By Chris Moore:
Hello and welcome to a special Christmas Eve edition of your best bet for excellence in cover musicianship on the web — the Laptop Sessions home page!
For tonight’s video, I had initially planned on recording my original Christmas song “Moment.” I have written two original Christmas songs in the past, and I already recorded the other (“Christmas Cards”) last year. Thus, I began practicing “Moment.” And I wish I had taken the time to record it earlier, because I really do like that song. I take issue with some of the lyrics now, as I find them much too cheesy at points, but the overall feel of the song is one that I love.
Then, a song started coming to me. And I’ll break my general silence on my songwriting process here, as there is such an amalgamation of influences and ideas that came together to forge this song. First, you should know that I am purposely tipping my hat to the classic Christmas tune “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” with the beginning of my chorus lines. Also, I used a chord pattern that Jim and I found to be recurrent in a lot of our favorite Christmas songs. It’s a cycle of sorts with barre chords, starting with a major, going down two frets to a minor, then the lower minor on the same fret, and finally jumping back up to a higher fret. Then, the same pattern is repeated.
In terms of what the words mean, I started off writing about my feelings about a very important person — my girlfriend of three years — who I’m no longer with. I haven’t really resolved the situation, so there’s a lot on my mind and I think the emotion got this song started.
Then, I began to think about Christmas in general. The past few years, I’ve really missed being able to spend the Christmas Eve festivities with my close friends. Thus, the song shifted to be about reclaiming my Christmas traditions with my friends.
As the lyrics progressed and I changed lines, the song shifted again to be about my grandmother, who passed away a little over a year ago. This is only my second Christmas without her, and I can’t understate how big a part she has always been of my Christmas. As a kid, she and my grandfather would come over on Christmas Eve and we would have a really relaxing, enjoyable night — nights that I will forever remember with great fondness. As a young man and up until last year, Christmas became an increasingly more important opportunity to spend quality time with her. I don’t quite have the words right now in this format to describe what those days were like or what our relationship was like, and that’s what I tried to accomplish in the song.
Thus, I dedicate this song to my Grandma Moore, a person that I am truly better off for having known and grown up with. I’m going to miss her a lot tomorrow, but writing this song really did help me to express some of that emotion.
As a final sidenote, I spent tonight at the second annual Fusco-Moore Experience Christmas Eve party. I didn’t attend last year, but I figured I should probably attend this year, as my name is in the title and all… According to Jim, the real reason I attended was because I didn’t have anything better to do. Now, this may be true, but… Seriously, though, tonight was really relaxing and fun, the food was amazing, I’m somehow still full from the multi-course meal, and thankfully, Jim’s mom cleaned the dishes. It was a Christmas miracle, as far as I was concerned, that I didn’t have to clean them. I always expect to, and there was more than double our average amount of dirty dishes tonight! Thank you again, Mrs. Fusco!!
Jim, Mike, and I are planning a little get-together we’ll call “Mas Christmas” — or, for those of you who do not habla espanol, “More Christmas.” I’m definitely looking forward to that!
For now, I’m off to get ready for Christmas morning. It will be a full day, capped off by an all-new episode of TNA Impact! at 9pm in the Fusco Theatre. And YOU will have an exciting new yuletide Jeff Copperthite video to look forward to…
Merry Christmas and see you next session!