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Joanne Shaw 

Official Website -- Author, Novelist, Singer, Songwriter, Former vegan female bodybuilder, 20+ yrs., Canadian Lawmaker, Poet

A True Funny Story About a "Synchronicity"

I remember writing my first poem in the car, when I was about 6 years old, traveling with my parents.   The poem rhymed and was really long and told a story.  It wasn't until about age 23 that I began seriously songwriting.

When I was about 23, I was moving out of province, my car packed, driving by myself on the highway.  I got into the mountains, and my radio died, so, I started singing. At that point, I really didn't do either, and had only wished I could sing and song-write.  

I was enjoying the drive, making up words and tunes.  Pure joy is. more like it.  I liked some of the stuff I came up with, and thought,  "I wish I had a little tape recorder." I had just sold a miniature tape-recorder, at a garage sale, a week prior, before I left. But I didn't have my tape recorder any longer, so I just kept driving and singing.

Ten minutes later, I pull into a gas station, a man runs over to me, and shouts, "Hi! We're out of gas! Do you want to buy a tape recorder?" It was miniature in size, like the one I had sold at my garage sale.   

I gave the man $20 and a tennis racket in exchange for the tape recorder.  I sang into my tape recorder the rest of the trip.  A few weeks later, I compiled my first folk song, "Grass Is Greener Than Money", in my new home, from memos I recorded on my miniature tape recorder."   I have written around 300 others songs since that day.

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