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2/7/12 - CRYSTAL CROSSES

It's a terrible thing to questions someone's religious motives. I don't feel right about it now and I didn't exactly feel comfortable about it when this was written. And I don't think the song came off suspicious or generalizing. But, I couldn't help but be in awe at the southerners devotion to God. And it seemed everyone had the same God when I moved south! It was incredible. In the North, people's ideation of God differed from person to person. Some didn't use the word God at all. With all of that swirling around in my head, I decided to write a song about a person who baulks at tradition... The same person who is simultaneously trying to spiritually grow.
Love

1/31/12 - I'VE GOT A MASTER PLAN

The idea that I ever had a "master plan" during the days that this song was written about is ludicrous. I was more delirious than anything. There would have been no way for me to conjugate some mastermind scheme to do anything other than get the wheels in my head spinning. That's really the extent of my planning during those dark days; planning to plan. I think it's that sense of irony and sarcasm that give a song deeper meaning (and help me play it night after night). That's the downside to new songs. They're exciting at first but then, unless they have some deep seeded meaning that you discover along the way, they lose their luster. It becomes almost vomit inducing to play them night after night. I think that's why Snack Packs come in 4 ounce containers... anyone can handle that. But have you ever tried to eat 16 ounces of pudding out of one container? I have, it's terrible (okay, I haven't but get off my back it's for the sake of example). Halfway through, unless there's some kind of new flavor or texture going on, I'm dumping that shit. Speaking of dumping, it's kind of like a new girlfriend... she's new, exciting, has funky colored hair, burps and you think it's funny, whatever it may be... but then, there's no depth and you are tired on the 7th day... so you rest. And by rest I mean, break up. I'm getting off topic. I think that my point is, I was a lunatic during the days that I wrote about in this song. It's basically three sections of risque stuff. The first is about some unnamed one night mistress outside of Atlanta who came to see our show. The band went to her house afterward, I drank her roommates vodka down and... yada yada yada. Verse two is about self restraint in Enid, Oklahoma.. The last is about a night I can't really remember but wrote about anyways, based off of vague recollections. No one needs gory details, but they always want them. Feel free to ask me about "them", off the record... I'll shoot ya' straight.
Love,
Josh

1/21/12- LULLABY

It's Saturday and I'm laying in my bed taking pictures of, having tummy-time with and cleaning up after... my daughter. And for those of you who, like me four weeks ago, don't know what tummy-time is, don't feel like you're missing out on anything too exhilarating. All of this is so new and exciting for me and Mary (the lady who pushed this little one out)... but about 3 months ago it was in no way a "real thing" in my mind. All I knew was that my wife's belly was getting bigger, I was supposed to be saving a lot of money and that we needed to buy things like burp clothes and diaper rash ointment. What the hell did all this mean? I certainly didn't know; it hadn't hit me yet, and I guess that's where the story of this song starts.

About three or four months ago I knocked on the door of my very talented friends house, Susan Ruth. We were on a string of co-writing dates that took place every Friday. The few weeks prior to that day consisted of me showing up with an idea or running with something she had thought up. But this particular day neither of us really had any burning desires to put on paper. After a few false starts and me playing some monotonus piano riff one too many times, Susan said, "why don't we write about your daughter!" Based on that exclamation mark you should understand that she was very pumped about this idea... I, on the other hand, was not. Don't get me wrong, the idea of it is super cute but I just didn't have any strong feelings about the situation yet. I realize I sound like a heartless bastard.. but it's just not like that at all. For some reason, as real as my wife's giant belly was, the idea of having a daughter was not. How quickly things changed.

So we start writing this nameless song that was supposed to be about my baby to be and also double as something you could sing to a boy/girlfriend... just incase someone wanted to cut it. Amy Grant's "Baby Baby" was about her daughter, but everyone thought it was for her man. A sly fox that Amy is. Anyway, the next thing I know there was this chorus... one minute we're writing the last line of a verse and the very next second, it was there... being sung, filling in emotional voids and all that jazz. Everything changed in 4 lines, 16 bars and 3 chords. I almost felt embarrassed about having to fight back tears but it was just there all of a sudden, this real thing that would be even more real a few months later. The song was aptly titled "Lullaby" and I decided the hell with the double meaning, I'm going to record this for me. No recording yet, but I've played it out and it is quickly turning into one of my favorites. The video of me playing "Lullaby" is from a show last month at Five Spot in Nashville the day my Papa died, just a few days before my daughter was born. I'm happy to report that Lyla Marie Foster came out with 10 fingers, 10 toes and is going through about 10 diapers a day.

Love,

e-mail ME: joshfostermusic@gmail.com   |   mgmt: nickjhardy@gmail.com