Party Girl

I wrote this song with Drew Smith. He played rhythm guitar on my first record and is one of my favorite artists in Austin. I stayed the night at his house one time and we sat up late in his piano room coming up with the majority of this. I hadn't tried to write on a piano for years, and forgot how much I enjoyed it. There ended up being a couple major seven chords and raised fourths and 6/9's, which I wouldn't have normally used on guitar. I really love the style this was written in. I was basically trying to imitate Drew's form of narration and character development. He has a way of getting inside the story and allowing only certain details which somehow imply volumes of information about the lives of his characters.

I had also developed a fascination with tabloid papers, and Brittany Spears and Lindsay Lohan were all over them at the time. I actually felt bad for these girls, like they couldn't be blamed for making such tragic disasters of their lives and that they probably didn't have many real friends. It was as if they felt they had to self-destruct to play out the roles expected of them. It's depressing. We need a better standard of celebrity. And that was two or three years ago! Now, these girls are growing up thinking that fame and fortune are rewarded to people like Snooki from Jersey Shore. I guess that's what the song is about. A girl realizing that everything she's been doing to make herself feel confident and important and loved is all completely superficial and hasn't actually got her anywhere. Her true beauty is revealed in a moment of vulnerability as the light from the hallway is cast upon her as she walks across the darkened bedroom.