When I was a senior in high school, I wrote a song entitled "Eighteen" for LUZER's second release. Now, a little over a decade later, it seemed like an interesting idea to write a song looking back on that time with a bit of nostalgia.

Musically, the song takes a page from the Ben Folds Five playbook, steering clear of any guitars on the track, keeping it strictly drums, bass, keys, and three-part vocal harmony, and on that front, came together super fast. Lyrically though, it was initially a "tough nut to crack" as they say.

Usually, my songwriting process starts with me singing melody and chord ideas into my phone. Then I'll start recording a rough demo of the music in the computer, with a "scratch vocal" track of just melody lines singing complete jibberish. Just basic phonetics and sounds. Often, at this point, I'll stumble onto a phrase or something that catches my ear. Sometimes it's the hook (as was the case with "Girl From Omaha" from Noisewater...originally it was just "girl ma-no-ma-na), sometimes it's the opening line. But usually there's something in there that will spark the rest of the lyrics. For this song, there was something that sounded vaguely like "send-uh-teeeee" at the end of the hook. Suddenly, I had "Seventeen" written at the top of a blank page on a yellow legal pad. I jotted down a few ideas of things that happened when I was 17. First car. First breakup. Released our first album. Meanwhile, while I'm working on these lyric ideas last week, Bryan Adam's "Summer Of '69" keeps popping up everywhere I seem to go. Musically, I've heard the tune a zillion times and it never really "hit" me, but listening to the lyrics, I realized these few lines completely encapsulated everything I wanted to say in my song...

"Me and some guys from school
Had a band and we tried real hard
Jimmy quit, Jody got married
I shoulda known, we'd never get far"

As soon as I realized that this is essentially the LUZER story (although we got a bit farther than most), the lyrics came pouring out. I also really liked the idea that to anyone who isn't familiar with LUZER, the line "Sally had twins and I moved to LA" sounds like I'm singing about a failed relationship, and not the nickname of Dan SALYerds, LUZER's lead guitarist.

So here's my little trip down Nostalgia Lane, Song Of The Week Number 28 of 52, "Seventeen."

A prequel released in the next decade...what could go wrong? Right, George Lucas?