You Hurt So Good

For some of us pain can be, or has been, a badge of honour.

You Hurt So Good.

Pain doesn’t haven’t any inherent value though. It’s simply a part of life. It impacts us more when we either try to ignore and dismiss it completely, or when we focus on it alone and constantly complain about our lot.

Or when we put it on a pedestal, like little martyrs to the cause.

Acknowledging pain as a part of the experience, the truth of life, won’t make it go away. But it will deprive it of the fuel that fans the flames and causes the burn.

”Today, you be kind to yourself”.

Discover Fee Hurting Good

Frequent Disapproval

I continue turning to the songs in my song book, and this one raised a smile as soon as I saw the title. Haven’t played it for a long while, but it’s got legs, just because it’s ironically funny, and it resonates with people I think.

We’ve all experienced that sense of never being able to please somebody. A boss, a parent, a spouse, a son or daughter, a colleague, a teacher. The usual suspects.

And we may well also have been that person who was never easily pleased. By a boss, a parent, a spouse, a son or daughter, a colleague, a teacher. The usual suspects.

It’s not a good feeling to experience Frequent Disapproval from anyone. And it’s not a good look (or a good feeling) to be the frequently disapproving one.

But despite the tongue in cheek drama of the song, being disapproved of ain’t gonna kill us. Unless we give it the power to control our minds. People can think and say what they like about us. We can give them (in our heads) permission to do that, and let our thoughts about their thoughts about us vanish, as they do if let them.

And we can grant the same courtesy to our thoughts about the people we find ourselves disapproving of. They too are only human.


Discover Fee Killing ‘Em Softly

All I Want To Do

All I Want To Do is ….

Fill in the blank. If you can. I can’t. All? The only thing? How on earth, of everything possible for a human being on earth, can I narrow things down to just the one thing. Maybe it would be better to edit this song title slightly.

“I Want To Do It All”.

That’s better. I can live with th….

"Can’t be done eejut! Just gonna have to edit your expectations a tad”

Who said that? Damn. But sadly I suspect you are speaking the truth, Mr Stating-The-Obvious-Voice-In-My-Head.

As usual, I’ll just have to start with This.


Discover Who Fee Want’s To Dance With

Angels For Today

Kintyre is on mainland Britain and sits at the edge of the Atlantic. From the west coast of the peninsula I can, and often have, sat and looked across between the northern coastline of Ireland to the left and the island of Islay to the right, over the sea in the direction of Newfoundland two thousand miles away. Lucky, lucky me.

I wrote Angels For Today a number of years ago while doing just that.

Something about space and time, westerly breezes, the smell and sounds of the sea, evoke a sense of freedom, of hope and of possibility. Grand themes. But that’s what the song is about.

I haven’t sung it for a long while. The arrangement in the recording is big, and it feels like it should be. Hard to match that with little me and an acoustic guitar. Even if I can blast ‘em out.

But really, though the song and the themes are Big, it can just as easily apply to the simpler setting of our everyday life. There is freedom, and hope and possibility, here, right now, sitting at my laptop. Don’t even need the spectacular scenery.

We can all, anywhere and at anytime, transform ourselves into angels for today. Consciousness is an ocean that we can swim in, and not just gaze upon.


Discover Fee Sitting By The Ocean

Be Still (My Beating Heart)

The blood starts pumping, the heart starts thumping.

It’s a sign of something.

Love? Stress? Excitement? Nerves? Anxiety? A Sprint or Marathon being run.

Sometimes it’s inevitable and helpful for our circulatory system to be working hard. Sometimes it’s even enjoyable or fun.

But sometimes it’s a sign that our thinking is going awry. For instance:

”I’m gonna die a death!”

- alternative explanations: I’m going to sing a song in front of some people who may or may not like it, or, I’ve got a headache, and I’m not sure what’s causing it yet.

“Why is that person frowning at me? Do they hate me?”

- alternative explanations: said person has a bad toothache, or, they just find smiling a little bit tough (nb. smile at them anyway).

Our brains are doing this kind of thing all the time. And our hearts respond by pumping that blood and thumping our chests. A very primal instinct.

However … I’m slowly discovering that my head and my heart can learn to work together. In many situations my heart just needs a little bit of sweet talk -

”Be Still (My Beating Heart). Everything’s fine”

And when I say something like that, my heart seems to appreciate the love. It quietens down, and I relax a little bit.


Discover Fee’s Romantic Teenage Beating Heart

Devotion

“To the sky, to the ocean
You and I, our devotion, devotion, devotion
Devotion”

My devotions have changed over the years. How fickle!

As a baby I was, apparently, devoted to Marmite on Toast. (That has been a constant, to be honest).
As a young child I was devoted to my Golliwogs. Both of them. Equally.
Later, came the Bird Watching, the Fishing, and Notts County.
In my late teens and early twenties I was devoted to Jesus and Ineke (one of these remains true to this day).
And my Jesus devotion evolved into discovering “The Meaning Of Life” and “Truth” …
… Which, to a certain extent turned out to be Songwriting.

Many of these passions still play a big part in my life.

But these days my true devotion is the art of experiencing “This”. Because This, the big “Now” in my conscious mind, is really the only thing that will always be by my side, while I have breath to breathe. All the rest come and go.

Like all my previous devotions, I am not always faithful and steadfast. But my Devoted is always faithful and steadfast to me.



Discover Fee Devoting

Table Mountain

My Dad’s sister recently phoned. After he died she became the last thread from that side of the family, and is appreciating contact with us as we are with her. Especially because she lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

The song I wrote, called Table Mountain, has nothing directly to do with that connection though. I drew the title out of a hat. As you do. Song title lottery. At the time I felt like I’d drawn the short straw (apparently the title was inspired by the name on a bottle of wine).

But in the song game, as in life, you work with what you’re given … whatever the Muse (or Rob Harris… thanks Rob!) throws your direction. And I’m happy with the the results of the inspiration that fell over me, like a soft table mountain mist, on that occasion.

The silk threads that connect our lives together are various and complex, and they spread out in many weird and wonderful directions. Sometimes we forget about them altogether. Until we get a little nudge … a memory, a phone call, a prompt, a word … directly to the heart, reminding us of how close everything and everyone actually is. Just a little tug away. These don’t have to be particularly significant or mind blowing threads.

They just are.

The web of life. It’s hard to understand, but it is often quite beautiful.

Big Dream, Little Dream

I’m enjoying revisiting old songs whilst using their titles as the starting point for these daily blogs. Some of them I can hardly remember but, albeit that we might record some of them differently now, I’m happy with the songs themselves.

Always flawed, and never perfect, as though they’d been written by a human being, they are a reflection of my life, and the particular time in my life when they were written. A personal musical diary.

Today’s song, Big Dream, Little Dream stirred some emotion in me. It’s a song of idealistic “big dreams” hitting the wall of reality and coming unstuck. A coming of age tale really. A realisation of human limitation.

But the big dream need not die. It’s not a bad thing, or necessarily an unrealistic goal. It’s simply outside of any personal control.

Little dreams are the manageable, day to day aspirations, that can and will be inspired by the big dream. They too are dreams. Waking dreams in which we are actively involved.

The planting of the apples seeds that grow into apple trees.

It turns out that it is not at all easy to grow an apple tree from a seed. And no guarantees that a tasty apple will be the end result.

But it is possible.

And “Possible” is the destination our little dreams are floating towards.


Discover Fee Dreaming Little And Large

Eight

At the age of Eight I had a lot more freedom than the average child of that age in Britain generally gets nowadays.

We lived in Birmingham at the time. I spent a lot of time outdoors. I remember making an underground den. Falling from the very top to the very bottom of a tree and somehow not getting a scratch. I remember staying behind on my own at the swimming pool after school swimming lessons in the winter, and returning home in the dark, along a busy dual carriageway and under a dodgy underpass. I remember walking into Birmingham City Centre with a pal and picking up brochures from the army, navy, and airforce career centres. And also trying to sneak past the security at the central library, that existed because of the IRA terrorism that had been happening in the city at the time (though before the notorious pub bombings).

Probably some of the things I was allowed to do, or my parents weren’t aware of me doing, would have been considered a bit too much even then. Never the less I’m glad I did have the freedom. And as it happens, nothing bad happened to me.

Obviously times have changed. Now there are, rumour has it, scary and deadly dangers to be found everywhere, and children should be made aware, and kept well away from them. At least without the protection of a guardian!

We have, as they say, become a lot more risk averse.

Of course in truth nothing very much has changed. Our world isn’t so much different than it was then, albeit that there are always places and situations that are genuinely dangerous for a young child to experience on their own.

All things considered though, I’m glad that I was eight in 1973, and not now. And I find myself wishing for both a safer and a braver world to live in.

For the sake of the children.


Discover Fee Getting Stuck At Eight

Far

Almost everywhere, everybody, and everything is out of reach. Far from our present experience. Even if they happen to be only millimetres, moments, or micro-seconds away. It’s still a huge distance from now.

Might as well be on the other side of the universe in fact.

Now is very close though. It’s always a shame when we sleep through it … when we project ourselves away from now, to somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else.


Discover Fee Going Too Far

Smile

There’s an ancient photo of me from my young teen years. Away somewhere in the countryside, looking relaxed. Beaming a very open and happy Smile.

Thing is, during those years I know I was pretty miserable. Mainly because of the bullying that went on at my first senior school. I used to play truant in the afternoons and head off down to the local nature reserve. One day, early in my fourth year, I decided to leave that school and never go back. It was a new beginning.

When I look back at that teenage smile it certainly revealed the truth of a particular, precious, life affirming moment. Hopefully we can all find those moments, fleeting as they might be at the time, in the midst of any experience.

But it also hid an opposing and underlying truth. I was depressed.

In my adult years I’ve come a long way in dealing with the sadness that got its grip upon me in those early years. But I’m still very aware of its presence sometimes, peeping over the parapet of my conscious mind, particularly when I see conflict out there in the world at large, like an echo of the un-winnable conflicts I experienced at school.

But there can be a strange comfort in feeling sad. Like an old and familiar friend. However this particular friend is not welcome in my life anymore. They became a way of escaping, and hiding from, and failing to live, the fuller, more fundamentally joyful experiences, that were always available.

These days I’m of a mind to let go of the sadness when it surfaces. It doesn’t provide any practical help at all. And it is very possible, I am slowly discovering, to look at the world, see what’s going on, see when things are wrong, and not automatically sink back into the old, comforting quagmire of despondency.

The good news, for me at least, is that I’m learning to smile on the inside as well as on the outside. Hallelujah! :-)


Discover Fee Getting Knocked Out By A Smile

When You Come Fourth

The Paris Olympics has been and gone. Many people won medals.

And every one else - more by far - simply competed.

There are people who think that life without winning is pointless. But they too, even if they experience some winning, will know mostly defeat and failure.

When You Come Fourth it’s time to experience a shared humanity.


Discover Fee Coming Fourth

Have Your Cake And Eat It

Ah… I might have discovered why it is that, even when I see, and sometimes experience, the many advantages to doing one thing at once and doing it slowly, that I continue to find myself rushing. Juggling the balls and trying to keep them all in the air. Afraid that I might drop one. And in the process dropping them all.

I’m trying to “Have Your Cake And Eat It”. Not yours actually. Just mine mostly. But it’s not possible. Once the cake is eaten its gone. I want it all, but I can’t have it all.

So, each time the lesson I have to return to is …

… slowly does it.

And that includes learning how to slowly do it.

Rushing ain’t gonna help with that either.


Discover Fee Trying To Have It All Since At Least 2012

Hidden

Yesterday I was challenged by one of our boys to come up with a guilty pleasure movie - one which I loved, but which many people didn’t. At the time I struggled to think of anything. But this morning a film release from 1998 came to mind.

If you’ve not had the pleasure, Toy Soldiers is a comedy action movie based around two sets of toys, the Commando Elite, and the Gorgonites, in which both get implanted with military level computer chips by two designers eager for some commercial success. This has the effect of causing the two disparate groups to become cognisant and capable of interacting with the human world. Mahem and, to be honest, some pretty violent but entertaining action ensue, all encrusted in a moral, if fairly cynical, sandwich.

In the film, The Gorgonites are a peace loving band of quirky freaks who spend their time hiding from the Commando Elite, whose only purpose in life is to destroy them. Through the course of the adventure the Gorgonites discover that they cannot stay Hidden from the nasty Commandos forever. If they are to secure a peaceful future for themselves they have to come out of hiding and fight back. Even when all they really yearn for is a quiet life.

I for one identified with the Gorgonites very much when I saw the film. And I still do today. It also seems, as I remember back, quite a pertinent film for the times we are living in right now.

Because it’s true - a quiet life is undoubtedly harder to achieve, or even justify, when conflict, moral confusion, and political uncertainty come charging down the street. Even when it’s not happening down our street.

Trouble is, in real life, the goodies and baddies often wear the same uniforms. It’s not always black and white out there. Life ain’t a movie.

There’s no hiding from that.


Discover Fee’s First Ever Song Wot He Wrote

Last Song Standing

I bumped into Pip in the street today. Not literally. Although she didn’t have her glasses on, I was wearing a luminous lime rain jacket at the time, so I wasn’t going to be missed. And I saw her too, even though I’m sometimes away with the fairies. Again not literally. I can assure you that all possible literal, problematical incidences were avoided.

Anyway, the subject of growing older came up. And during that conversation, Pip came out with a cracker:

“Money, Mobility, or Marbles … lose one of the three and things start to take a turn for the worse”. (This has now been copyrighted! and is used with permission!)

Now please don’t start mentioning my missing marbles. But other than that possibility/likelihood/reality I was encouraged to believe that I’m in pretty good shape.

It won’t last forever. But all being well, I still haven’t written my own personal Last Song Standing yet.

Or have I?


Discover Fee’s Last Song Standing

In Another World

Many aeons ago I released my first song, In Another World, for the long series of monthly releases I’ve called Fee Comes Fourth. It wasn’t the first song I recorded. At that point I had already released an album. And it wasn’t the best song I have ever written. But it was a way of finding an ongoing outlet for the songs I was continuing to write. And that I still do.

I wasn’t gigging very much at all at the time - I’m doing a little bit more now, though still not nearly enough for my own liking - and in recording the songs it felt like a kind of “outcome” for that creative side of me.

All of that search for “outcomes” led to me eventually creating Homesong and then to writing this blog, as well as a number of other creative projects which at one point I might have seen as cul -de-sacs, but were actually just different legs of the same journey.

And where is that journey heading?

The answer to THAT question has become increasingly less certain to me. But also, a whole lot less interesting. My wife has justifiably said that I’m someone who lives in the future. In the realm of ideas and possibilities. And that is certainly the person I was. But I’ve changed. I’m genuinely a lot less concerned about outcomes and destinations. And that change has come about through the realisation that I have very little (i.e. zilch) control over the future.

The challenge these days is more about discovering what I should do, how I should act, who I am, what I am experiencing, in the here and now.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the future. Living fully in the present is, I have come to realise, the best way possible to potentially build a better tomorrow.

ps. todays title is a little point of focus for me. For the foreseeable future I’m going to using the titles of past song recordings as the jumping off point for these daily blogs. It’s also going to be my incentive to relearn, or practise the old songs every day.


Discover Fee In Another World

Jenny Wren

I always liked the story of the little wren that challenged the eagle to a “who can fly the highest” competition. She cleverly sneaked into the wing feathers of the eagle, and carried on flying up a little bit when the eagle was knackered, unable to fly any further.

I reimagined that story for my Fee Come’s Forth song release a couple of days ago. In my version the eagle and Jenny Wren work together. At the end, when the wren takes off from the back of the eagle, she carries the “poison of the world” away into the stratosphere. A Tiny Avian Saviour.

Saviours and superheroes belong in myths, or course.

There existence should not cause us to wait in apathy for somebody -politician, pop star, preacher - to come and make our lives worth living. To save us from ourselves.

Rather, they should inspire us to play our own tiny part in the story of Life.


Discover Fee’s Jenny Wren

More Of Us

We’ve been hosting three lovely visitors from Texas, USA for a few days.

The youngest of these visitors has been the online girlfriend of one of our boys for the last two years. And now they have met in person. Obviously a bit strange for the two of them. But they seem to be having a great time. And that’s how the kids roll these days. It’s a brave new world.

Her parents are the other two guests, and we’ve really hit it off, and very much enjoyed their company. I’ve experienced plenty of cross cultural relationships and friendships over the years. And it continues to be one of my favourite things.

In a world where it might seem, if we happen to look on the news, or spend time on social media, as though we’re all at each other’s throats, this is the antidote. Because in truth, most people, the majority, people like us, are just wanting to live at peace with each other, and find positive connections.

So when we witness the sad war-mongers and online trolls doing their damndest to bugger up the world, it might be helpful to remember that there are More Of Us, than there are of them.


Discover Fee Searching For Like Minds

Extras

Quote of the day:

”You will become way less concerned with what people think about you when you realise how seldom they do”.

And even knowing that, it’s amazing how other people’s imaginary opinions and thoughts about us still dictate or influence our current actions. Probably far more than we even realise.

This blog, could be a case in point. Mainly I’m writing it daily because I know it’s a good thing for me to do. But sometimes I’m writing it because I told you, my imaginary reader, that I would. The reality is that, at the back of my mind, I’m projecting opinions on to other people, while in reality it’s likely to barely register in your mind. That’s not me being self deprecating. It’s the reality of the way we all think, or mainly don’t think, about the other people in our lives and the things they do. Even the important people.

Our story is THE story because our world is only one we are actually experiencing. And we are all playing Extras in each others worlds.

Albeit extras that mean a great deal to us in some cases :-)


Discover Fee Skimming Stones

Bullet For Democracy

I usually write alone, but a few years ago I ended up writing a whole string of songs which became an album, and a band of sorts, The Strunts, with my friend Les Oman.

That album, unlike most of my writing, had political undercurrents. Les and I haven’t written together since. But there are stirrings. I recently sent him a couple of verses and a lyric for a song that felt very “Struntish”. We’ll see how that develops, but last time the simple act of sending Les something opened the floodgates.

I dodge the law, they’ll never get me
Another feather in my cap
I’m a champion of  indecency
I’m the cream that got the cat

I came again, yeah just like Jesus
Maybe I’m the holy christ
The saviour of the free world
But  freedom has a price

I took a Bullet For Democracy
Then I put that bullet in my gun
If you wanna kill democracy
I’m the man to get it done


Discover Fee Strunting It