As my 10th wedding anniversary approached, I had been writing songs for a few months and really wanted to write a song for my husband to mark the occasion.
As I’ve mentioned before, most of my previous relationship songs were not positive ones, as they were usually written to get through uncertainty and breakups rather than positive aspects of love. So this was a new direction for me.
One of the many nice things my husband does for me on a regular basis is make my coffee each morning and that gesture stood at to me when I wrote this anniversary song, called “A Cup of Coffee.” It starts out like this: “A cup of coffee on the counter waiting for me, one of the signs that you care for me.”
In a long-term relationship, it’s often these small gestures that show signs of love rather than those giant ones that may occur early on in the relationship (aka before kids – at the time of our 10th anniversary, we had three kids under the age of 9 so who has the energy for large dramatic gestures? Truly, it’s the small ones that really matter, like letting the other person sleep a little later in the morning or a delicious cup of coffee waiting for you before you face your day.)
The song is only a little over 1 1/2 minutes, which is about half the length of how long a radio song should be. But since I didn’t write this for the radio, I don’t care.
The chorus is only two lines: “I will never take you for granted, I hope you know how dear you are to me.”
As revealed in the second verse, I apparently can’t let a love song be all roses, I had to throw some thorns in there, too:
Sometimes we get distracted by the weight of the world
Crashing down on us, sometimes it’s just too much
But I wouldn’t trade a moment of this journey that we’re on
As long as we’re together, our spirits remain strong
But overall, it’s still positive, right?
In the bridge, I threw in some personal details from our wedding “10 years ago, we stood on the mountaintop declaring our love under they sky…” which I guess takes out the “universal” aspect songwriters are supposed to strive for, but again, I don’t care because this wasn’t meant to be universal.
This morning I watched the Taylor Swift “Reputation” concert on Netflix, which was incredible – I think she’s a very talented songwriter and performer – and this is no Taylor Swift song, that’s for sure. But it’s not meant to be – it was an anniversary gift for my husband and my show of gratitude for everything he does.
My Songwriting Journey 