MR. DAN GUITAR MAN’S MUSIC
God has been in all the details of Dan’s first two launched songs that follow. His faith in God, following and hearing God’s calling, and following His guidance in these music projects has increased his love for and faith in God. Read how God was the inspiration and leader in completing these two song projects. Recording and launching His songs for the world to hear about His love is a humbling adventure and a dream come true!
ABOUT
"God’s World Goes ‘Round"
WRITING
The inspirational idea of this creation song was one of God’s creations - a watermelon! Certain word phrases inspire certain song sounds in my head, and as I was taking the watermelon out of our refrigerator, I started singing “watermelons drip, drip, drip.”
I don’t remember how the catchy chorus came about, but when singing this song to kids the natural thing to occur is to have them raise up one arm and make circular motions as we sing “God’s World Goes ‘Round” repeatedly. It’s one of their favorites and when it was sung at a family gathering, the adults applauded!
Each line of each verse had a different topic, but the same topics, e.g., birds, bugs, etc., I grouped into a single verse.
I keep all versions of all my song lyrics and usually put a date on each one. The earliest dated lyric sheet with all verses I have for this song is 4/18/1998. Whoa, that was a long time ago!!
RECORDING
It wasn’t until the spring of 2021, 23 years after the birth of the song, that God made it clear to me that it was His time to record it. I was to learn this was truly God’s calling and leading as written in Proverbs 16:9, “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps”. It would be a dream come true to record one of my songs for God’s glory in a studio for public release. Funds were available, and so I started a search for a local Christian recording studio. I found three studios who mentioned Christian recording experience. After talking with all three, it was clear which one God was leading me to – The Way Home Productions, LLC, owned by Luis Catarineau. John 14:6 says, “Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life”, another indicator that this studio was God's chosen one. We immediately planned to start recording that July. At first meeting each other, we both said that God had sent us to each other. They prayed a simple prayer that God would send His song to all the countries around His world.
We planned the recording and arrangements and started, gathering musicians that would be appropriate for this children’s folk style song. I asked one of my best friends who played guitar, banjo and mandolin, to play in the recording sessions. Luis played the bass and obtained the keyboard player and a drummer. During the recording sessions, it was realized that this was a God creation song, and I added the first verse in the Holy Bible “In the beginning…” to the song’s intro. I asked another best friend who has a “radio announcer” voice to read the narrations. The sessions went as planned and the Mastered version was finished by November 2021.
VIDEO
Because of the bright and colorful imagery of the lyrical subjects, videos were always planned to be made. Dan started compiling his pictures and art for each line of each lyric, and Luis made an intro video clip of God’s hands moving and caressing His earth with the song title. It was decided to have children participate and parts for the children to say at the end of each verse line were written. Permission was granted to video tape the children at my church performing the song. A permission slip was made and signed by the children’s parents giving permission that they could appear in a public video. On a day in October, Luis and his videographer wife Marcela filmed eight children in one hour session saying their assigned verse parts and singing the chorus together.
After all the video material was compiled and filmed, Luis’ first video version was completed in February 2022. Many different videos were made, including a trailer, a promo, and an official, lyric and karaoke version and placed on YouTube. Work continued throughout the year on videos until it was decided that the launch date would be Friday, January 27, 2023.
LAUNCH
Just before the launch date I was truly excited as my dream come true to honor God with my singing and songwriting talents that He had given me was about to be published. I felt like the Little Drummer Boy in the song where he had no gift to bring fit for a King but his drumming, and I had this song. I had a new website and had chosen CDBaby as my administrative streaming service since I was a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Musician. After the song was released to over 20 streaming sites on January 27, it was an extremely exciting day as I checked that the song was on the streaming services, including YouTube Music, Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music!
For promotion, I added the song to a promo app that would play the song on internet streaming radio stations with the countries and artists of my choosing. The app collected listener data and displayed reports of where and what radio station the song was listened to. In the first couple of weeks after launch, the song had listeners in all the seven continents except Antarctica (still praying for that to happen!). God had already started answering our initial simple prayer of worldwide listeners! You think this is only for children?! Check this out: the demographics showed that 73% of the listeners were ages 25-64, and the 65+ listeners were 19%! The countries with the most listeners, besides the United States and Canada, were Argentina, Australia, China, India, and Japan. Two of the smallest countries with listeners are Malawi and Mauritius. There is a large difference in the genre of artists that have radio stations where the song was listened to, including Veggie Tales, Disney, Phil Wickham, Matthew West, and, yes, even Simon & Garfunkel.
I thank, praise, and give the glory to the one true God for his faithfulness in leading me to start, guide and complete His song projects!
ABOUT
"BABY JESUS IN A MANGER"
WRITING
This song was conceived in November 1988. The first four-line verse with music blurted out as a gift from God. Here’s how: a young neighbor couple asked me to baby sit their baby for a couple of hours. Since I had taken care of our two girls as babies, I felt honored and confident I was up to the task. On November 15, 1988, the baby arrived and was quiet for a time, but then…she started crying. Of course, I picked her up to calm her, but to no avail. Being a singer, I thought singing would work, but what song should I sing? I heard a new baby Jesus song that could only come from God, and I started singing “Baby Jesus In A Manger” and all its four lines. I kept singing it to her, but, alas, she kept crying. That didn’t work! Of course, she eventually did stop crying because her parents came and took her home.
I remembered the verse of the gift God had given me, wrote it down, and sang it over the ensuing years.
I revisited this song in 1998 and the focus became the activities surrounding the day of Jesus’ birth. More time passed and after more Bible research, I chose Luke’s 2:7-20 to further describe this amazing miracle day of Jesus’ birth. The original 4-line verse became the first verse, and three new verses were written. I performed the 4-verse song solo on Christmas Eve at my church on December 24, 2002. More time passed and the current chorus and bridge were created and added. With my church’s praise team, we sang and recorded the full version on December 31, 2017, during the church service; this version had a narrator intro added.
More time passed, and in the spring of 2023, God impressed upon me to record an entire album. Again this was God’s timing! God had provided unexpected funds for this project. I compiled a list of the seven most loved and popular songs I have sung to preschoolers. I sent this song to Luis Catarineau, who produced my first song “God’s World Goes ‘Round”), on May 12. On May 13 Luis called me and wanted to record this song right away! I replied, let’s start tomorrow!
RECORDING
I notified Luis Catarineau, the producer and owner of The Way Home Productions, LLC, again, and he agreed to record the album. I compiled a list of popular songs that I have sung for years to children and sent them to Luis. The next day, after receiving the songs, he immediately loved “Baby Jesus In A Manger” and called me. He wanted to record this song RIGHT NOW! I told him, let’s start tomorrow! So we were both in agreement, but first we had to select the musicians. Luis selected a drummer in his school music class and a keyboardist who played on our first song, and I asked my friend again to play guitars (he used three different ones!) and another friend to play bass. We scheduled the first sessions in July 2023, exactly one year after our first session of our first song.
The recording sessions were a joint effort between Luis and I, but Luis did the arrangements including harmonies and instruments. All recording was completed in early October and Luis started mixing the song. He contacted a promoter who could help with the promotion, and the promoter liked the song and desired to do the promotion.
The recording sessions were a joint effort between Luis and I, but Luis did the arrangements including harmonies and instruments. All recording was completed in early October and Luis started mixing the song. He contacted a promoter who could help with the promotion, and the promoter liked the song and desired to do the promotion.
A video has been talked about as a future project.