A Wonderful Life
Memories
Sweet memories
Moments of life passing

I shed a tear
For the warmth they bring
And the void they place in me

Some times were sad
Some times were tough
Sometimes I broke down and cried

But overall
It’s really been
A wonderful life

Story about A Wonderful Life
A Wonderful Life is probably the simplest-structured (if that’s a word) song I ever wrote.  The song was basically written the night of December 19, 1999.  I actually had to look at the paper again and make sure I had my dates right cuz I can’t believe it’s almost been two years!  I still remember that night so clear, and it seriously feels like only a few months ago.  Anyway, that was the night I went Christmas caroling with my youth group.  I always thought those events were fun.  Especially back in the day when we used to go to the priest’s house afterward for dinner.  Anyway, something happened that night between me and someone else that put a gray cloud over the rest of the evening.     

Later that night, we drove my friend Tymour home.  His house was right next to this girl’s house that I used to like.  When we drove by it, I saw a “For Sale” sign on her front lawn, and I got even more depressed.  I felt things were changing and leaving me behind.  When I got home around 11 something that night, I was in the mood to write a song.  So I sat down and picked an old tune I already had from before, and I decided to write to that.  I wasn’t really sure what to write about, but then the line Memories, sweet memories just came to me.  So I took it from there.

It wasn’t really hard to write.  Within a half hour, I basically had the whole song done.  The only line I didn’t finish was the last line: But overall, it’s really been a wonderful life.  I mean, I had ideas, like saying, “What a wonderful life,” and saying something about “overall,” but I didn’t have the line complete where it would fit perfectly into place.  Anyway, I loved the song so much, that I kept playing it on my guitar till after midnight. 

That night, I never wrote anything down on paper.  I turned the Christmas lights off, kept the lyrics in my head, and went to bed with them floating there—a really stupid thing to do cuz you always think, “Oh there’s no way I’m going to forget this,” but you almost always do.  Lucky for me though, this wasn’t one of those times.  So the next day, I got my piece of paper out to write down the lyrics I had thought of the night before.  As I got ready to write them down, I sang the song to myself.  That’s when I thought of the line Moments of life passing, which I liked so much, I decided to use instead of the line I already had.  So I wrote out everything I had so far in my head down on paper, and then I took a 10-minute break to watch something MTV had on Britney Spears.  After that, I started thinking about the song again, and it was then that I thought of the closing line, But overall / It’s really been / A wonderful life. 

Finally, the song was complete.  It was short, but I thought it was a cool and different type of song that didn’t need a chorus or anything.  Anyway, when I showed Mario the song, he liked it a lot.  He then asked me what the name of it was.  I told him that I did not know, but I was thinking of calling it either “Wonderful Life,” or “What a Wonderful Life.”  Mario said if I just called it A Wonderful Life, it would sound good.  I liked it—really simple.  So that’s what we decided on.

Originally, this song never repeated.  It was only after some time, maybe after months of playing it, that Mario told me the song should repeat and come in heavy with distortion, drums, and bass.  We tried it, and it sounded really good.  So from then on, that’s how we played it.

I really like this song a lot, but the only thing I really regret is that we didn’t add higher octaves during the second part.  We thought of a lot of cool ideas in the studio for our songs, but what sucked was that I didn’t think of doing those octaves on this song till the very day we finished the CD…. as we listened to it on the way home from the studio.  I really wish I thought of it earlier, because I think it would have really added so much more to the song.  I guess it’s too late, so whatever.  But when we re-record it sometime down the road when we’re big superstar rockstars, I’ll remember.  

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