Check out music I wrote that was recorded by my band Nashville Bound in Nashville, Tennessee

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Here is band information.


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=603354

Here are the songs.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_music.cfm?bandID=603354

Click on the song and then song info for detailed info and lyrics.

Queens of Royalty, Rock & Raunch - Queen Elizabeth II, Taylor Swift & Miley Cyrus

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What do they have in common?  Other than a few hundred million dollars in net worth not much.  But it is fun to look at these three Queens when they were the same age.

Hannah Montana - Disney look

Miley Cyrus

For example, Miley Cyrus is now 21 years old and she grossed an estimated $78 million in the last year, and that wasn't all she grossed as she grossed out her fans with her free wheeling lifestyle based on getting stoned, getting drunk and getting wild.

Miley is the reincarnation of Madonna as a wild child and Cyrus intends to celebrate herself, her money, her sexuality and whatever else comes along with no interest in being apologetic or anything mature.

Actually Miley started out as a Disney do gooder, the All American teen, before she grew up and decided being provocative paid.  In 2006 at age 14 thanks to Disney Cyrus had an estimated net worth of $3.5 million.

Today it has grown to about $155 million net worth thanks to her on-stage antics, a lot of skin and a tongue that seems to drag on the floor.

    

When Queen Elizabeth was the same age, 21, she had just survived four years of Nazi bombings of London and had been a member of the British Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service.

Elizabeth age 3

On her 21st birthday, the same age as Cyrus today, she was traveling through Africa with her parents and made a radio broadcast back to Britain pledging:

"I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong."

Taylor Swift

Taylor is the heir apparent as Queen of Country music and has not fallen into the same pit of vulgarity and sexuality as Miley though they seem to be friends of some sort.

Swift made her breakthrough at age 16 with her first mega hit "Tim McGraw" and has created a multi-million dollar niche chronicling the life of a typical teen through her music, making her the greatest crossover artist ever from country to pop.

Of course most typical teens didn't earn $18 million by their 18th birthday nor generate about $50 million each the past few years touring while releasing one new album every two years.

Today Taylor continues to earn entertainer of the year awards for her relentless touring schedule, fan availability and All-American image.  At age 25 she is worth an estimated $220 million and has at least four estates worth millions each across the nation.

While Cyrus slithers on her tongue for the fans Taylor hobnobs with American royalty like the Kennedy family boys at her New England estate.  The crazier Miley gets the swifter Swift sets herself apart from her crazy friend.

So what was Queen Elizabeth up to when she was 25 like Taylor?  She was getting married and just two years later, at age 27, she became Queen of England and all the other territories associated with the British crown.

Okay, so how much is the British monarch worth compared to the American kids?  Well, contrary to reports the royal family overspends, the Queen is personally worth about $500 million.  Her properties alone generate about $79 million dollars per year, about what they cost to operate a year.

And her net worth does not count the Crown Estate trust for the British royalty consisting of real estate property, art work and other stuff worth BILLIONS of pounds, dollars, any way you want to count it, way more than 15 billions of dollars.

Soooo...

Before reaching the age of 21 Miley Cyrus was a multi-millionaire Disney television star and Taylor Swift was a multi-millionaire heart beat and heart throb of country and pop music. At the same age Queen Elizabeth was dodging Nazi bombs that were destroying London having refused to leave England and demanding to stay with her parents, the King and Queen.

At age 21 Miley Cyrus slithers on her tongue while Queen Elizabeth pledged her loyalty to the people of Britain and at age 25 Taylor Swift travels the world singing and buying mansions while Queen Elizabeth was getting married and two years away from becoming Queen of Britain.

Today Queen Elizabeth is closing in on becoming the longest reigning monarch in British history, yes for all time, as she will pass her great, great grandmother Queen Victoria and her 63 year 216 day continuous reign record in less than 500 days.

Ah the trials and tribulations of royalty British or American style.

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If Taylor Swift fell in Love, got married & lived happily ever after, would her songwriting end?

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America's most popular teenager, even at age 23, has created a phenomenal music machine in the six short years since she exploded on the scene.  A singing and songwriting prodigy if ever there was one, Taylor took about the hardest path possible in her "swift" ascent foregoing the huge Nashville record labels and opting for an independent label, Big Machine Records.

 

Though her label was just a start up it had a solid platinum 16 year old in young Taylor Swift.  She probably does not remember but I exchanged several emails with her before she had the record deal and was famous, and interestingly enough we discussed what she would have to give up to sign with a major label.

 

 

At the time she insisted she would never sign with a major label because she intended to write and perform her own songs and they would never let her at her young age.  She was far wiser than her years.

 

Today, six years later, she has sold over 26 million albums and over 75 million digital downloads worldwide and Forbes magazine says the 23 year old is now worth over $220 million.  So far in 2013 her income this year exceeds $55 million.

 

 

She has a penthouse in midtown Nashville, Tennessee, a cottage in Beverly Hills, California and an eight bedroom vacation home in coastal Watch Hill, Rhode Island.

 

She recently made several hundred thousand dollars profit selling a million dollar mansion she bought in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts next door to the most famous political royalty in America, the Kennedy family.  She bought it to be close to one of the Kennedy boys she was dating.

 

 

And that brings us to the subject of this story.  Taylor Swift sells millions of records to teens telling the tragic stories of her lost loves of life, what she acknowledges is the source of her often heartbreaking compositions.

 

Since becoming a super star her romances read like a celebrity whose who and have made extremely good material for the tearful tales she tells in song.  Just look at this partial list from Swiftipedia of the more public mates she has dated.

 

 

The song Tim McGraw was inspired by an ex-boyfriend named Brandon Borello. Their relationship ended because he had to go to college. She told USA today, "He bought the album and said he really loved it, which is sweet. His current girlfriend isn't too pleased with it, though." It was named after a musician whose songs she liked. He was going away to college so she wanted to write him something to remember her by.

 

Picture to Burn was written about an ex-boyfriend, whom she calls a redneck, and says he never let her drive his pick-up truck.

 

Teardrops on My Guitar was written about a boy she liked, whom she never actually dated. "Drew was a real person!" she tells. Drew was surprised when he heard his name in the song. "I never knew she liked me" Drew says. Taylor stated that two years after the song came out Drew showed up at her house and asked her on a date. She declined. "It was the perfect fairytale ending but a little too late."

 

 Should've Said No was about an ex-boyfriend that cheated on her. The boyfriend's name was Sam Armstrong, and, in the CD booklet, every S, A, and M was capitalized if it was in the correct order.

 

Joe Jonas broke up with her over the phone, which is something she has complained about on Ellen Degeneres' show and elsewhere. She got her record company to let her record a song about it, to add at the last minute to her album. Forever & Always is the name of that song. She also wrote 'Last Kiss' about him and 'Better than Revenge' is about his ex-girlfriend, Camila Belle.

 

 

Taylor Lautner became her boyfriend after they met on set for the film Valentine's Day. Their relationship was popularly known as Taylor Squared. They broke up in early 2010. She mentioned going to a hockey game with him during her October 29th 2009 appearance on the Ellen Show.

 

According to MTV he was more into her than she was into him, he going everywhere he could to see her, but it was not working out. They have apparently decided to just be friends.  The song, Back to December is suspected to be about Taylor Lautner. The song is an apology to him.

 

Some of the lyrics go..." Your guard is up and I know why. Because the last time you saw me is still burned in the back of your mind ...you gave me roses and I left them there to die. So this is me swallowing my pride, standing in front of you saying I'm sorry for that night. And I go back to December all the time. You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye."

 

 

At the end of the song she asks for his forgiveness and hints to the fact she wants to be with him again. The couple hasn't reunited and at the recent American Music Awards Swift performed the song and at the end added "and he said it's too late to 'pologize" from popular song "Apologize" by the band One Republic. She is alluding to the parody video Taylor Lautner made for "Apologize".  Time magazine listed this is one of the top apologies of 2010.

 

Jake Gyllenhaal reported spent $160,000 to have her flown over on a private jet for a date. He later broke up with her through text. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, State of Grace, All Too Well, Girl at Home and The Moment I Knew are rumored to be about him.

 

The songs Dear John and I Knew You Were Trouble are rumored to be about her ex-boyfriend John Mayer, whom she had a fling with at one time.

 

 

The song Enchanted is about Adam Young of Owl City but she never dated him, although he did state his interest in her.

 

Former beaus Harry Styles and Connor Kennedy are yet to be immortalized in Taylor's songs.

 

So, if Taylor were to fall in love, get married and live happily ever after would that signal the end of her songwriting and recording career?  What is a country queen, or should we say princess, to do with no new material for songs?

 

How could the hundreds of millions of teenagers around the world in love with Taylor and her music handle a happy married Taylor?  Feeling good, sharing happiness and being content are very un-teen like in this day and age.

 

How in the world will the big pharmaceutical companies keep making their insane profits if kids aren't depressed like their parents?  Nearly 50% of all Americans are now on prescription drugs for depression.

 

At the same time, can Taylor make the transition and actually write happy songs that teens will buy?  It would be yet another first in the bonnet of this young woman who shattered all kinds of glass ceilings in the country music and record industries doing things her way.

 

Let us hope teens today will not hold candle light vigils pleading with Taylor to "dump the chumps" so she can keep on writing country hits.

 

 

I say Taylor has given us an incredible slice of her life to share the intimacy of her relationships through her music.  She deserves to be happy too.

 

What do you say?

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The Disaster Master Strikes Again

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The following was released by the National Weather Service yesterday regarding a tornado in Southern Maryland.

DETAILS FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

...BRIEF EF-0 TORNADO CONFIRMED IN COLTONS POINT MARYLAND...

LOCATION...COLTONS POINT IN ST MARYS COUNTY MARYLAND

DATE...10 JUNE 2013

ESTIMATED TIME...9:01 PM TO 9:01 PM EDT

MAXIMUM EF-SCALE RATING...EF-0

MAXIMUM WIND SPEED...65 MPH

MAXIMUM PATH WIDTH...50 YARDS

LENGTH...0.25 MILES

BEGINNING LAT/LON...38.223N / 76.755W

ENDING LAT/LON...38.226N / 76.753W

* FATALITIES...0

* INJURIES...0

* THE INFORMATION IN THIS STATEMENT IS PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE

PENDING FINAL REVIEW OF THE EVENT(S) AND PUBLICATION IN NWS STORM DATA.

...SUMMARY...


A GROUND SURVEY CONDUCTED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE...TOGETHER

WITH RADAR DATA FROM THE ANDREWS AFB TERMINAL DOPPLER WEATHER RADAR

DETERMINED THERE WAS A BRIEF EF-0 TORNADO TOUCHDOWN IN COLTONS POINT

MARYLAND. MINOR TREE AND ROOF DAMAGE AND WAS NOTED IN THE VICINITY

OF THE INTERSECTION OF COLTON POINT RD...RT 242 WITH BAYVIEW RD AND

ALONG BEACH RD BETWEEN CHARLES HALL RD AND POINT BREEZE RD. A FEW

SHINGLES WERE BLOWN OFF SOME STRUCTURES IN THIS AREA. A TREE CAME

DOWN ON WIRES IN THE 38300 BLOCK OF BEACH RD. A TRAMPOLINE NEAR A

RESIDENCE ON COLTON POINT RD NEXT TO THE TOWN POST OFFICE WAS LIFTED

UP AND BECAME LODGED 90 FEET UP IN NEARBY TALL PINE TREE. TWO LARGE

WOODEN PLAY SET WERE BLOWN OVER...ONE WAS DRAGGED ABOUT 15 FEET.


THIS TORNADO WAS LIKELY THE EXTENSION OF A WATERSPOUT THAT CROSSED

THE POTOMAC RIVER JUST BEFORE 9 PM.

 

 

Well I live on the intersection of Charles Hall Road and Beach Road and at exactly 9:01 pm on June 10, about a month ago, I was standing in my yard taking photos of the nasty weather and hoping to get a picture of the tornado the National Weather Service said was between Fredericksburg, Virginia and Coltons Point, Maryland, on the banks of the Potomac River.  It was supposed to be headed right toward us.

 

Nashville

Suddenly the sky turned black and a roar of wind like a Cessna on steroids hit and the sky directly above me started twirling in a massive circle.  It was the second time I watched a tornado go directly overhead here in Maryland and my third experience as I was standing in a Nashville parking lot in 1998 when a large tornado swooped overhead and slammed that city.

 

 

But it gets better.  My homes in Iowa, Nebraska and New Jersey all got hit by tornadoes, one was destroyed.

And since arriving in Southern Maryland three hurricanes have hit.

Good thing I had all that practice growing up in Iowa and Nebraska when we had to fill sandbags to stop the Mississippi or Missouri rivers from flooding.

Or had to survive paralyzing blizzards and 35 below zero cold.

All of a sudden our torrid heat wave doesn't seem all that bad.
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