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Written by: Alyse Oxenford and Jeff Oxenford (© 2006)

Performed by: Alyse Oxenford and Jeff Oxenford

Inspiration

My 8 year daughter Alyse and I were about three hours into a 7 hour drive heading to the Niobrara River. The previous day I spent about 24 hours retuning home from Europe and was moderately jet lagged. Being pretty cautious about keeping alert, I looked for anyway to keep the energy level up. Writing this song was the ticket.

Process

Cowriting is a challenging experience with anyone, especially with your 8 year old daughter. The emotions of a child are so much more transparent than an adult, changing a line can easily lead to a fit of crying. You need to be a Henry Kissinger to make a suggestion or change in a verse..

We started with me clapping the beat on my leg and both of us singing “going to the river” over and over again. I then asked her questions about what we would be doing on the river. These became the verses. Finding good rhymes was a challenge but we had plenty of time.

We kept at this for about 2 hours.  With Alyse, no verse was a throw away. She wanted to keep each line exactly as written even if it didn’t fit the meter of the song.  When we were finished there were a few one line verses just sort of hanging out there.

Critiquing what we wrote came over the next few days on the river. After struggling singing with a few lines, she eventually removed them. We also cut a few words here and there to make it easier to sing. One verse got cut, but made it back into the recorded version (oh well). The ending was another area where we had a challenge and we ended up with a compromise. It could be better, but I’ll wait until she is 10 to bring it up again. 

The recording process was especially helpful. With each cut Alyse did a better job keeping on time. We must have tried about 15 takes last night before going to bed. We tried again this morning and she nailed it on the first shot.

The great thing about this song was one we got in the car this morning, it became “going to the zoo.” I can see endless possibilities for long road trips.