7/5/26: “Deliver Me,” by Gordon Wright
Gordon Wright is a Chicago-area musician who will be sharing music on the 5th day of the month all year long. Long ago, he fronted an East Coast pop/rock band called Fooled By April. These days you can find him singing jazz in the Chicago Jazz Dads.
This is “Deliver Me.” I’ve never released the recording before, but the song actually dates back nearly 20 years.
As I was entering my 30s and trying to figure out what to do with my life, I wasn’t quite ready to give up on music altogether. So I joined with a couple of friends who felt similarly and we started a songwriting club. Every month—or maybe it was every week?—we would come up with a new song topic. I honestly can’t recall what the topic was for this week — I think maybe it had something to do with addiction? But I was determined at the time to write straightforward pop songs. Whatever this phase of my life, I wanted to actually make some money so that me and my longtime companion could actually build a family.
Well, I never managed to sell the song or make a dime off of it, and even after cutting this demo with my good friend and longtime collaborator and producer Aric Jacover, I just shelved it. I suppose I was waiting for the right moment.
Maybe that moment is now?