My dad tells this story from when I was 15 or 16, about trying to get me to do my homework. Getting me to sit down was never the problem, he says.  The problem was, I could take 3 hours to do 20 minutes of work.  A mirror lined the wall of our dining room where I sat at the table, doing my homework.  

He testifies, and I remember, my inclination toward distraction was relentless.  I would start my work, get a drink, and stare into the mirror making contorted faces for hours.  If I wasn’t in front of the mirror, I would pick my nose or my clothes or my toes as the unproductive minutes ticked by. Years later, they confessed that they really struggled about whether or not they should try and find some medication to help me.  But that was almost 20 years ago, and there was so much mystery about those drugs back then, not to mention the stigma.  

Recently, I thanked my dad for resisting the temptation to medicate me.  High school is hard enough without having to wrestle with whether or not you are actually screwed up in the head. Having said that, I started taking Vyvance yesterday.  
 
These days, when my attention issues get really bad, Amy and I call it “squirrel mode.”  I’ll look back on the last hour and a half and realize that I have split that time between writing a song on the guitar, preparing songs for worship for Sunday, emailing venues about upcoming shows, working on three different songs on the piano, making coffee, working up a countermelody to a cover song I’m working on, writing a blog, making lunch plans by phone, looking for a light bulb, emailing a venue about an upcoming show, and looking for my wallet.  Maybe I find my wallet.  

Over ten years ago, a doctor prescribed me a Ritalin-type med, and within the first week, I lost my temper in a way that scared me, so I swore off the stuff.  Crazy is better than angry, I figure. Earlier this spring, I ventured back into the arena, having heard about all kinds of newer, better medications, and I found one that helped OK, but it was WAY too expensive, and the generic (cheaper) form required that you take it 3 times a day, at the same time each day.  HA!  None of my days are EVER the same.  That’s like asking Barak Obama to keep his schedule by sundial. After a few months of mood swings and jitters, I opted out again.  

And now I’m back in the saddle. As I popped my second pill this morning, I remembered that I’m supposed to be chronicling my symptoms and reactions, and I’ve decided to do that here.  Why not? We’re playing with the chemicals in my brain, and my brain is the critical organ for creativity, and my creativity sustains this website and gives it purpose.  

I’ll try to keep it current, so you can read along with how things are working, and the sly irony is that I’ve always had trouble keeping my blog current.  Maybe that’s about to change… stay tuned. 

As it turned out, the first week sales of bluebird went a little too well!  We were out of stock within the first day!  I’m really sorry for that inconvenience, and we’ve taken steps to try to keep that from happening again.  Now that we’re all stocked up, please spread the word to your friends and neighbors, and consider ordering bluebird as a sweet little chirping musical Christmas present.  

RG

Hey friends,

This is a great day for me, and I’m thrilled to be able to share it with you. Thanks to all of you who have stuck around all these years. Today, we are releasing my new project, bluebird. It is a collection of six songs that I love, and I hope you love them as well.

Well, it is election day in the USA. And I love my country, but I’m ready from a break from stump speeches and political analysis. If you too need a distraction from all the political hoopla, check out the new record!

With the release of this EP, and more new recordings expected next year, I will tour more than in recent years. So be on the lookout for dates in your town, and drop us a note if you are interested in putting on a concert, or even if you just want to share which song is your favorite on bluebird. I’m so thankful for your interest and your support of my music, and I look forward to seeing you out on the road!

Peace to you, and don’t forget to vote!

So I’ve got this new record that I’m pretty juiced about.  It is called Bluebird, and there are only 6 songs.  I was hesitant about making a mini-record, but in this brave new world of music production and duplication and distribution, in the end it seemed like the right thing to do.  (that’s a different blog post!)

I remember the morning that the melody for Bluebird (the song) came into my brain.  It was a really pretty day, and this is so rare, but I just started singing it.  I wrote the whole chorus in the length of time it takes to sing it.  It was so familiar that I racked my brain trying to figure out what song I was stealing these notes and syllables from.  Stumped, and with a killer harmony part in mind, I gave thanks and started the work of figuring out what this song was about.  

I don’t know exactly where the guitar part came from either.  My best guess is that I had recently spent some time in Houston with my brother, John Goodgame, Esq.  Even after years of gift neglect, his competence as a guitarist quickly reveals itself when he finally does take a moment and strap on his pretty blonde Larrivée and pick a ditty.  And subconsciously or not, I wrote the guitar part to Bluebird with John’s picking style.  I’d never written a song with that classic pseudo-Chet Atkins-thumb-to-thumb-and-middle-finger bounce before, and the major-to-minor changes just sorta fell in there together with the melody that was coming out as the song worked its way to the surface.  

I have written complicated songs with many words, and I love Bluebird because it is so simple, that I am able to enjoy and rest in the musical moments as they pass by a bit more than I am used to.  I loved the production ideas that came out of Quinlan as he stepped in the stream, and one of my greatest joys upon completing the record has been hearing my 7 year old daughter walking around the house singing that last line of harmony-become-melody that Amy sings to end the song.  It is just right for  her range, and it stops me like the lights going out when I hear her sing it. 

RG

We had a yard sale/fundraiser this weekend.  I’d like to tell you all about it, but my wife Amy beat me to the punch, and I could never put it as well.  Check it out at our adoption blog…

http://thegoodgamefamily.blogspot.com/

What fun we had on Sunday night.  Andrew Peterson asked me to play an opening set for his CD release concert in Nashville at 12th and Porter.  I played a set, and the band was awesome, my pal Ginny Owens came out and sang on my last couple of songs, Osenga belted out a few passionately delivered songs after me, and then Peterson and his folk orchestra came up on the stage and KILLED.  The band was tight, AP’s vocals were crisp and clean (thanks, sound guy) and he could have kept on playing all night, and the full house crowd would have kept listening.  

All this is to say, Andrew Peterson’s new release “Resurrection Letters” is on sale now!  Go and buy it.  The songs are fantastic and will quickly become new favorites, the production and arrangements are typically brilliant, and, well…  it’s Andrew Peterson’s new record! What more reason do you need.  Buy one for yourself, and buy another for a Christmas Present.  Your friend will thank you.

RG

Rocktober is here, and the weather is awesome.  I’ve been driving a friend’s Mercedes around town with the windows down, just drinking in this fall air.  The speakers on our Toyota mini-van have been blown since we bought it 3 years ago, and my GMC truck (the one with 240,000 miles), well, lets just say the sound system needs work.  

Ordinarily that’s not a problem, because I pretty much only listen to NPR while I’m driving, so the sounds don’t have to be sweet.  This week, though, I’ve finished my record!  So my buddy Winn let me borrow his “extra” Mercedes to get a real feel for what it sounds like on a high quality stereo system.  We won’t get into how someone winds up with a spare luxury vehicle. 

Thankfully, it sounds fantastic.  I can’t wait for you all to hear it.  Quinlan worked his producer magic and Ben Phillips (who also played drums, and when I say played, I mean committed pre-meditated murder and other high crimes of passion with his skills) mixed the record juuuust right…  like that last bowl of porridge. 

The record is going to be called “Bluebird,” and you will be able to get it very soon.  I have high hopes that you will love it.  As for me, I finally had to return the Benz, but the tunes kept their groove even without the leather seats and cool October breezes. (But it was fun while it lasted!).  Stay tuned for more updates, since now that the record is done, I will have more time for blogging.  Cheers! 

eh… I am struggling to find a blog in the archives that is not all churchy. So, here goes a new one.  Short, sweet, and done.

I read “The Dip” today. I really like it.  I’m glad I read it.

It explains how quitting is underrated, and conversely how sticking with things through the toughest times is rare.  Put these things together and you’ve got a cute little book with a dangerously practical point.

It doesn’t take long to read.  I think you should read it too. Either way, have a great day, blogosphere peeps.

Well, we spent last week in the studio recording the basic tracks for an EP. It is going incredibly well. A few of the working song titles we have worked on so far… Bluebird, Heaven Waits, All The Years, California, 42 Dollars, and Reverie. I could not be more excited. I’m working with a new friend of mine - Michael Quinlan, and he’s taking me down musical roads I’ve previously never been ready to travel. And no, it’s not a hip-hop record. But it is like nothing I’ve ever done before in many ways. Many awesome ways, I think. But I guess that will be up to you all in the end. Stay tuned!

So my daughter has been clamoring for a drum set for years now. She’s doing great on the piano, and she’s got great timing, and she has just kept asking - politely even - for a chance to play drums. The thing is, drums are loud, and there’s no volume knob… or is there? Enter craigslist… I found this Yamaha drum machine a few miles away last week, and my kids have been using it every day since! You can plug in an iPod and play along to your favorite tunes, or pick from the few hundred pricelessly cheesy demo grooves that come with the unit. And if they put the headphones on, all we hear from the next room is the tap-tap-tap on the drum pads. We’ll see how the practicing goes when the novelty wears off, but I’ve got high hopes that I’ve delayed the purchase of an actual drum kit for another few years. Thank you craigslist!

Hello and welcome to the new randallgoodgame.com!

Feel free to browse around – there’s little bits to see here and more to come. For now, let me tell you about this past weekend. I took a band to play for well over 1000 soldiers in Basic Training at Ft. Jackson in Columbia South Carolina. First of all, I took a band. That’s something that I haven’t done in a while, and it was amazing. Two good friends from Caedmon’s Call came along for the ride (Andy Osenga and Garett Buell) and the indomitable Jeff Irwin brought the big brown bass, if you know what I mean… and I think you do.

Secondly, the soldiers all seemed very 17, and the M16s they were all carrying were very real. Young men and women with weapons tip down filled the gym as we scrambled to assemble the makeshift PA we dragged from Nashville. The Catholic Mass had concluded moments earlier, and we had thirty minutes to set up for the o-ten-hundred hour protestant evangelical chapel service. Why the rush? Well… since showing is usually better than telling, click here.

The first soldier to greet us on the base was Specialist Mickey, a petite woman of Asian descent with a blankly Midwestern accent. I think she was from Oklahoma. She has been on the base for one year, having enlisted days after our concert last summer. In my mind, I try to compare my last 12 months to hers. I can imagine the routine and the camaraderie she has experienced, but Mickey gave up her personal freedom and submitted herself to the authority and care of the U.S. Army. That is hard for me to imagine.

Specialist Mickey waited 6 hours for us on Saturday and we did not arrive till 7:00 Sunday morning. She didn’t seem excited about that, but she was helpful and even somewhat friendly once we got to talking. In fact, I was generally impressed with the congeniality of everyone I met on the base. It is not a light-hearted place, but the place has heart.

The actual concert was profoundly affecting – as it had been for the previous two years. It is an extremely enthusiastic crowd – and LOUD. The guys are on the right, the girls on the left, and they are so happy to have a rest from their training. Soldiers begin clapping within the first few measures of the first song. Between songs they respond with a gym-shaking “Hooah!” to most everything I say, and I mean, I could feel the hooah in my chest. Incidentally, Wikipedia describes “hooah” as “referring to or meaning anything and everything except no. I want something like that in my vocabulary at home. It seems very convenient.

Here’s the setlist from the concert…

Hands of the Potter
Share The Well
Susan Coats Pants
She’s Gone Forever
Heaven Waits
Bluebird
Reverie
Peanuts Part 1
Jubilee
Army of Angels

I’m hesitant to even write about the gratitude that seems inevitable during and after a trip like this. I have no confidence that I’ll find the right words to adequately express the range of emotions that I went through. “Good Morning Vietnam” takes over two hours, and it is brilliant – though predictably one-sided. I can say though, that being there and celebrating life and Jesus and music and the U.S.A with them made me very, very proud. Not proud to be an American exactly, just proud to be human and in the association of people who have assembled to serve something higher than themselves. Thankfully, they’ve already invited me back for next year… hooah!