I have always fiddled with putting poems to music. The very first homemade album I made back in 1972 had a version of the old poem “Lord Lovel,” which probably has a real melody out there somewhere but I found it in a poetry book. Come to think of it, I have a pretty funky song using Longfellow’s “Excelsior” that I have never recorded … hmmm.

So it’s not surprising that I might borrow some lyrics from Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I did commit the sacrilege of changing “thee” to “you” throughout my adaptation of the immortal Sonnet 43. 

I arranged the words into verses on Jan. 24, and then decided on a rather standard G-Em-C-D chord progression on Jan. 25. I recorded the song on Feb. 3 and tweaked it into this form six days later. If I say so myself, I’m getting better at crafting three-part harmony.

I experimented with song order a lot before settling on the track list that appears in the released album, but “When She Smiles” always came right after “How Do I Love You.” In fact, until the very last minute these two songs opened the album. I ultimately decided the set works best if the album title is the first words you hear.

I wrote “When She Smiles” Jan. 14 and 15, and the song is unabashedly about my sweetheart, Mary. I had the rhythm first even before the melody or the words — my mind was hearkening back to Jimmy Gilmer’s 1962 song “Sugar Shack” — “There’s a crazy little shack beyond the tracks, and everybody calls it the Sugar Shack” — when I wrote, “There’s a cute little mama living down the street, and let me tell you, buddy, she is kind of sweet.” 

(Yikes, now that I listen side-by-side, I wonder if I need to add K. McCormack and F. Voss to the writing credits. Is this how George Harrison felt when he gave another listen to “He’s So Fine”?)

This is not hyperbole: Sometimes when Mary smiles, my heart melts. She has that effect on me. I put “How Do I Love Thee” to music about a week after writing “When She Smiles” specifically thinking Browning’s poem would make a good introduction to my sweet little mama.

Here’s a link to clips from Crimson Sky on New Year’s Morn with further links to your favorite streaming services, or you can just go to Spotify or Apple Music or YouTube, or wherever you usually stream music, and do a search for “Bluhm Crimson Sky” — and thanks for listening! 

My album Crimson Sky on New Year’s Morn is now available on all of the usual music streaming services for your listening and downloading pleasure. Just go to Spotify or Apple Music or YouTube or wherever you usually stream, music and do a search for “Bluhm Crimson Sky” — remember that’s B-L-U-H-M — and if everything works the way it’s supposed to, the album will pop up.

Over the next two or three weeks, my plan is to share, one song at a time, the 12 songs that I wrote and recorded in the first couple of months of 2026 with the help of the handy-dandy GarageBand app on my MacBook Air laptop.

And it all literally begins with a crimson sky on New Year’s morning. 

I picked up my guitar on the morning of Jan. 1 and glanced out the front window of my house, which faces east. The sunrise was a brilliant red, calling to mind the old aphorism about red skies and sailors.

I grabbed my pencil and wrote, “Crimson sky on New Year’s morn, Old sailors take it as a warning; Crimson sky on New Year’s night, Sailors ready for delight.”

That seemed like a good start, so I lifted the guitar again. I decided to try starting the song with a more exotic chord than your plain vanilla C or D or G, so I droned out an Asus2 (A-suspended-2), which has a strange, lovely sound made by pressing just two strings side by side (four strings on the 12-string guitar).

I called out the lyrics I’d just written, and my mind seemed to say the moment called for a rather standard transition to G, then D, and back to Asus2..

Somewhat to my surprise, the next words that I sang sprang from the Old Testament book of Joshua.

“As for me and my house, we’re gonna serve the Lord.”

A short time later, I had a composition of eight verses that have not changed much since then, my first new song of the new year. And the adventure was on.

And that’s the first song from Crimson Sky on New Year’s Morn. The link will send you to clips from all 12 songs and further links to your favorite streaming services, or you can just go to Spotify or Apple Music or YouTube, or wherever you usually stream music, and do a search for “Bluhm Crimson Sky” — and thanks for listening!