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Logan's Song

 I wrote "Logan's Song" years and years ago. Thirty-two years ago, to be exact. It was during the long, sweltering weeks following Hurricane Andrew in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when we had no power and no water and were all about to lose our minds. The devastation was unimaginable, and the hopelessness was palpable. It was a difficult time.

On top of all that, my circle of friends and I had recently experienced unspeakable tragedy: the death of a friend, Cari Lockhart, age 28, and her 20-month-old son, Logan. It's a long story and I won't go into the grisly details here (because they are grisly), but I will say that their deaths were a shock to all of us.

And then, just a few days later, around August 19 or 20, Hurricane Andrew washed away much of South Louisiana.

I had just graduated college that May. I'd had a difficult year, with a couple of suicide attempts and several stays at ICUs and psychiatric hospitals. It's a miracle I was able to graduate college on time. I was living at my parents' house when the hurricane hit, so during the days that followed, I was able to spend a lot of time at my piano, the Kimball console my parents had bought back in 1973.

Somewhere in all that darkness, "Logan's Song" was born. I understood very little music theory and knew even less about chord progressions, but I still managed to write a pretty good song. Unlike a lot of my other songs from that era of my life, this one seems to have stood the test of time for me; I still love listening to it. The process of writing it was incredibly healing in the wake of Cari and Logan's deaths, and the song itself proved healing for many of us who had known and loved them.

Fast-forward to October 2024. Since my digital piano requires electricity, I spent the ten days after Hurricane Helene with no piano. It was hard, I'll admit. Playing and writing "Logan's Song" after Andrew had kept me sane and brought me healing. I didn't quite stay sane after Helene. Piano would have helped. The other day, I sat down at the piano and played "Logan's Song," my old "hurricane song," for the first time in years. I was surprised at how much of it came back to me. After playing it through a few times, I could remember the entire song.

Anyway, I will stop rambling and share "Logan's Song" below. It has lyrics, but they have not stood the test of time as well as the music has. I'd like to tweak them a bit before sharing.

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