The Final Push

Songs can be written on sight. A wee observation, a musical or lyrical hook, or a particular mood, spark me into action. Wham, bam thank you mam!

But most of the songs of my own that resonate the deepest with myself and, I think, with others, tend to be more like a pregnancy - of which, admittedly, I only know about from my seat on the sidelines.

Those songs are the ones, seeded by some more profound emotion or experience, which wait patiently for a period of time, unseen in my subconscious, part of my daily reflections, alive, but unknown. And then, with a certain inevitability, at the right time, they start moving inside me, until finally - the actual writing of the song - is the final push leading them to their first gulp of oxygen in the light of day.

Maybe that sounds a little bit grandiose. But that’s how it feels to me.

And I am quite sure, as our time in Sri Lanka comes to an end, that one or two of those second kind of songs have been conceived here.

Personally, I can’t wait to hear them.