The Risk, the Search, and MORE

The Songs from the Notebooks

For the last few chapters, you’ve walked beside me through some of the moments that shaped my life.
You’ve wandered Willow Creek.
Sat in our living room.
Met my family.
Watched a shy kid discover music.

Met the girl we simply call Maybe.
And watched that first love quietly slip away.

At the time…
I wasn’t trying to write a book. I wasn’t even trying to write songs. I was just living my life. The funny part is, the songs had already begun.
Not on a stage.
Not in a recording studio.
Not even with a guitar in my hands. They began in quiet moments that didn’t seem important at the time.

Years later, those memories found their way into music. These are three of those songs.

Every first love has a last conversation. Mine happened on a front porch with a guitar case in my hand and a show waiting for me somewhere down the road.

At fifteen, I thought I was choosing music. It took me more than fifty years to understand what I was really leaving behind.

Some songs take an afternoon to write.
This one took a lifetime.
Goodbye Will Never Come Again

Some stories never really leave us.
Years may pass.
Lives change.
But certain memories remain exactly as we left them.

A folded note in speech class.
A snowy winter dance.
A blue dress.
A ring wrapped with yarn so it would fit.
Long walks home after school.
A porch swing where two teenagers thought forever was just beginning.

A long forgotten note written in a yearbook, and a couple of my words scribbled on a piece of paper next to it.

Memories long forgotten, but suddenly so real again.

Those moments stayed tucked away inside my notebooks for decades before they finally became…
Meant To Be.

Before there was a guitar…
Before there was a stage…
Before there were songs…
There was a little creek behind our house.

Older Bill and younger Bill at Willow Creek

I spent countless hours wandering its banks, climbing trees, catching crawdads, watching turtles, and wondering what might be waiting around the next bend. I thought I was just playing. I had no idea Willow Creek was teaching me the most important lesson a songwriter could ever learn.
Not how to play.
Not how to sing.
How to notice.
The sound of moving water.
The wind through the willow branches.
The changing seasons.
The little moments most people never stop long enough to see. Those memories stayed with me long after I left that little creek behind.
Many years later…
they found their way into a song.
Willow Creek

The Journey Continues…
Songs don’t always begin when we write them. Sometimes they begin years—even decades—before the first lyric ever reaches the page.
They begin beside a creek…
on a front porch…
during a walk home from school…
or in a quiet moment that doesn’t seem important until life gives it meaning.
Those moments became these songs.
And there are many more stories still waiting to be told.

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The Epilogue closes the written story.
But it does not close the music.

These three songs arrived at three different turning points in my life.
Together, they became a map of where I had been—and where I was finally willing to go.

“Where I Need to Be” was the risk.
“Who Are You Who Am I” was the search.
“MORE” was what became possible afterward.

Where I Need to Be

How this song found me

Leaving what was familiar did not mean I had found every answer.
It meant I had finally admitted that what I needed ought to count, too.

This song came from that moment—the decision to stop living only by other people’s expectations and begin moving toward a life that felt honest.

Watch “Where I Need to Be” on YouTube

Who Are You Who Am I

How this song found me

Taking the risk was only the beginning.
Once the familiar roles and expectations began to fall away, another question remained.

Who was I when I was not being the person everyone else needed me to be?
Who was I when I was simply Bill?

This was the search—the difficult, necessary work of meeting the man beneath the titles, responsibilities, and years of practiced certainty.

Watch “Who Are You Who Am I” on YouTube

MORE — The Acoustic Version

How this song found me

Finding myself was not only about learning to stand alone.
It was about becoming honest enough to let another person truly know me.

Then came Debbie—and with her, the discovery that a life I had once thought was finished could still hold something deeper, kinder, and more real than I had imagined.

The final lyrics found me in a wooded horseshoe canyon, surrounded by three waterfalls and a beautiful pool below them.
I sat on a large rock and wrote while the water moved around me.
Everything else seemed to have led there.

This purely acoustic version is the song in its most personal form:
one songwriter, one guitar, and the truth I had finally learned.

Watch “MORE — The Acoustic Version” on YouTube

Three songs.
One continuing story.
The risk.
The search.
And the discovery of MORE.

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