About This Jukebox

I started writing poems overseas in the early 80s — not because I planned to, but because quiet nights and long distances have a way of pulling words out of a man.

Back then it was just a notebook, a bunk light, and whatever thoughts were loud enough to demand a place on paper. Some were about home, some about the world I was seeing for the first time, and some were just the kind of lines you write when you’re young and trying to understand your own heartbeat.

In the 90s, a few of those poems found their way into melodies.

I didn’t know I was writing songs at the time — I was just trying to make sense of life, love, and the miles in between. A couple pieces were built from scratch, others were born from a single thought or one-liner that wouldn’t leave me alone.

Then came the mid‑90s, and with it a heartbreak that left its own mark.

Some songs came easy, some came hard, and some came out of the kind of silence only heartache can carve. Those pieces were raw, honest, and necessary — the kind of writing you don’t plan, you just survive.

Fast‑forward to the end of last year, and I found myself looking back at all those old poems — pages that had traveled with me through decades.

I decided it was time to give them a second life.

To turn the ones that still had a pulse into songs.

To finish the ones that had waited patiently.

And to write a few new ones from scratch, because the stories never really stop.

This jukebox page is where all of that comes together — the early poems, the 90s songs, the heartbreak pieces, and the ones written with fresh ink.

Every number on the list started somewhere real.

Every song has a story behind it.

And every one of them is part of the long road that brought me here.