Radium

I went through a period of trying to write commercial songs. Fix Me Up, and Cover Me, featured a few blogs earlier, were two of them.

Radium is another. It was a rewrite of an earlier tune I’d written, called Breathe. Funnily, there’s a friend I have who isn’t mad on any of my music, except for that earlier rendition of the song, which he adored. And now, sadly for him, that version is lost in the mists of time.

Anyway, I want to say that, although I’m very happy with the song writing craftsmanship of those earlier uncommercial “commercial” songs I wrote, they never felt like my songs.

There is no moral lesson to this. I completely understand when people pursue that writing route. And it’s a real achievement to get to a point where you make real money (i.e. profit) from the craft of songwriting. But it isn’t a route I want to go down anymore. I want to write songs that express my own vision and personality, not ones that try to meet other criteria.

Mostly, for better or worse, I’ve done that.

However, I do think, ironically, that in this day and age, with the advent of Ai, and a kind of predicability to most commercial “pop” music, we might be on to something. “Doing your own thang!”, though it be weird and quirky, as long as it is GOOD, could be what people start to want.

In fact that’s always been the case. Back in the day Punk became popular, largely because it kicked against the popular music of the time. It brought a fresh vitality and energy to things.

Music will always reinvent itself, even if some of the foundations remain unchanging and unchanged. I would argue it’s always better to avoid trying to copy someone else, however great they me be. We can’t help being influenced, but we don’t need to try to mimic.

So I pursue this path regardless of outcomes that could be called “success” in many peoples eyes. At the very least, it’s fun and interesting.

Bone Dry

At some point I started to realise that everything is not how it seems.
Maybe you’ve had the same experience, maybe not. For me at least, no drugs were involved.

And that realisation has become, over time, both liberating and discombobulating. The end conclusion of which has been that the only thing I can be absolutely sure of is that of my conscious experience. Even if that’s a delusion, it’s a real delusion. One that I’m actually having.

”I’m deluded, therefore I am”. You could say.

And you might well not argue with that. But I would also understand if it all sounds like bunkum to you. Maybe when I talk like this, you’d like to get off the bus. Or just hope I return to my senses.

But in reality, despite this philosophical meandering, I continue to live, day to day, as though my experience is real. It’s necessary. Ironically, I feel more locked into reality than I ever was before.

Bone Dry was probably intuitively saying something along these lines when I wrote it, on a walk down from Beinn Ghuilean, a few years. It wasn’t a thought through song at all. It just kind of happened.

It’s all kinda happening.

Are you still there?

Fix Me Up

I remember writing the beginnings of Fix Me Up while driving down a busy M6 around Manchester, then trying to record the idea into my phone. A little bit dangerous. Lucky that I didn’t end up needing to be fixed up myself at A&E, to be honest.

Body and mind are constantly being damaged, and repaired, throughout our lifetimes. But we’re a weird kind of creature. One that does things that we know will damage us. We cause ourselves to need repairing.

I was brought up with the idea that all of that started in a garden, with Adam and Eve intentionally going against God’s will. And thus humankind as a whole became cursed with this thing that some call “sin”. Something we needed “saving” from.

It’s an explanation of a kind. But it doesn’t do it for me, and hasn’t for a long while.

Rather, to me, and counter intuitively, our self damaging behaviour looks like an outcome of our more recently evolved intelligence finding itself unwittingly in conflict with some of its own more ancient evolved algorithms.

As an example, our more ancient brain evolved to need to find food. We gathered and hunted, because food was out there, and we needed it in order to live. As a result our bodies were very active and expected to be very active. And we ate less.

Then, with our more further evolved intelligence, we invented agriculture and domestication. And so we were able to keep our food sources a lot closer to hand. So much easier. And using minimum possible effort was something else our ancient brains were evolved for. So win-win, right?

Much further down the line we found ways to need fewer and fewer people to produce our food. On top of that we invented refrigeration. And suddenly I (lucky ultra modern human) can pop into the kitchen and eat as MUCH as like, with barely any effort.

A lot of the time I have done that. Because my ancient brain had also evolved to take advantage of food (eat it!) whenever it became available. You just never knew when the next chance to feed would come along. So it’s understandable that we take advantage of our luck.

And yet all of our modern illnesses have been born out of these advancements. Diabetes, heart attacks, cancer and fragile limbs in old age, being some of the big ones. Almost non-existent according to anthropologists before the agricultural age. We’re living longer (vaccines and other modern medicine helping in this regard) but we’re suffering far more as we grow older. And largely unnecessarily.

And it’s not just our diets and fitness. So many more of our self damaging behaviours can be seen through this lens of “intelligence leading to solutions, leading to more problems to solve”.

Maybe we will find further solutions to all of those self harming ones. Or maybe, as for many millions of extinct animals from the past, our evolutionary history is leading down the cul-de-sac of our own destruction. Who knows?

But hey, we’re very innovative, we humans. I’m optimistic. Our scientific fixers might even find solutions that don’t require any extra effort on our part. You never know.

In the meantime though, our brains are capable of getting a bit more tuned in to the ancient part of our smart grey matter, and adapting our behaviour to match our bodily needs.

It might a bit of work, but we can do that.


ps - No magical theological explanations are needed. They never are. And the actual explanations, when we slowly find them through observation and learning, tend to be far more interesting, helpful and awe inspiring.

Grapevine, Free Wine

I can’t remember how, why, or when I wrote Grapevine, Free Wine.

It’s odd listening to it now. Almost like it had nothing to do with me. Some songs are like that.

Clearly it’s a tale of someone with a drink problem. I’ve had an up and down ride myself with alcohol over the years. Never an alcoholic but still with times when it was definitely a problem. So that was probably the background to this breakup song. (It’s not autobiographical in that respect).

At the moment I’m not drinking at all when I’m at home. Saving it for times when I’m away. I have often had it at the back of my mind to stop altogether. But I’d prefer not to. And so far I’ve managed to keep off the wagon on a fairly regular basis. Go me!

This sounds like a man writing a personal and private diary, doesn’t it?

Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself, taking a peek into my deepest confessions, like you are. Honestly! ;-)

Cover Me

We’d protect each other, wouldn’t we? If I could do something to stop you suffering, I would. And I think you’d do the same for me. If I said “Cover Me” you would. If you could.

Life’s not as simple as that of course. But why shouldn’t we send out those good wish vibes to those we know. And even to those we don’t know.

Maybe just doing that can make a difference. Who knows? We don’t know very much really, when it comes down to it.

I’m sending some good vibes your way now. Some of your faces I know. Others not. But you’re getting them anyway. Why not send me some back.

The whole world can be cynical and vindictive if it must. Doesn’t mean we have to follow suit.

Red

Sunday Song is Red by Jesse Welles.

It ain’t all pop, hiphop and retro-on-repeat out there in the modern music scene.

Some of those younger folks are trying to say something. Who’d have thunk it. Almost like Simon Cowell hasn’t won the war quite yet.

Cleaning Out The Shed

There is SO much junk in there!

I thought it’d just be a few minutes of my time.

But it turns out that Cleaning Out The Shed is a lifetimes work. No time for anything else really, once you start.

It does make you wonder whether there is actually any “cleaning out” to do at all. Perhaps it’s not necessary. Perhaps it never was.

Perhaps The Shed and its contents are the whole point of it all.

Perhaps it sorts itself out. In its own time.

Now that would be a relief.

Is that what they call “acceptance”?

Life Is Difficult

Everything is easy for a robot. Just follow the programming man! No thinking means no suffering.

Life Is Difficult for a human though. We can’t stop thinking. And those thoughts are at the root of all our pain.

But here’s a thing. If you know what you’re going to think next, you’re a god. And a better man than me. And if we don’t know what we’re going to think next, then perhaps it’s time to stop treating those unpredictable thoughts as though they matter. Matter in the sense that they change anything. In the sense that we should hang the way we feel, and who we are, upon every last one that emerges.

That also is difficult, of course. Because who am I if not my thoughts? And if I want to BE someone, surely I need to keep whirring those thoughts around, allow them to fester, play them on repeat, and treat them with very great seriousness. Otherwise I might disappear.

Who wants to disappear?

On the other hand, maybe the payoff might be worth it.

Crossing The Wild Lands

One person’s “wild lands” are always another’s home turf.

Someone, some creature, some living thing is always at home in the places and situations where we feel all at sea.

It’s worth remembering that when we are Crossing The Wild Lands.

It’s possible that we can learn to be at home here, too.

Sometimes I Cry

The song Sometimes I Cry is a reference point for me.

A flag placed firmly in a valley through which I travelled for too long.

It’s a reminder that nothing lasts. But particularly in this case, the Badlands don’t last.

And I know that those sought of sentiments can seem meaningless when a person is in the trough of despair. But I hope that anyone who is in that place will realise, on hearing this song, that somebody knows how they feel.

That knowledge, if nothing else, should give hope. Because you can’t write this kind of song when you’re smack bang in the middle of the trough. You can’t write it unless you’ve been there, and come through.

Which means that it’s possible to come through.

Tartan And Lace

Tartan And Lace were my metaphor for courage and grace, represented in a woman. And in this song, the woman represented the best of the land where I live. Scotland.

But neither a man or a woman or a nation are the rightful bearers of goodness. Courage and grace are just regular qualities, available to all of us. Demonstrated, naturally, by people we admire.

It’s possible to be brave and graceless. Also graceful and cowardly.

But, in truth, courage and grace complete each other.

And they already exist within us, waiting to be released. Like all the best qualities, we don’t have to will them into being. We just stop getting in their way.

Hurt So Good

Hurt So Good was written for all the martyrs out there.

Of which I have been one, for sure.

I speak not of literal martyr’s dying for literal causes. No. I’m referring to the tenuous and, to be honest, tiresome pursuit of suffering more than everybody else in regard to the creation of one’s art.

M-art-yrs in our own heids.

Not that any of this is necessarily pretentious, though it can ferment an attitude which always teeters on the edge of such a tendency. But it also can be a very genuine and sincere attempt to do things in the right way.

Like the song I wrote about it, in which I am solemnly trying to give myself a break.

”Today you be kind to yourself”.

The present me holds all of this creative stuff a lot more lightly. Less angst more … perchance to dream. Or something.

Here’s to the death of dying for our artistic endeavours.

Old England

Today’s Sunday song comes courtesy of Dom Joly in his book The Hezbollah Hiking Club. It tells of his mini pilgrimage involving a walk through Lebanon with two friends. Today he is passing through the town of Baalbek, which was the home of Hezbollah there. And then he hears a song from out of nowhere -

“One of my favourite songs of all time … the lyrics stopped me dead in my tracks … God, what a song”.

I’ve never listened to Old England by The Waterboys before. But when such a whole hearted recommendation is heard, it would be daft not to put that oversight to bed. So I did. A powerful tune.

ps. I once had a practise session for a gig in a rehearsal room at The Barrowlands in Glasgow. The Waterboys were just up the hall rehearsing for theirs at the same time. Aah, those small, sweet, slightly sad claims to fame… :-)

Frequent Disapproval

I frequently disapprove of things. Like you I don’t intend to. It just pops up on a regular basis. Something I’m not keen on. A preference for that thing not to be a thing. Very occasionally, it’s not a mere thing. It’s an actual person. But let’s not go there.

So yes, I’m a fully paid up frequent disapprover. And who knows? If I know you I may have even disapproved of something you have done or said at some point. Sorry.

We can’t choose our preferences. But at the end of the day, those preferences make absolutely no difference to the fabric of reality. Because the reality is that even when one thing I disapprove off disappears - and every single one of them will, soon or later - another will pop up to replace it.

It won’t be my disapproval that displaces anything though. Because all “The Disapproved” have an independent existence and cannot be touched by my preferences. They disappear, because that is the nature of life.

What do I learn from this?

One thing is that I can’t kill off anything by not liking it.

But also … and this is a useful tip for all of us who happen to make ourselves vulnerable and put something of ourselves “out there” in the wider world for everyone to see:

- Disapproval, even Frequent Disapproval , cannot kill us either. It just can’t. Despite the message of the accompanying tune.

All I Wanna Do (Wanna Dance)

“All I Wanna Do (Wanna Dance)”.

No not really. Still recuperating. But I’m looking forward to that moment when I hear a beat … and the old foot starts tappin’, the hips start wigglin’, and I’m boppin’ and a jivin’ like a mad thing in a bull ring.

Obviously none of that will be happening where anyone can see. It’ll just be me. In the front room.

Feel free to imagine that moment.

In the meantime, let me leave you with a quote from Robert Sapolsky, who studied baboons for twenty years. As you do. I found it very uplifting to the soul for some odd reason. My foot twitched.

And yours may too. Or it may not. It’s damn hard to know sometimes.

”For a male baboon, attaining high rank is all about muscles, sharp canines, and winning the right fight. But maintaining high rank is about avoiding fights, having the self control to ignore provocations, avoiding fighting by being psychologically intimidating, being a sufficiently self-disciplined, stable coalition partner to always have someone watching your back. An alpha male who is constantly fighting won’t be in the corner office long; successful alphaship is a minimalist art of nonwar.”

Angels For Today

I been ill these last few days. First day of surfacing properly. So that’s why.

Energy is low though.

I’m on go slow.

So … my Angels For Today are:

- Eating an orange in the almost springtime sun without rushing.
- Enjoying having some energy instead of almost none.
- Being grateful that I’m able to rest. Not everybody gets the chance.

Be Still (My Beating Heart)

I will move, the world will move. Nothing will stay the same.

But in the midst of it all … Be Still (My Beating Heart).

Stillness in the midst of Life. That’s a destination which can potentially, and paradoxically, travel with me.

If I let it.

Devotion

“To the sky, to the ocean”.
To Aberdeen.
I like travelling, and it’s lucky that I need to do it fairly often.
Even the most predictable journey has its surprises.
My Devotion is not to the destination.
It’s to the experience.

But is has to be said, that today’s destination is one of very favourite.

I’m meeting a new grandson for the first time. Swoon.

But still, there’s a journey to enjoy.

Table Mountain

The wee mouse had snuck in.
The cat was not on the mat. Or anywhere else.
And that wee mouse knew exactly where she was heading.
She was heading to the very top
Of Table Mountain.

They were a messy family, The Frees.
Apart from Mrs. Free of course. But she was away.
And Mandy Mouse knew
That upon that wooden summit
Would lie a feast fit for a queen.
Crumbs, and rice grains, and who knew what other sumptuous offerings?

And so she began.
First springing easily up the two wooden steps
That led to base camp.
Then the hard part.

She dug in with her wee claws to those old table legs
And slowly pulled herself up the necessary foot and a half
Hanging on when one or other leg lost it’s grip
Until she reached the dangling corner of the table cloth.

This bit was very awkward.
She had to make a little leap out and backwards
From her precarious position on the leg
To grab hold of the hanging cotton.

But she managed it skilfully.
And then it was fairly easy to get to the table top itself
By clever use of toes slightly nipping into the old cloth.

And thus she reached, without too much fuss, her Nirvana. She’d made it.

Peaking over the top she looked to see what joys awaited her.

But …. oh no!
There appeared to be no initial sign of food at all.
Surely not?
She quickly clambered over
And looked around in desperation.
Then she explored the whole table top in its entirety.
Every inch of the summit.
And she found, to her horror, not a single sign of anything remotely edible.

Slowly, tragically, the terrible truth dawned upon her.
Her planned ascent to Heaven
Had led instead to a fiery Hellish knowledge.

It was a disaster. The worm had turned!

Mr Free, she realised with certainty, was no longer free.

He had finally succumbed to….

…..Domestication!

Big Dream, Little Dream

A Haiku

Big Dream, Little Dream
Foetus and Human Being
Giein it Laldy.

nb. “Giein it Laldy” def. Scots - “Doing a thing with exceedingly great enthusiasm”