Big School Day

It’s transition week at the local secondary school here in Campbeltown, when anxious 11 and 12 year olds toddle off to the Big Building on the Hill for the first time. A very short while ago we watched our tenth child do just that.

This is the last time (as far as you can ever know anything for sure) that we’ll have that experience. But for a whole heap of reasons I was more nervous on behalf of our foster son Ryan than I have ever felt.

Experience is useful, but it doesn’t automatically mean that everything becomes easier. Sometimes knowing more makes the experience more difficult.

But knowing more also usually means that our involvement is more important. Certainly not something to be treated lightly or to hide from.

Experience brings more awareness of the problems and therefore more responsibilities.

It’s another of life’s little conundrums.

It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood

Very short blog today. If you haven’t seen the film “It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood” starring Tom Hanks then you really should find a way to watch it.

the end.

Happy Pausings

This is a nice quote from actor Judi Dench playing a character who is quoting somebody else in the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel:

“Everything will be alright in the end. Trust me, if it’s not alright, it’s not the end”.

It’s the sort of thing we like to hear, but struggle to believe to be true. Happy endings often seem to be several places, or people, removed from reality.

But life, unlike a piece of writing, only really has one genuine full stop. Most of the time it is punctuated by the much less obtrusive comma.

We regularly pause for a wee breath, and then move on.

So here’s wishing you many Happy Pausings.

A Murder Mystery?

It’s called a murder of crows.

That’s the collective noun for a group of the most intelligent birds on the planet. And they are intelligent. The Sherlock Holmes of the bird community. They could solve their own demise and be back home in time for tea.

I don’t think I ever knowingly listened to The Black Crowes before. They lay down some good old rock ‘n roll, mamma.

But boy, can they murder a lyric.

It’s not really a mystery though.

Sometimes the lyric isn’t the point.

Lost And Found

Old songs that got lost in the pile, because….well, who knows why?

Sometimes, they simply weren’t good enough, sometimes they didn’t shout out at you “Sing Me!” And sometimes they weren’t for you to sing. The job of finding somebody else to sing a song is a full time one, which I personally have never had the commitment needed to follow through on.

Anyway I’ve just discovered one like that, a song for somebody else, that I wrote a few years ago. It was written when someone I know came up with this title “Work Shirt”. Not normally the sort of title I would jump at.

But I clearly went for it anyway, and wrote this kind of male version of Dolly Parton’s Nine Till Five. A country pop thing about a guy, tired of the world he’s now living in, and looking back on his working career. The song is, though I say so myself, very hooky and sing-alongable, even if the lyric has a dark side.

Maybe I’ll have to put it in a bottle and hope it finds its way to Nashville.

Anyway, here’s the lyric, if you’re interested:

It could be a bind, when you were serving time
Down at the daily grind
There was a job to do
You had to push on through
To the end of the line, to the end of line

But when the boss was shouting to get it done
You could laugh with the boys  (Work Shirt)
It’s a hard sweat, but you still had fun
You made some noise (Work Shirt)
No excuses, and no fuss, till the job was done
Work Shirt , you put your Work Shirt on

Who knows what the future holds
It’s a mad old world out there
Each night  on the news 
You can’t help but curse
Could it get much worse
So much to lose, so much to lose

But when the boss was shouting to get it done
You could laugh with the boys  (Work Shirt)
It’s a hard sweat, but you still had fun
You made some noise (Work Shirt)
No excuses, and no fuss, till the job was done
Work Shirt , you put your Work Shirt on

Musical Bridge

There’s a lot of things that you can’t change
Looking out from the cage
Each day you find
You need to let your mind
Focus the rage
Focus the rage

But when the boss was shouting to get it done
You could laugh with the boys  (Work Shirt)
It’s a hard sweat, but you still had fun
You made some noise (Work Shirt)
No excuses, and no fuss, till the job was done
Work Shirt , you put your Work Shirt on

But when the boss was shouting to get it done
You could laugh with the boys  (Work Shirt)
It’s a hard sweat, but you still had fun
You made some noise (Work Shirt)
No excuses, and no fuss, till the job was done
Work Shirt , you put your Work Shirt on

No excuses, and no fuss, till the job was done
Work Shirt , you put your Work Shirt on

You put your Work Shirt On 
Work Shirt
Put your Work Shirt On 
Work Shirt
Put your Work Shirt On 

Running Smooth

It has to be said that it’s nice when everything runs smoothly.

We have to live with the bumps in the road and the bum notes, the hair-tear times and the let downs, the impossible hurdles and our own strangled screams when it all falls apart.

We live with it, and it all helps to make the journey more interesting.

But it really is quite a lovely moment, when everything runs smoothly.

A Paddle’s A Paddle

I like words. Which is helpful when it comes to writing blogs and songs.

Sometimes I instinctively want to use a word (usually of the longer, more posh variety) which feels like it’s the right one to use. But I’m not completely sure.

So I look up the definition.

Often my instincts are correct. (I think I might have swallowed a dictionary once).

But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes the word doesn’t even exist.

It’s at that point when I find myself up shit creek without a hydro-displacementory stickthingy.

No Satisfaction

I hear some wonderful and well known singers and musicians, and sometimes I think….if only.

If only I could warble like that or play that, my songs might find an audience.

But here’s what happens in reality:

I write a song. A song needs a performer. I don’t happen to know any of the aforementioned famous talented people to sing my songs for me. But I play guitar a little and I sing a little. And so I become the performer. And…

Well, actually, that has been enough to find me an audience.

But of course, in my opening sentence, what I meant to say was “a bigger audience”.

How big?

Well, there’s the crux of the matter.

What would it really take to find some satisfaction?

Awkward Conversations

Why did the chicken cross the road?

It’s hard to get inside a chickens head to be honest. It’s hard enough to get inside the heads of some of our fellow humans, even the ones we know well. And they share the majority of our DNA. So understanding a chicken’s motivations might well be a step too far.

Empathy is the most human of qualities though, and leads to everything that is good about us. And the failure to even try to understand, to everything that is bad about us.

Sometimes the furthest that our attempts at empathy and understanding will take us, is to an awareness that some folk see things completely differently from ourselves. And that that is unlikely to change very much, if at all.

But those folk will continue to exist in the world, just like we do. Seeing things differently isn’t a criminal offence. And we don’t have to be the chicken who crosses the road to avoid having an awkward conversation.

Sometimes those are the conversations we most need to have.

Stick Or Twist

So, I recently decided to pull the plug on the present manifestation of HomeSongs4Life. Last show on May 4th.

The messages of support that I received regarding this particular decision have been wonderful, and at the very least have soothed any doubts I might have had.

But it’s never easy to know whether to stick or twist. And you can get your twickers in a knist thinking about it sometimes.

Because doing anything worthwhile involves certain levels of difficulty - therefore stopping might just be about running away from all of that. On the other hand, continuing regardless can also sometimes be a way of hiding from reality.

It’s a dilemma, and there is often not a cut and dried answer with these kind of decisions. We simply have to make them and move on.

However, the main raison d’etre of Homesong still exists.

More of this sort of thing will always be the goal.

And finding the best way to promote it is the ongoing task.

Thank you to everybody who has supported or is supporting that task in any way.

Those Pesky Rooks

I got bombed by a rook this morning, who intentionally dropped a stick on me while I was innocently walking by.

That’s one point of view.

But of course, what might have happened, though I can’t prove it, is that the rook was flying past with a beak-full of material for maintaining the nest, and accidentally dropped her stick.

The whole of life, my life and yours, is full of such happenings. Things that could have more than one explanation. And quite often we put a twist on the truth in our minds. Especially when it comes to other people’s intentions and motivations.

There’s usually a more prosaic and less interesting explanation for things, and I usually go for a walk to get a more realistic perspective on all of that.

But I’m not sure that’s a solution anymore, now that those pesky rooks are out to get me.

One Sock At A Time

The socks are off! For the summer!

I’m a minimalist when it comes to clothing. That’s not the same as naturist, I should say. Although a bit of skinny dipping never did anyone any harm.

Personally I feel more comfortable, more relaxed, the less stuff I’m wearing or carrying or using. It’s hard to avoid “stuff” in our consumer driven, materialistic age. But it can be done. One sock at a time!

When we’re making art, we often have to make the most significant decisions about what we should leave out. What are the words, the notes, the clay, the paint we can forsake. Because sometimes, perhaps often, we overdo it.

So what’s the least amount of clothing our creations can wear?

It’s an important question.

Sunken Costs

Seth Godin, a daily blogger who I’ve followed for a long while now, talks about ignoring the “Sunken Costs”.

The thought is that the money and effort we spent on doing something yesterday, should not have a bearing on the decisions we make about tomorrow.

For instance, I could spend a lot of time training to become a lawyer. But at some point along the way, maybe a few years into doing the job, I realise that I’m not cut out for it. It’s not making me happy and I’m not contributing as much as I think I could elsewhere.

But….I had put so much effort in! I committed so much! It cost me time and energy!

To walk away would be such a waste, surely?

It shouldn’t matter. There is no “lost time”. Because everything we do is a learning process and can feed, in all kinds of obvious or obscure ways, into how we approach the next thing. Into doing tomorrow better.

As long as we are brave enough, sometimes, to just let go, when something has run its course.

It’s a hard lesson to learn.

They Don’t Care

Charisma. Some folk really have it.

That quality which causes people to listen and pay attention.

And I don’t know if charisma is something that can be developed, but it’s certainly something that would come in useful to anyone who is performing in some capacity.

So here is the main thing I’ve noticed about people who do have it:

They don’t care.

They don’t care if you’re watching or paying attention.
They don’t care if people don’t like what they’re saying or doing.
They don’t care if anyone is following them.

Sometimes they even actively go out of the way to put people off giving them attention. And yet, the opposite occurs.

We do listen. We do pay attention. We do follow.

This is no technique. It’s an attitude.

And for those of us who have grown up or developed fears and concerns about what people think of us, it is not something that comes very easily.

It’s a battle to be won in the playground of our own minds.

It’s also an act of kindness to ourselves.

And one of humility too.

We are small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

And we can only ever learn to control our own thoughts.

Never, what other people think about us.

Stripped Back

There are some spectacular, beautiful, dynamic soundscapes that can be created with an array of instruments, and/or just a computer for company. And because of that it is understandable why a lot of modern songwriting happens in the studio.

But to this ageing songwriter, there is still nothing quite like a song stripped back to voice and acoustic guitar.

How To Avoid Writing A Hit

In my opinion; perhaps; in some situations.

These are words we (most of us) use in conversation and writing (I use them quite a lot) to soften what we say.

It’s a way of avoiding being or sounding dictatorial about what or what might not be true. It’s a way of allowing the conversation to continue.

A friend once said though, in regard to songwriting, something like this: I don’t want to hear a song that tells me: “i think I like you” but rather “You are everything to me!”.

I’ve come to mainly disagree with that idea. Or rather, I think that it does make sense in the context, perhaps, of writing pop songs for teens who’s hormones are screaming, and for whom everything is black and white. That was the market for whom the massive pop market industry was primarily developed..

But most of us are adults.

The challenge, I think, is to find a way to write songs that impact our emotions at a very deep level, while addressing the multitude of nuances and less digestible truths of the actual love and lives that we experience in the real world.

Which is possibly why I’ve never had a hit.


ps. In reality there are plenty of songs that have managed to achieve that goal, and when I think about it, they are often some of my favourites. Here’s one. Why not mention some others in the comments?

Make The Difference

More often than not a new song reminds us of an old song. Like a walk in an unfamiliar woodland, it stirs similar emotions to the better known haunts.

Mostly we don’t want or need something vastly different from the usual menu. Familiarity is our safe place. Comfort is good. We crave it.

But we do need something to be different. Not just the same old record on repeat. Those differences are what lift us out of the mundane.

And somebody needs to make them.

It could be you.

Gone In Sixty Seconds

And breathe.

That catastrophe in which the whole world is laughing at you because you messed up a song or got something wrong is over.

It doesn’t really happen all the time.

It isn’t really the only thing that anyone will ever remember you for.

It’s history. And like everything else in the past it will be forgotten.

Time to face the only thing that matters. Today.

Send In The Clowns

My wife once found herself having to hold back floods of laughter at a funeral. Because, of course, it is considered culturally inappropriate and insensitive to do such a thing.

But is it really? Laughter is said by psychologists to be a primal and helpful solution for dealing with fear. It helps us gain that wee bit of mental equilibrium when things are getting to be just a bit too much. It enables us to stay the right side of sane.

Perhaps, when everything is falling apart, when it’s all getting to be a little bit too serious, there should be moments when, instead of the politicians, the fixers, the priests and the counsellors, we send in the clowns.

I

Decelerating

I’m training my musical ear.

Regular readers know I’m a fan of our feathered friends. And I’ve sometimes referred to their songs.

Here in the Netherlands, each morning I’m taking a regular walk in some woods by a lake right next to where we stay. It’s springtime and the birds are in full song. But, truth be told, my knowledge of their songs is very limited. I’m still a beginner.

So I’m taking my time as I walk, stopping regularly, and trying to pick out the different tunes and connect them to their singers. It’s a very slow process. Almost everything I do is a slow process at the moment.

Learning to slow down is a slow process.

But I happen to think that what I and the whole world need right now, more perhaps than anything else, is a reclaimed and restored inner decelerator.

Getting everything fast, doesn’t seem to be doing us much good.