The Square Root of Joy

“The square root of Joy is love. Divided by two and it’s us. Geometrically in perfect touch. We fit together like a glove.”

This song used to be called “Geometrically in Perfect Touch” but I had to change the name in tribute to my one and only Joy Kincaid Cates.  I do have a song called “Coral Cove” might I add, that can represent Coral.

This song was written when Adair and I were trying to figure out whether we should move out of Asheville to further our careers. “What will we be doing in August and September?”.   Needless to say, we decided to move to Atlanta and everything else is history.  It’s hard to believe it’s been almost six years!

This song is available on iTunes, spotify, amazon etc. is part of my “Life’s a Love Song album.

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Let the Rain Come

This one was a last-minute addition to “Life’s a Love Song” but I am really glad it made the cut. Nothing like bringing the album to a close with an anthem-like finish.  Somehow it slipped through the cracks when I was picking songs from my backlog for the album until I randomly heard it playing on my computer one day.  I rewrote the verse, added a few instruments and one more large guitar solo, then spent my normal three weeks to mix it.

It’s pretty bad that I’ve written so many songs that I literally don’t remember writing or recording songs I hear from time to time.  It’s almost like someone else wrote them.  Which is cool I guess.  If I’m a fan of my music that makes at least one right?   Thanks for listening!!  Only one more song from “Life’s a Love Song” to be posted.

Click to listen

View all Chris Cates albums on iTunes here.

The Sweetest Thing

The sixth song is why I love making albums.  Since an album is a complete entity in itself, there’s no need to feel compelled to pack it with as many “singles” as possible.  Albums are all about flow and feeling and that’s what the “The Sweetest Thing” is all about.  This one is a “glue” song keeping the vibe going long enough to hit you with the next song (September Flies)  and also to hit you with some huge french horn, accordion and tenor sax.  Total rock n roll stuff.

The lyrics are about finding the inspiration to write a love song that does justice to the actual feeling of being in love.  I love the second verse:

“It’s the bugs and the bees and the birds up in the trees,  the fish out in the sea,  lovely melodies

The joy when you sing softly along with me,   It’s the sweetest thing,  the sweetest thing”

I put a pic of Joy up yesterday, so I figured I put one up of Coral today.  Even though the word Joy was also in this song’s lyrics.  I actually have a song called “Coral Cove” from the old days (my ‘Summer’ album from college).  Maybe I need to break that one back out.  I digress.    Thanks for listening!

Click here to listen to or buy the entire album.

The Square Root of Joy

This one has been my favorite song of mine for a few years now.  I love the four on the floor bass drum and of the course major seventh chords that I have a proclivity for using.   This happens to be one of my better drum performances too, I’m not a polished drummer these days so I’ll take any bright spots I can get.

The words are about change and looking ahead.  I wrote this one when we were just starting to make a move.  We were living in Asheville spinning our wheels and knew we had to make an upward move.   Atlanta was not yet a sure thing, we were exploring all of our options (I of course wanted to move to Las Vegas which is not a practical family decision).

“What will we be doing in August and September,  will we look back to this moment right now and remember”.

This song also has my favorite line I’ve written:

“The square root of Joy is Love, divided by two and it’s us, geometrically in perfect touch, we fit together like a glove”.

The song used to be called ‘Geometrically in Perfect Touch’ but since we had our twins and named one Joy, I had to change the name of the song to give her some props.

Joy, showing some metal

Click here to listen to or buy the entire album.

March 7 “Another Beaming Ray of Your Life”

Ah the joys of taking on a project like this.  I’m still a song behind and to avoid going two down, I stayed up late writing and recording a song last night.  Then I got up early this morning to write and record one before I leave Asheville to work for  a few days in a row out of town.

Luckily I seem to be just as creative at 7am as I am at 7pm.  Actually maybe more so, although I’m not as energetic as you can imagine.

Now I’ve got to decide, do I start another song to get ahead tomorrow or do I try to get a last minute appointment with my chiropractor.

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Feb 19 “Down to My Time and Place”

It’s been fifty days since I started my song a day project!!   What a learning experience and an experiment in commitment I’ve endured.    There’s definitely been some moments of excitement and of frustration but for the most part I’ve maintained a sense of joy doing it.

This last week has been a struggle but I’ll get back in the swing of things soon I’m sure.  I’ve got a gig tonight with my band so that should get the juices flowing.

Fittingly this song is about how I was just complaining that I never had enough time to get all the things done that I want done.  I really need about 22 hours in the studio a day to get all my various projects done.  Adair was telling me I need to quit worrying about the time and start celebrating what I get done.

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