ryan mintz's music page!

For some reason, the songs I wrote AFTER the release seem to be the crowd favorites.  It figures, huh?  They’re my favorites too, and that’s why I’m so excited to make my next album! 

My Religion was inspired at an Alanis concert, where I felt so spiritually moved, I thought “this must be what church is like.”  Live. Love. Be. was written for Pride 2008 (since I played at 7 prides nationwide).  Sunshine has got to be one of the best songs I’ve ever written; it speaks to an emotional truth I’ve been afraid to express in song.  My Adventure lists my travel dreams, and I wrote So Unconventional for my best friend’s wedding.  Love Letter is another dear song to me, as I wrote it when falling in love with my current partner.

I thought I had all my album tracks picked out in late ’06. But for some reason, I kept on writing new songs. I didn’t even want to write new material as I prepared for the record, but I’m really happy with the songs I came up with!

After I recorded the CD, I continued to write!  I Don’t Wanna Go Back is my ode to turning 30.  I Will is my wish to the universe at finding a relationship that works with my nomadic ways.  At the Café is my happy ode to coffee shops.  Falling in Love and Good & Bad were written at the beginning of a new relationship.

Definitely, 2006 features my most exciting and mature songs to date.  The lessons I learned at Song School are woven into these songs: image-based lyrics, rhythmic variety, and flowing melodies.  This is the year I learned how to incorporate humour into my songs (to Meredith’s delight!) and wrote my first song in a foreign language.

Your Next Step was a message to a friend going through a breakup, and 3 Fantasies confesses unspoken desires felt towards a new crush.  The Monkey Song is what Anna Maria calls my “hit song” and really jumpstarted the whole energy behind recording the demo and full-length CD (and you can see, it has made quite an impact on my whole visual theme!).  The Kiss We’ll Never Know, A Song Just Don’t Exist, and La Vie Après Paris were written about some experiences while living in Paris for the summer.  So Lovely is about having a crush on a straight guy, and was influenced by a lot of improv, vocal, and rhythm work I did at Song School.  Arapahoe Road is an upbeat song about my life on the road while my possessions sit in a storage unit.  Emily was a songwriting experiment twisted from a friend's story (I’m particularly excited that I finally get to join my songwriting heroes in writing a song titled after a female name!  Take a look, they all have a "Mary" or "Jane" or "Annie" ... Oh yes, I have arrived).  And My Will is a sweet ditty describing how I want my affairs handled when I die (no really, it’s uplifting, not sad!).

This is a year of wide variety in style.  A Pretty Good Year is an anniversary song.  The Fag & Dyke Song is a country song (yes, country) urging people to embrace those taboo words, so they aren’t seen as hurtful anymore.  And Box of Bitterness is a story song, where I took on the “character” of a friend, and wrote his story of getting married and dumped in the same year.  It’s the one song that made Anna Maria cry when I played all 50 songs for her one afternoon to help select tracks for the debut album!  As twisted as it may sound, I love it when my songs make people cry.

After a looooong dry spell, I wrote Drunk & High about a best friend going through drug addiction, and I continue to sing it as a prayer for recovery.  The rest of them were about a new relationship: The Ice Cream Song was my way of saying “I love you” for the first time (and yes, I actually played the song to say it!); I Was Wrong was an apology after our first fight; Finding the Night was a song to find comfort during the initial uncertainty of a relationship; and Hooded Grey Sweatshirt was a promise to sleep with his sweatshirt while he was away in Europe. :)

Looking at these songs, I think the overall theme was wanting what we don't have.  A Boy Who Would Sing to Me is my romantic vision for a partner who’s as musically charged as I am.  Passion & Pain is a woeful tale of a 15-hour drive to go help a friend in need, and is Jim’s favourite song of mine.  I love Colorado Sky because I used personification to "talk" to the state that has meant so much to my life, my growth, and my happiness.  The Truth Is... is an ultra-personal journal entry from a very difficult transition in my life that I later turned into an experimental song.  Signals Mix and Every Couple of Days were written about a frustrating relationship where the guy just couldn’t commit and kept changing his mind about what he wanted.

2002 was a year of transition from Colorado to California.  Throwing myself into the film biz certainly limited my time to write songs, but the ones I did write cover the range of emotions I experienced that year.  Water Rushing was an attempt to capture a spiritual metaphor described by a friend: that letting go of emotions is like water passing through your hands.  Just Don’t Ask is Meredith’s favourite song; she likes the tongue-in-cheek humour as I forbid the listener from asking that everyday question “How are you?”  So Personally was sparked by a meanie crew member who made me cry on set one day, and the realization that I would have to toughen up to make it in the film biz.  All of my romantic relationships up to this point had started in the fall, and Something to Me captured the rush of feelings I encountered each year as these dates approached.  And Find Myself is a self-musing about why the heck I left lovely Boulder for the craziness of LA!

Apparently, 2001 was my most prolific year.  The excitement about writing songs fueled me to express about so many topics: breakups, new crushes, depression, future hopes, boundary-setting, family relationships, world peace, and longing for change. 

It's Over and Running Away are breakup songs.  Wounded was adapted from a delicate journal entry during my depression of 2000.  Everyday Is Someday and River of Dreams represent hopes for the future during those post-college years of uncertainty.  Running My Life asks for boundaries to my closest friends when their advice turned too controlling.  With You, I’d Wait for You, and I Only Have Eyes for You are love songs I was very proud of at the time.  Lovers Can Deceive was my first foray into anger, towards a lying ex-boyfriend, and Jaime said it was my best song when she heard it.  One Perfect Night is an upbeat ditty about the night I met a cute boy :)  City of Lights was written about a spontaneous road trip to Las Vegas to see Madonna, and I was proud that it came out sounding James Taylor-esque! 

Prayers Around the World marked my start of peace activism, and I played the hopeful tune at several peace rallies and gatherings right after 9/11; Danielle still talks about this song, and it always makes her cry!  Tears of Love is a gentle song adapted from an email to a boyfriend.  Time for a Change came from a place of frustration, features a cool guitar part, and hints at the coming changes that would lead me to move to California. Happy Song was written to capture my happy emotions, since I often was writing from a place of sadness or longing.  Here Alone was a mish-mash of verses from different friends to complete a breakup song I had started.

Wow, what a feeling it was to write that first song.  It always seemed an unattainable, unfathomable art form. How does someone write a song?!  Well, the songs just started flowing out of me about 3 weeks after I first picked up a guitar in September of 2000.  For that, I thank my high school choir teacher Mr. Snyder for teaching me basic music theory, the incredible female singer-songwriters of the mid-90s who showed me the power of self-expression through music, and Jaime & Andrea for teaching me those first 4 chords! 

The Romantic One is about jealousy towards 3 of my friends in relationships while pondering my own hopes for a partner (side note: only 1 of those 3 relationships are still going today!).  I Just Wanna Be was adapted from a poem I wrote about moving to Colorado, my first time moving out of Michigan!  Through the Years and It Takes Two were bittersweet love songs about a rocky yet intense relationship.  They're written for the guy who introduced me to Indigo Girls and bought my first guitar, both of which impacted my music greatly!