Stepping Out | Into the world and becoming an adult

© 1990 Tim Wilson & Gerald Martin Davenport

Tim Wilson: Lyrics (1985)
Gerald Martin Davenport: Music (1990)

“In 1982, when I was a Junior at Nevada Union High School in Grass Valley, California, Tim Wilson, a teacher of English, TV Productions, and the Yearbook Advisor, asked me to put music to his lyrics or his song as he put it, titled, Stepping Out.

When I first looked at the lyrics I pondered what kind of music he may want. I asked him and he said, What ever you think. Knowing what styles of music he likes, or at least I thought I knew what styles he likes I went ahead and worked on it. It took me six years and twelve different arrangements before I was happy with it.

Of the twelve different arrangements, I can remember two that I thought would be the final arrangements of the song. The first one was a slow, building ballad that sounded similar to. ‘Let it be’ by the Beatles; which is why I decided to scrap it.

The second one I can remember had a running base line underneath a rhythmical percussion section. I like the music so that I rewrote new lyrics for it; it was not the music for Stepping Out even though this one was the arrangement for about 4 years.

I finally got tired of it and did a major rewrite that lasted about 18 months, in which the song was dissected into millions of pieces and slowly assemble back together; this has been the case with most of my material.”