming services (YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, etc…)

A little tune, January’s Bitter Chill, is now online on the major streaming services to accompany the Polar Vortex that’s brought ridiculously cold weather this month.

This song was written when it was -27 degrees C (-17 degrees F) and you couldn’t go outside with any skin exposed for any length of time. While struggling through the blowing snow and the incredible wind chill the phrase “it’s cold enough to stop your heart” popped into my head. This eventually translated to the line in the chorus “Takes a heart, and makes it still” when I had to find some way to rhyme “chill”

For those of you who are experiencing this crazy cold weather, curl up with a nice hot drink and enjoy. If you detest the cold weather, you might like to also listen to “Snow is a Four Letter Word” while sipping.

January’s Bitter Chill is online on Apple Music and Spotify and should be up on all the other major streaming services (YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, etc…) shortly if it’s not already available there.

January Blues is a tune from January 2024 about dealing with the nasty winter weather that typically hits many areas post-Christmas.

This song actually has a full video on YouTube in addition to being available on all the streaming services via LinkShare