Adapting To Tomorrow
I’m travelling again so I’m trying out my phone dictator once more.
You would think that it would be easier to come up with something to say without the distraction and added thought process of needing to type. In fact it feels a strange and awkward process without the keyboard. And the technology is definitely not perfected yet.
I’m staying with my dad briefly. He is over 80 and of course for him the adoption of new technology is even more complicated.
It’s easy for both of us to blame the new gimmicks for our own limitations and point to its imperfections. It’s easier to stick with what we know.
But humans have been having to adapt to new innovations forever.
It’s probably better for our brains at whatever stage they are at to at least try and live in this brave new world.
Because one thing is sure. There will be something new to try tomorrow.
Cold Showers
Here’s the latest tune from my Fee Comes Fourth conveyor belt. Bringing great life advice straight to your inbox, with a chilly smile and, well…with a chilly everything really.
Cold Showers
Not taking one today mind you. Slept in the car last night.
Wagons Roll
I’m doing a fair bit of travelling over the coming three days. I have a little travel guitar to accompany me. I can turn the back of my car into a sleeping area. It would be a great way of touring and gigging as far as I’m concerned.
That is for the future though. This one is about seeing a few people from my past in various parts of UK, and then meeting up with some current friends with a view to writing some songs.
What with one thing and another, my song output has been very low recently, so it will be nice to fall off that particular wagon again.
But even nicer to spend time with some folk who I really like.
Maps
How much map do we need?
If every step is laid out for us, with clear markers and no room for doubt, then there is plenty of security. Nothing to worry or think about other than putting one foot in front of another.
If we are completely mapless and the path is unknown, the sense of adventure is exciting. Surprises around every bend and a heightened sense of anticipation.
Like most things in life though, a nice balance would be ideal. Enough certainty, but not too much. Enough adventure, but not too much.
And like most things in life the ideal doesn’t exist. We sometimes need to learn to live without a map even when we’ve got one. And to create our own map when none exists.
None of this may be of specific or immediate concern to you. But I’m planning my Homesong walk to Iran. You’ve got to think these things through…
Too Much Of Everything
Tonight my friend Les Oman is playing on HomeSongs4Life, in the company of Davey McCallum and Manus McGeehan.
Les and I live in the same wonderful, wee town, and knew each other a little through the music. We happened to meet up one day just at the time of the previous American president’s inauguration. We got talking about The State Of Things (over there and in general) and came away from that chat with a song title. A couple of months later we had together written all the songs for the album we subsequently recorded, called Too Much Of Everything.
Yes, this a plug. We’re very proud of that album and although inspired by particular events, it seems to have an ongoing resonance.
Making music with others can certainly be a personal salvation at times. Even if it doesn’t change anything very much.
“That’s A Great Idea”
You can’t copyright the title of a song.
And the best title in the world is nothing without the song itself.
Ideas are ten-a-penny.
Running with the idea, seeing it through to the finishing line. That’s where the work and the real creativity is needed.
And after that…there’s a whole new kind of work needed to bring the finished song to an audience.
”That’s a great idea” is a nice thing to hear.
But in reality, it’s a challenge to commitment.
Father And Son
Father And Son is a lovely tune about an age old subject by a fantastic song writer and an interesting fella.
Born Steven Demetre Georgiou, but still most widely known by his stage name, Cat Stevens. And today, ever since his conversion to Islam, called Yusuf Islam.
Tradition and Transition often seem to be in dispute with each other. But Yusuf Islam is an example of somebody who is both the very same person he was when he was born, and somebody completely different.
Deciding what to keep and what to discard… that’s a dilemma for a reflective Sunday morning ain’t it? It’s not always a straightforward process to separate the baby from the bathwater. It isn’t easy to take the best of what we’ve been given, and move forward in a constructive way.
But I think the people who wrestle with that dilemma are definitely more fascinating. More worthwhile to watch, if not to emulate.
It seems to make for a far more interesting kind of life when we try.
Do You Think It’s Gonna Rain?
Seems to me that most of the problems in the human world come down to a refusal to sit down and talk together.
Well I’m ninety four percent emotional
Six percent logical
And I’d like to get to know you
But I see difficulties ahead.
Because you only speak binary
Which might as well be martian to me
You see my brain is made of water mainly
And on a dry, hot, sunny day like this
In a desert
A long way from anywhere
I’m a washed up sinner
With a dried out skin
And I don’t think
No I don’t think
I’ll get to know you
Anytime soon
Well your fifty eight percent culpable
I’m forty two percent alcohol
And we’re not really capable
Of very much, I suspect
But at this moment in history
There’s only you, and only me
And we have to talk
Yes we have to talk
Or we’re all gonna die
In this desert
A long way from anywhere
I’m a washed up sinner
With a dried out skin
And I don’t think
No I don’t think
I’ll get to know you
Anytime soon
Because the numbers don’t stack up
It’s a shame
We’re gonna mess it up
What a shame
But at least we’re talking now
What’s your name?
And do you think it’s gonna
Do you think it’s gonna
Do you think it’s gonna rain?
In this desert
A long way from anywhere
We are washed up sinners
With dried out skin
And I don’t think
No I don’t think
Do you think it’s gonna rain?
Do you think it’s gonna rain?
Do you think it’s gonna rain?
Do you think it’s gonna rain?
Forgotten, But Never Forgotten
I have a pile of songs in waiting. They sit there in a little green room, hoping that one day I’ll record them during my regular Thursday morning recording sessions for my once a month releases.
”Pick me. Pick me”.
If a song is still around and hasn’t been lost in the fog of time, then it stands a chance. But because I write more songs than I record, some of them do get buried under the pile, their little songy arms and legs occasionally sticking out and nudging my memory like a once loved toy.
These days I’ve stopped trying to second guess what songs other people will like, and simply write and record for my own entertainment.
I still carry a flame for all of those songs though, whether they make it onto my own personal hit list or not. I wish they all could.
Nobody wants to break a songs heart, do they?
Wafflers Anonymous
There are times when ya brain feels like it’s connected to the words that come out of your mouth. Or from your pen, or keypad.
And there are times when it doesn’t.
Waffling, in general conversation, when time isn’t an issue, when you’re relaxed and among friends, doesn’t really matter much. It can be part of the fun.
But when you’re trying to communicate something…in a song, a story a blog…to any kind of audience that is tuning in to hear you, or hopes you might have something interesting to say…then it does tend to matter. Unless, perhaps, when the waffling is part of the schtick.
At times when it does matter, it’s frustrating when you can’t manage to be relaxed and coherent. I have often been a waffler, partly connected to a form of social anxiety I have suffered in certain situations.
But, the good news for me, and people like me, is that clear communication, like any skill, can be practised and improved upon.
But you know, it sort…i’m…like, time…it can take a…it tends to be a work in…not quite there yet.
The Bright Lights
A Lumen is a measure of the total amount of visible light to the human eye from a lamp or light source
For instance, if you look into a 100 watt lightbulb you are being subjected to about 1600 lumens. That feels very bright because the light is close by.
But all light isn’t equal.
If you look in a general easterly direction on a cloudy day in winter, you will be experiencing far more lumens than even the brightest indoor lights can provide.
Which is partly why outdoor light (or even the light coming through a window) is far better for our mental health and for resetting the circadian rhythms that help us get better sleep, than our artificial lights.
The bright lights, aren’t always the right light.
Waiting For Bob
A sense of the ridiculous.
One of the lesser known senses, but perhaps the biggest lifesaver.
It leads to cool, refreshing, POINTLESS laughter. The best kind. The kind that cleans out the insides. That tickles away the heavy, leaden clutter which attaches itself so persistently to the old grey matter.
It lets you know that whatever seems to matter up there, doesn’t really.
Leaving you free to do whatever it is that doesn’t really matter, with a purer heart.
Decisioning
I’m one of the performers (along with Norman Lamont and MJ Tiemstra) on this Wednesday’s HomeSongs4Life, and now I’m stuck with the same dilemma that everybody else faces.
It’s only two songs. So which two songs do I play?
”Play one you know!” I hear a heckler shout out.
Yep, nice. That is a good starting point, to be fair.
But there are so many choices. And though having options is such a privilege, “choosing” always seem to be the hardest word.
Having said that, waiting till Wednesday to decide is never the answer. At least not for me. It just stretches out the, ahem, suffering. So I’m gonna wrestle this one to the ground this very morning.
Oh yeah! Bring that decisioning fight on!
You can find out how I did on Wednesday.
Moon River
Just a lovely, lovely song for a Sunday morning. Moon River says all that needs to be said in a few perfectly sculpted lines. With a glorious, sunset melody that you watch, silently, as it drops slowly below the horizon.
But the glow remains.
Moon river, wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker
Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way
Two drifters, off to see the world
There's such a lot of world to see
We're after the same rainbow's end
Waitin' 'round the bend
My huckleberry friend
Moon river and me
Doing Our Thing
It was busy on the hill this Saturday morning. Well, by the hill’s usual Saturday morning standards anyway.
Sometimes it is. Mostly it isn’t. It’s not always an easy to thing to predict, and it’s not always the weather that is the main factor in the equation.
The whys and wherefores of levels of busy-ness might be possible to work out though. It might well be possible to discover why lots of people do one thing and not another. Watch one thing and not another. It might well be possible to discover why loads of people downloaded one song but not another. Attended one gig and not the next.
It might well be within our means to discover the essence of popularity itself.
And if we spend time doing that, it might well be in our best interest to change the way we do what we do, in order to fit in with the requirements. It could make our lives better.
That might all be needful and necessary. Sometimes it is.
But…if we enjoy and get pleasure from what we do, and perhaps bring that same joy and pleasure to a few other people, then it might well be worth not bothering with any of that, and just carry doing our thing.
Handy Habits
I woke a couple of times in the night and ended up thinking a while about a habit I’ve had for as long as I can remember. When I’m in bed, one hand or the other seems to need to be under my head, or between my knees. I sometimes wake up in the morning with pins and needles, or a numb hand, as a result.
As I lay there last night, I started picturing myself as a wee baby doing the same thing I find myself doing as a 56 year old man. Maybe I developed that habit in my mum’s womb, or in my early days on earth. It’s certainly very ingrained.
And it’s very hard to change ingrained habits. I’ve been playing the guitar for about 40 years, more so in the last two decades. I was self taught, and during that time I developed a lot of bad habits. Some of the things I’m trying to do to gain a better technique now are simply going to take an awful lot of time and repetition.
For me, this hard effort is worthwhile for some things, and maybe not for others. But the hope is that I contribute towards a better version of a future me.
Those decisions we make daily about where we allot the time we have control over is never an easy one. It’s the thing I struggle with more than anything, and it can cause me a certain amount of anxiety if I’m not careful.
But it’s always better to commit to a path, any path, with our music and our lives in general, rather than swimming in circles, or automatically continuing with habits that might not be proving to be the best for us.
Although, as I write, I’m still tempted to sit on my hands about all of that.
The Change Has Been Good
From a personal point of view, I’m really enjoying our new HomeSongs4Life format.
One artist has become three, and it’s feeling like a lot more fun for me. And from the feedback, the same applies to performers and audience too.
There is more interaction on the FB comments page now as well, although I’m still not paying any attention to, or worrying about, the numbers who turn up to watch live, or who catchup later. That always felt like the wrong thing to focus on.
The whole thing somehow feels more like a team effort. Which was always what I had hoped for. And it’s great to have artists that have been playing but not meeting, finally meeting each other. Albeit online.
The little bit of chat we have adds a lot to the experience I think. And the songs continue to be excellent. Moving and funny. Thoughtful and reflective. Human. Like the people who are singing them.
If you haven’t watched one yet, why not give it a shot.
The People In Charge
Taking responsibility for something other than ourselves and our own nappy change needs is a useful way to discover a bit more internal sympathy for The People In Charge.
Though, it’s true, some of them should never ever have been put in charge in the first place. If our systems and structures are causing people who are still in metaphorical nappies to be raised up to those positions, then something is very wrong.
Responsibility is best quietly taken. It shouldn’t be easily given.
And we should beware of people who grasp on to it and fight for it, like some kind of comfort blanket they can’t manage without.
Other Beverages Are Available
“I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony”
The sentiment seems great, even if the story behind the sentiment isn’t. Though I don’t know how I’d feel about writing a tune that helped to make a sugary drink ubiquitous the world over. Songwriters have to make a living too, but …. well, we’ve all got to decide where we draw the line.
Though, I’m sure some of us are thinking “chance would be a fine thing”.
But even without the advertising back story, it’s easy to get cynical about the sentiment. If you’re going to have a dream though, “teaching the world to sing”, isn’t the worst.
It might be sugary, but at least it’s a healthy sugar.
And why do I suddenly fancy a coke?