Gene P. Lawrence – Songwriter
Gene is a seasoned songwriter and musician who discovered the crossover world of Country and Rock 10 years ago with songs he wrote and performed as Rock and Indie songs. Alternating between a busy schedule as an international businessman and his passion for songwriting, he has a curated catalog of songs with Center Sound Productions.
Originally from New York, Gene currently lives between two rural homes in Utah, where he finds ample opportunity to observe, listen to, and talk to all sorts of characters, in saloons and around farms, from the ranchers to the “meth cowboys” he encounters. “I believe you can learn something from everyone you meet and I don’t judge anybody,” he says. My true-life interactions with people form the basis for most of my song titles and lyrics, and switching to writing songs on guitar has made for better melodies and choruses, compared how I used to write on piano.
Trailer Park Queen
This is a song based on an interesting interaction one night in the infamous “No Name Saloon” in Park City, Utah. I saw a very attractive woman enter the place, go straight to the bar, and start chatting to a solo guy — who seemed sort of shocked that she sat down next to him with other empty stool choices. It was interesting to watch and I devised the story the song tells around watching that. Of course, I had to work in the phrase “Double Wide” as it relates to trailer parks to the chorus somehow. It’s a rocker song with an electric riff I wrote one night, with fun lyrics. Great final demo done at the Parlor Studio in Nashville.
Dreams
I wrote and did a simple “kitchen demo” with this song and a few instruments and my vocals for this one. The idea came from watching generally depressed rural people who never leave where they are for a potentially better life. They have fear in many cases. My concept was to write a fairly dark song about this tension, but with a brighter chorus, addressing the hopes and feelings of many who dream of moving to start a new life. Hence the song and the story. The demo, with great female vocals on the demo, is a little more upbeat and up-tempo than I had done it, but this song could be performed and re-recorded to a slower tempo — and even without drums.
You’d Be Drinking Too (if you were married to you)
This was an early song (whose title is the chorus) I wrote a decade ago that came from hearing two guys next to me in a Utah bar — and one literally saying to the other — about his 3rd shot and a beer – “Hey, you’d be drinkin’ too if you were married to her,” referring to his wife. I twisted that great line into its title and chorus.
The song ultimately has a redemption element in its lyrics by the end, as I was early to country and many Nashville songwriters said it’s a mistake to believe that all country songs are depressing. There has to be some hope or redemption them by the end, I was told. So it does.
(Note: There are 2 recorded versions of this song, one was changed because several said that the Chorus and Title were still too depressing about a marriage. So, we re-recorded the chorus to be “You’d be drinkin too, if you had war wounds in you.” That change was a result of my volunteer work for the USO and greeting returning US troops right off the plane from Afghanistan at Ft. Dix in NJ. There clearly were soldiers, men and women, who already had signs of PTSD from their valiant service.)
The demo has beautiful traditional country elements to it (dobro, steel guitar, mandolin) with amazing vocals by Nashville’s extraordinaire and friend Tim Buppert.
My favorite line in this song in the early lyrics is “There’s a whole lot of memories in a bottle of beer.” This song could support a beer commercial placement or in a movie as kind of lonesome old school background sound on a jukebox scene in a movie.
Fill it Up With Empty
This song was where my songwriting all-nighters all started. Co-written with the super talented Neal Edelberg, a bandmate of mine in high school, we produced a pretty great home demo, with Neal’s soaring guitar riffs and tweaking of my melody and lyrics. We had fun doing it.
Neal and I both grew up in rural central New Jersey where it’s still one of the only states in the USA where you still can’t pump your own gasoline (look it up online!).
I had a depressing day once in the middle of a crumbling marriage, and I literally blurted that out when the gas station attendant came to my window. “Fill it up… with empty,” I said before adding “by that I meant to say with regular.” I liked my own line and built the song around it, essentially a break-up song. Craig Brandwein at Center Sound liked it when I sent the demo to some Nashville song publishers, and he produced and engineered the great final result. Great vocals by Nashville’s Kim Parent.