Song in the Spotlight: “Dakota in Mourning”
With 153 songs and growing I’m quickly losing recollection of what every song was about. Fortunately I’ve documented each one and wish to share it with my growing number of fans and listeners. I’ve decided I will start posting more info about the songs by highlighting a particular song and album and will cover each song within an album before I move on a new album.I will start this new content creation effort by discussing the first song in my “Cherish” album. This is one of the most beautiful albums on https://stag.craigwhitleymusic.com and is chocked full of love songs. The first song on “Cherish” is titled, “Dakota in Mourning,” and is actually a sad ballad about the murder of John Lennon.
You night ask, “Why would you put that song on an album of love songs?” You may or may not recall, but John Lennon lived in the “Dakota” apartment building next to Central Park in New York. He was shot outside the front door of the Dakota before stumbling into Dakota’s lobby and falling to the floor dead.
I’ve always had a wild imagination, which comes in handy for songwriting and storytelling, but it was particularly wild, magical and outlandish at times when I was a child. I often imagined what inanimate objects would say if they could talk. My curiosity and imagine would run wild at times wondering if man-made objects could think and feel. While thinking about Lennon’s death in July of this year I wondered to myself what the “Dakota” would say if she could talk, whether she’s been in mourning all of these years, would she have cried out when her most famous tenant was shot outside her door, what he must have felt like to her as Lennon laid dying on her floor. Wild thoughts, right? But wild thoughts that made for a very powerful and gripping song.
It was no secret that John Lennon loved the Dakota as if she was a grand lady. My song gives Dakota the voice she’s never had, and in my imaginative mind, I would like to think that if the Dakota could talk what she would say would be very close to the lyrics in “Dakota in Mourning.”
You can hear “Dakota in Mourning” now, along with other songs on the “Cherish” album by going to https://stag.craigwhitleymusic.com/playlist/cherish/ on my website.