I have been writing songs, at a fairly decent clip, for approximately fifteen years now.

I say “fairly decent”, and that can mean just about anything.  I’m not consistent, God knows.  I can normally average about a song a week.  Of course, there are exceptions.

There have been periods in my life where the songs just haven’t come.  Dry spells.  Days, even weeks, at a time when it feels like I’m trying to force words onto paper.  Times where I pick up a guitar, and all I want to do is put in my time and get out.

Then there are those blessed times, times when the songs just come, and they come fast and with little-to-no obstruction, and I’m happy.  I’ve been on airplanes, train rides, and car trips where it’s all I can do to grab my phone and sing a few snatches of melody or a particular phrase into the voicemail on my cellphone, confident that if I can just capture the bare bones of something that sounds promising to me, that I can own it, force it to do my bidding, maybe.

I’m getting ahead of myself.  I don’t believe we’ve met.

***

My name is Derek Walker.  I am a husband to Amy, a friend to many, a worship leader to the people of Cornerstone Fellowship.  I have, at times, been a rock star in waiting.  I have, regrettably, worn sunglasses indoors at restaurants;  I’ve spoken loudly about my various musical “projects”, just loud enough so innocent bystanders could hear about them.  I’ve been, at different times, a member of the Mercy Tree and the Fair Saints, both bands that you have never heard of.  I’ve lived in Los Angeles and Northern California, and I’ve got to say, we’ve got the jump on the South.  The coffee’s better and the weather is kinder. 

I was forced, and sometimes wrestled into, authenticity by the people at my church home.  These are people who have not asked me to be a rock star or to look cool on stage.  They have asked me to share my heart, to sing the words, to lead them to the Throneroom by the shortest way possible - worship.  I have happily obliged.  

I gravitate towards and respond to the works of Elvis Costello, Flannery O’Connor, Wes Anderson, Frederick Buechner, Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, Henri Nouwen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, among many, many others.

***

This blog was started so I could find an outlet for what I do creatively.  I have been blessed to be friends and songwriting partners with a number of insanely talented people here, and am in the process of starting a new musical project called Northern District with a close (and outrageously gifted) friend named Rachel Higuera. 

We (with the help of several friends, esp. the wise and gentle Cameron Jaymes) have finished a 6-song e.p. that should be available by mid-August, and we’ve begun to discuss what a full-length record from N. Dist. would look like, what it would sound like, how it would bloom from seeds and dirt to something substantially more.  This blog is meant to document the process the only way I know how - by show and tell.

I plan to, every couple of days, post an mp3 of a song that I’m working on.  I’ll be talking about influences, about things I’ve read or experienced that have pushed me into action.  Sometimes the songs will be good, and I’ll be proud to “show my work”, as it were; other times, I’ll fail spectacularly, and maybe we can all learn something.

At the end of these next few months, who knows what we’ll have?  We might just have a  handful of barely-legible audio scraps, coupled with concrete, text-based evidence of my self-importance.  We might have the makings of a pretty solid little record, something to move forward from.  The joy lies in the journey, as several folk songs have reminded me.

***

It goes without saying that the views expressed here don’t represent the views of my employer, who, I might add, have been nothing but supportive in encouraging me to be creative and to chase and pursue inspiration.  My songs, while occasionally dealing with issues of faith and love, could not honestly be termed as “Christian” music.  The distinction is minimal and virtually meaningless to me, but to some it is important.  I understand and honor that importance.

Please, by all means, feed into my ego and inflated sense of self-worth; contact me, leave comments, spread the word.  But, above all else, I want to start a dialogue, to strip the creative process of all the mystical and romantic notions.  I want to boil it down to what I think songs should be - stories.  Stories that resonate in us and set off little alarms within us.  Stories that point in new, unseen directions, that demand that we sit up and take notice of something happening in our midst.

Thank you for reading the preface to what will hopefully be a worthwhile endeavor.

“I had been moved to astonished tears which came from so deep inside me that to this day I have never fathomed them, I wanted to learn more about the source of those tears and the object of that astonishment.” - Frederick Buechner