The Zebras Graze Peacefully In The Serengeti
Be very afraid
The Zebras Graze Peacefully In The Serengeti. Then a pride of lions attack and they flee for the lives. Perhaps one is caught. Perhaps not. But immediately after the lions have won, or given up, the Zebras immediately go back to grazing peacefully in the Serengeti.
We are not like zebras!
We are intelligent! We have an imagination! We are humans!
So, unlike the zebras, we spend our lives getting anxious about our own non-life threatening version of “lion attacks”. For days, weeks, months, and years. And, on the very rare occasions our fears materialise into reality, we spend our time reliving the horror over and over in our heads. For days, weeks, months, and years.
The Zebras must think we’re nuts.
Discover Fee Riding White Horses (But Not In The Serengeti)
Half Way Through
Or, possibly, half way there…
It comes around quicker every year.
In this case I’m speaking about the Kintyre Songwriters Festival. I’m playing tonight after a week of Mild Man Flu. Not completely over but I’m OK. And I’m looking forward to it. Not feeling nervous either, which is a new experience in itself.
But yeah, it’s clearly not coming around “quicker every year”.
That is a good old figure of speech referring, self referentially, to that sense of….well, being closer to the grave than I was when I was young, and death seemed such a long way off.
I’m writing all this with a smile on my face. I joke to my boys (inside I’m deadly serious!) that I won’t be leaving this mortal coil until I’m One Hundred and Eighteen. As I’ve just turned Fifty Nine, I’m actually only Half Way Through. Excellent! I’ve got the same amount of time left that I’ve just had, but with all those years of experience behind me.
Right … just gotta keep the ageing body on track and we’re good to go. LOL.
Discover Fee Trying To Stay Fit
Keeping Going
is the new “getting there”.
This phrase stuck out from somebody else’s blog: “keeping going is a priceless gift”.
And there is no denying it. When you stop, you’ve stopped. And, yes, you can start again. But we all know how hard it is to get the momentum back.
Where we’re `”keeping going” to is not even the question really. And I’m well aware that the meme “it’s the journey not the destination” can get wearisome. But it gets wearisome precisely because we place heavy expectations on the outcome.
It really can become a joy though, if we are able to see that mere act of Keeping Going as the gift.
“Blimey, I’m alive and I’m moving….(insert the appropriate expletive of your choice here)!!!!”
Discover Fee On The Road To Fun
What Do I Know?
Might as well ask the cat…
What Do I Know?
Very little in the grand scheme of things.
What do I know about what you should know?
Even less than very little. Nothing, in fact.
That might be a good thing to know. For both of us.
Discover Fee Discovering Silence
A Road Less Travelled
Not the A1! The B7066.
I’ve been for the last official goodbye to my Dad. Down in his home town of Newark for a memorial service. Below are my final thoughts, the ones I shared at his cremation.
When Dad lived in Newark and would come to visit us in Campbeltown he loved the 440 odd mile drive up here to see us. And he used to have his own way of getting here, often avoiding motorways and taking smaller roads in the general direction of The North West. After crossing the Scottish border at Gretna he would always come off the M74 and drive on the B7076 which, along with other B roads, follows the motorway most of the way to Glasgow.
Last week, with Ineke, we were driving home ourselves, from Manchester, and on the way I decided I was going to follow in Dad’s footsteps so to speak. We left the motorway at Gretna and took his journey on a lovely, quiet road for about 70 miles. I’m glad we did it. I think we’ll be doing it again in the future.
It was a nice way for me to make a connection with Dad. That was something I had always struggled to do. I was very different from him, and he probably struggled just as much connecting with me, especially after I lost my faith. I know that was a disappointment to him. But I like to think that he respected the fact that I was not just believing something out of a sense of obligation, but that I was genuinely trying to find the truth as it made sense to me. Whether that is the case or not, I know that the one thing we had in common, if nothing else, was an inclination to follow that road less travelled.
Dad, as you know, trained as an accountant. And to be honest, there was nobody more cut out to be an accountant than Dad. If you asked him, in later years, for memories and anecdotes from his childhood, you would struggle to get anything. On the other hand, he could still remember the telephone number of the neighbour who lived next door to them at Parkdale Road in Nottingham when he was boy.
Dad and Numbers went together like peas in a pod.
And yet….partly because of his faith, and partly i suspect because he married Mum, and maybe also because he himself had a hidden anarchic streak, he ended up doing things and being things that were almost at odds with what appeared to be his fundamental character.
I suspect his adult life must have been a challenge to him in ways that we didn’t always appreciate, and though we, of course, weren’t privy to all the decision making that went on, I do think, in retrospect, that it was an unusual life journey for somebody like Dad to take.
Firstly, he left a potentially long, lucrative and secure career in accounting to go to Bible College. Doing things like singing and preaching in the streets of Birmingham. Afterwards moving in with another family for a while near Wolverhampton. Then to suburbia in Toton, Nottingham where he became a lay preacher in the Methodist church and returned to accountancy in a self employed capacity. He was always a generous man, and I’m pretty sure many of his clients then were people who couldn’t afford a more usual accountant.
In Toton people came and lived in our house with us at times. We got a car, a Ford Corsair, which my Uncle Peter, as well as fixing the engine, painted bright Dulux green on each cigar shaped side, and splatted with a big “Hallelujah” sticker on the front bonnet. There weren’t many of those kind of cars in Toton. Just the one in fact. And, again, my Dad would have been the last person you would have thought to be its owner.
And later still he became a full time minister. This time in, of all things, a Pentecostal church. I say “of all things” for the very same reasons. Our formal and proper father didn’t seem the obvious choice for a church denomination where they notoriously swing from the chandeliers. Never the less, Dad took that step too.
And he learnt to swing in his own way.
For most of his later years, Dad worked for the pentecostal Assemblies of God denomination as their accountant. That might have been a case of all his passions coming together. During that time he lived and worked in Newark. He retired while he was there. And then, quite soon, he had to take care, for a number of years, and with very great dedication and love, of our Mum, while she had dementia.
Finally, Dad himself became in need of more care. And he came to live with us in Campbeltown, with my sister and her family close by as well, who provided so much help.
In his 8 months living here he settled in well and became a known face in Campbeltown, and a part of his new community. I’m personally so glad he was here for these final few months, and that the end didn’t come when he was alone in his old house with all of us miles away. And, in reflection, I’m glad for his sake, that after he went through the trauma of breaking his hip, and the long day of procedures and travel to Glasgow, that the end, in the end, was quick.
In our last conversation together on Saturday morning four weeks ago, he made a joke about me missing his mouth when I tried to give him a drink of water before he went down for the surgery.
And that was it. Two hours later I got the news, and I was spending my final half hour alone in his company. It was good to have a phone call with my sister Julie, allowing us to share those initial painful moments of shock and grief.
I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has loved and supported Dad over the years, and to those who have expressed their gratitude for being loved and supported by Dad.
And thank you for loving and supporting us now.
Life is a wonderful and special privilege and our Dad definitely spent his life on A Road Less Travelled.
I plan to carry on, carrying on that tradition.
“Ooh, Look, A Squirrel”
Cuter than a grenade…
The past can bury little grenades of anger into our psyche.
The blunt way to deal with them, when they turn up in our conscious minds, is to pull the pin and kick out at something. Like a wall. Or someone. Whom we love. Clearly this is not a good solution. Far more likely to lead to more problems and more anger. Broken toes and damaged hearts.
Of course, there are a lot of alternative punch bags that let us get things out of the system in a healthier way. But sometimes no alternative punch bags are available. And perhaps the healthiest solution is to recognise those “grenades” for what they really are:
A few neurons in our brain clicking together for a moment in time. If we wait, and usually not for very long at all, those neurons will move onto clicking together to remind us of something else entirely. Possibly something very trivial.
"Ooh, Look, A Squirrel”.
Which is just another way of saying that things happening inside our minds (and absolutely everything we experience is happening there) will move on.
Discover Fee’s Wounded Soldier
Being There
Live is live!
I’m searching for video evidence that I can play live. It’s for a possible opportunity to get some gigs.
But even when I find some decent footage, I don’t believe that any video evidence can ever quite capture the sense of being there. For me, or any other performer. Nor for any audience member.
Live is live. It can’t really be anything else but Being There.
Discover Fee’s Best Live Performance Ever
(but you really had to be there)
Messing With Stuff
It changes the world.
“Last Sunday I gave you my heart
The very next day
Was Monday”.
That, in case you haven’t noticed, is me messing with the lines of a well known song. I think my first steps into songwriting as a child (long before I wrote an actual song) involved doing this kind of thing.
Singing a few notes differently to an existing tune.
And changing a word here or there.
That’s creativity. Messing with stuff. It’s what children do. But it doesn’t have to stop when we become adults. It shouldn’t stop. It’s sad when it does.
Messing With Stuff should be a way of life. The world changes when we do.
Discover Fee’s Mess
The Wise Owl
Worse for wear?
The Wise Owl
Sat on his stump
Thinking wise thoughts.
But Wise Owl rarely smiled.
However
Once in a while
The Wise Owl
Got drunk.
And though getting drunk is certainly not wise
To no one’s surprise
After drinking a few Whisky and Ryes
Like the good ol’ boys
In American Pie
A smile
Was seen
To appear
On the face of
The Wise Owl.
If only for while.
Then the hangover kicked in.
And Wise Owl returned
To his stump again.
The MOK Run
On the road to somewhere.
I did it once. The MOK Run. The 10km version of the yearly Mull Of Kintyre race. Personally I find walking to be a far more enjoyable and dignified pursuit than running.
Today, as more usually though, I was only watching. But, as usual I was inspired. To the point of tears in one moment. I don’t know why that is. It’s a very community orientated event in Campbeltown, with many coming to watch and support. And then the runners themselves. All ages, and sizes, and athletic abilities, and all getting a sweat on, and, let’s be honest, suffering, in order to…..?
Well, what is it all for? Not for the glory, for the vast majority. Perhaps just the simple sense of pushing themselves to the limit. And still coming out alive.
Anyway, well done to all. Particularly to our friends, regular blog reader Peter and his wife Linda Thompson. Great job guys! And thanks for stealing us some Danish Pastries from the contestants stash. ;-)
Discover Fee Singing The MOK Run
“Would I Lie To You?”
…about something like that?
So I’m giving up playing guitar and singing and writing songs. It’s a mugs game, and A.I. can do it far better now anyway. There are millions of songs out there in the universe already, and who in that universe is going to be disappointed if no more are ever written. By humans anyway. Also, it’s a constant battle to register any interest, even from people who like me and/or think that my songs demonstrate a modicum of talent. And though singing to myself is fun and therapeutic, it’s probably no more fun (or therapeutic) than watching old episodes of “Would I Lie To You?”
I am lying actually. But it’s probably true to say that variations on these themes flash through my head on occasion. In the darker moments.
And then I get an idea for another song, and the best laid plans of mice and men go belly up. I’m back on (or off???) the wagon again.
It turns out that, for better or worse, songs are my truth.
Discover Fee’s Music
The Kintyre Songwriters Festival
For original music.
I was in a pub for a wee open mic session. Got introduced to a fella there.
”Do you know each other?”
Well, I did recognise him.
”I know you. We were in that Feed The World video during Covid?”
”Oh aye, I mind you now”.
This was a local Christmas version of that song, which we all recorded in isolation because of the covid regulations. But I got more attention from that than I’ve ever got from one of my many original songs. In fact, I immediately got invited to play at the Co-op Christmas party off the back of it. A gig I turned down. I really wasn’t the kind of performer they thought I was.
Despite that brief glimpse of super stardom, all I really want to do is play my own songs and make my own connections with any group of people, that appreciate fresh original songs, delivered with heart and passion.
And occasionally I get those opportunities. One coming up soon if you’re in the Campbeltown area. I’m playing The Kintyre Songwriters Festival on Friday 7th June. It’s a fantastic weekend for hearing original music of all types from local artists and more well known acts.
Discover Fee’s Music
(It won’t feed the world but it is home made)
Four Parrots And A Three Song Pee
Seriously?
Last Saturday evening I played songs at somebody else’s wonderful gig/art exhibition. While they went for a pee. Three songs in fact. That’s a full bladder in anybody’s language.
One of the songs involved a wee (sic) introductory story involving some parrots. It was a serious song, but as soon as I said the word “parrots” people started giggling. Maybe they were expecting a Monty Python sketch. I dunno. But I found it hard to keep a straight face myself. Honestly sometimes it’s hard to be taken seriously as an artist.
But, anyway, that was me last Saturday night.
Four Parrots And A Three Song Pee.
These are the moments that stay in the memory.
Discover Fee’s Parrot Related Song
ps. Sorry, no actual parrots contained within.
Humble Pie
It’s hard to digest.
I’ve had kickback. So I would like to make a retraction. Apparently, not everybody has rhythm in their bones. Not so much as a foot tap in there, so they tell me. And I can only take their word for it.
Humble Pie is currently being eaten in this house.
It turns out I’m not right about everything. Dang. Some lessons hit hard.
Discover Fee’s Music
Rhythm Is In Our Bones
It wants out.
My mum and my sister were in an “expressive” dance group at the church we attended when I was teen. Yes, it was awkward. (And don’t tell my sister I’ve mentioned this here either!)
But I wasn’t too traumatised. I’ve come to appreciate dancing in all it’s many forms. And I have been known on many occasions to “go for it” on the dance floor, after a couple of shandies. Free form expressive Dad dancing is the category I think.
It’s hard, even for the most repressed of personage, to avoid tapping their toe when a good beat starts up.
Rhythm Is In Our Bones. It will out. And even if it won’t, it wants to.
Now and then, at least, you’ve gotta let your bones have a say. Even though it takes a drop or two of the hard stuff to give them a voice.
All It Is
Keep an eye on those neurons!
Keeping things simple is harder than it looks.
Suddenly, without much effort on our part, there are tangles. Clutter. Too much of everything.
And yet 100 percent of that everything is made up of a few neurons sending messages around in our brains. That is, in fact, All It Is, as far as our own experience is concerned.
Which might not make anything easier, but it is simpler. We just need to keep an eye on what those neurons are up to.
Discover Fee’s Music
To Doubt Ourselves
An unexpected gift.
I’ve got a lot of admiration for the person who whole heartedly makes a Big Announcement to the world - one that changes their direction completely, and changes the perception that people have of them, sometimes for the worse.
Most of us, if we are brave enough to make the original change, will keep going along that new path once we’ve started. We may well do this simply out of a sense of embarrassment, derived from the public nature of our new journey.
And, in fact, often that is a good reason to make our Big Announcement. It helps us to commit to the path. We put ourselves in a position where the social pressure will help to keep us moving forward when uncertainty arises.
But what if the uncertainty was telling us something. What if the path does turn out to be wrong? What if it was wrong all along?
It takes particularly large cajones, and a great deal of humility, to then turn back. Kudos to those who can, when it’s the right thing to do, change their minds twice about the big decisions.
The ability To Doubt Ourselves can sometimes be our biggest gift.
Discover Fee’s Music
HomeSONG
Forgetting the purpose.
I was listening to the song of a friend yesterday, and I suddenly realised that, on this blog called HomeSONG, I really haven’t put up very much music recently.
So I’m going to start posting songs again of live performances from home. Preferably from people I know or have a connection with mostly. I’ve had a few false starts with this idea previously I know. But you gotta keep on trying huh?
I know there are a few songwriter/performers reading this blog, so don’t be shy if you’ve got a live home performance you’d like me to put up. Or a recommendation for somebody else’s song.
For the moment they’ll just be appearing on the Facebook Homesong page in a separate post to the blog post.
Discover Fee’s Music
“Be Still”
It’s enough.
One of my favourite bible verses during my christian days was this little phrase: “Be still and know that I am God”. Psalm 46 verse 10.
It was helpful because I had a very active and restless mind, and this verse helped me to slow down, to calm down, and to simply let things be. Sometimes at least.
But over the years I stopped believing in a specific “God” guy, and found my spirit lifted, far more in fact, by the simple but mysterious wonder and beautiful privilege of mere Life itself. The experience of life as we see it, is more than enough for me now. All of the conjecture and anxiety about the who’s, what’s, why’s and wherefores, a thing of the past.
I still adhere to a part of that bible verse though. A honed down version.
”Be Still”.