Change
Brings something new to the table.
“Every day’s a good day to be alive”.
That’s a very different line to:
”Every day feels like a good day to be alive”.
The feelings Change. And they always will. As do many other aspects of life.
But the good is always there to be found. It’s in the next breath we breathe.
Gravity Is Calling
...faster than we can run.
I’m imagining things being different. Of course I am. I’m a human.
”What if I lived in this house and not that one?” “If only the shower was a little bit warmer it would be perfect”. “If I’d done that they would have understood me”. “The weather should be better this afternoon”…etc.
Honestly, pretty much everything that is going on in my thought life … that incessant chatter that we have with ourselves in our heads, even though we are in fact “ourselves” and should really know it all already …. is about things changing.
And, when those imagined changes happen, I’ll be happy, right?
?
Well it’s true Gravity Is Calling, and things will inevitably change. Sometimes in ways I desire but sometimes, perhaps often … not. Sometimes because of things I do, but mostly … not.
And so, it turns out, that at all times my best option appears to be to let the noisy voices in my head drift by, and to accept the messy imperfectness of now.
Aren’t I The Lucky One
An appropriate song.
On days when everything goes wrong, the song to sing is…Aren’t I The Lucky One. Serendipity brought this tune to the top just now.
Trapped nerves, complicated financial transactions, digital “issues”, flat car batteries. All occurred today in a far flung land … technically the “Nether”lands … arriving along with todays title on my Fee Comes Fourth archival meander.
And you know it’s true. I am lucky. You’ve heard me say that a few times now, in different words. But the moment when it is most important to pull that notion out the bag is when the shit hits the fan.
Not through gritted teeth, or with overwrought positivism.
Just the simple truth … I have so much to be thankful for. And I am.
Discover Fee Singing A Love Song He Wrote About Being Lucky, For Somebody Else
Wounded Soldier
No obvious signs.
It’s impossible to really know what somebody else has been through. This song lyric was about the very real traumas that can happen inside somebodies head, for which there is no obvious or known reason. Thankfully mental health issues are a lot more talked about these days. And hopefully that openness leads to more understanding and empathy.
Wounded Soldier
Well you’ve never dodged a bullet in Bagdad baby
You’ve never hidden, cold, in the rain
You couldn’t even shoot a rabbit in the dunes
And you cry when you’re in pain
You reach for your inhaler when you catch the bus
And hold it like a live grenade
They won’t ever pin a medal on your uniform
And all your dreams will fade
See the lamp light shining through the curtain gap
Can’t sleep and you’re getting older
No you’ve never been carried off the battlefield
But you’re a wounded soldier
Friend of mine, Friend of mine
The Shells are falling now
Rest your soul
Coz you’re a wounded soldier
It's a bitter kind of battle when the world's gone crazy
And you're the only one who's sane
The medicine they sell, is sending you to hell
On a flat line runaway train
You wrestle with your troubles like a heretic saint
Shouting out The Truth is a Lie
No we can’t see the wars that you're fighting here
The bleeding inside
See the lamp light shining through the curtain gap
Can’t sleep and you’re getting older
No you’ve never been carried off the battlefield
Coz you’re a wounded soldier
Friend of mine, Friend of mine
The Shells are falling now
Rest your soul
Coz you’re a wounded soldier
Dadada dadada dadadada
The sun sets over your hilltop target
You’ve been trying to get there forever
But you’re tripping through the brambles and the dirty dishes
Just holding it together
There’s a reason for the battle but you sometimes forget
And your body's getting colder
You’re a stranger to the winning line
Coz you’re a wounded soldier
Friend of mine, Friend of mine
The Shells are falling now
Rest your soul
Coz you’re a wounded soldier
Friend of mine, friend of mine
I’ll be here when the nights get colder
Rest your soul
Coz you’re a wounded soldier
God rest your soul
Coz you’re a wounded soldier
When I Come Back To Earth
A Haiku
A Slightly More Plausible Teenage Haiku Excuse Than The Usual Ones
“Visiting Pluto
But When I Come Back To Earth
I’ll tidy my room”
I’m A Dinosaur
Extinction rebellion.
This month’s release (link at the bottom) is the shortest song I’ve ever written. It’s a tongue in cheek response to the times when my songs didn’t cut it for the pub audiences who just wanted me to “play something I know”. I’m not knocking the sentiment at all.
But hey, it’s all grist to the mill :)
I’m A Dinosaur
I don’t want to hear
A new song anymore
Play those songs of yesteryear
The songs that I adore
Put ‘em on a loop
Play em back to back
Sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties
Let me hear those super tracks
Coz I like living in the past
Life was better then
I don’t want to be here
Anymore
Coz I’m a dinosaur
We’re All Doomed
In the words of the prophet.
We’re All Doomed. I mean everything will keep going wrong. Just like it always has done. Forever and ever. Everything is coming to an end!!!! Sooner or later. It’s all falling apart. We’re gonna die someday. Oh, my God!!!! We can’t change very much at all. What the hell are we gonna do?
Meanwhile, it’s quite a pleasant day out there, I’ve got most of my faculties, I’m not short of food (food is bloody brilliant, isn’t it?), I have friends who appear to enjoy my company at least some of the time, a lovely family, etc, etc…
It’s really not a bad deal, this being doomed malarkey.
Discover Fee Giving Davey Jones A Shout Out
Tulips
For the one I love.
This song title comes up just as I’m away from my lovely Ineke for a week.
Tulips is a mushy love song I wrote for her, inspired of course by her Dutch origins. That’s all you need to know really. (If you listen don’t be confused by the use of her birth name Catherina, which I don’t sing correctly anyway … I actually prefer my original lyric anyway which is similar to the one written below the song). I’ve written better songs for her since to be honest. Ok that’s the excuses out the way.
Love is lots of things. The most important ones don’t sound particularly romantic - commitment, loyalty, dedication, patience, accountability.
But you’ve still got to add a bit of mush sometimes. Mush oils the wheel of love. Give her some flowers now and then. Give HIM some flowers now and then.
Won’t find many tulips around now. I got the best one anyway :)
But other blossoms are available.
Everything I Ever Wanted
It's not taken for granted.
The song “Everything I Ever Wanted” puts a big smile on my face. You’re allowed to say that about your own songs. It’s OK.
The reason is mainly because of an accompanying video, which I will link to below, and you may well have already seen if you’ve ever been on my website or my Youtube channel. My daughter-in-law, Susanna, put it together a few years ago, and it features lots of the family members I love. Most of my boys, my wife, some of the grand weans.
Hence the smile.
They’re all doing OK. Including later additions to the family. And of course by that I mean, that they’re experiencing life, with all it’s up and downs. But without too much undue suffering.
It’s not a lot to ask on the surface. But we know that things could be different. Our present “OK” is somebody else’s heaven on earth.
So not taking any of that for granted is top of my to do list most days.
Including today.
Discover Fee Being Lucky
The Book
...and other words.
In the beginning was life. I was a baby, then a child.
Later, I tried to read The Books of life. But they were all written for someone else, by someone else.
So I recycled them and tried to write The Book myself. For myself.
But I wuddled up the mords, slaughtered the sentences, and grotesquerised the grammar!!!!!
So I stopped writing and went back to the beginning.
The Beginning
The End
Now The Summer Has Gone
Again.
Now The Summer Has Gone … but, hang on, when does that happen?
Up here it never came, then it went away anyway. And then it came back.
Things (and people) not doing what they’re expected to, at the time they’re expected to do them, is the bane of everybody’s life. Including mine.
I’m not being a sad old cynic, a pissed off pessimist, or a bitter realist, when I say that my expectations have lowered considerably. In actual fact, not having expectations has been a route to greater happiness.
When the Expectation Meter sits at zero, every moment tends to be a little bit more special.
And surprising.
Lift Me Up
The way we were.
There will almost certainly come a time when we are completely dependent on other people.
We will desire something very simple then. For our humanity, the person we once were and whom, to ourselves at least, we perhaps still are, to be acknowledged and dignified.
”Don’t look down on me. Lift Me Up.”
The song of this name was written in memory of my mum, who had quite significant dementia. It lasted for a number of years, longer than the norm. And it was a hard watch. My Dad in particular dealt with this well. For all his faults, he treated her the whole time as simply the women he had married. It was his finest achievement in my eyes.
There is no adequate glory sometimes, in the most glorious actions that humans carry out. The ones in which we give ourselves , when there is nothing at all that we can or will receive back.
Discover Fee Trying To Understand
The Gathering
It's a wild thing.
Back in the days when I was a Tweeter, twittering away, The Gathering became the nearest thing I ever had to a viral hit (not very near) when it got ReTwitted by a fairly well known Tweeter called George Monbiot. (He’s a well known and fairly radical environmentalist fella if you’ve not come across the name).
The song was actually inspired by a story I heard him tell, about the animals at Yellowstone Park in the USA. Apparently when wolves, an apex predator, were re-introduced there, it had the beneficial effect, over a period of time, on the good well being of not only the animals that they fed upon but also the actual physical geography of the area. The courses of rivers changed.
And everything improved.
Our environment has evolved very slowly over a long period of time, and some human actions (like chasing or hunting our competitor predators) can affect it all in a bad way.
But … it turns out … we can still do something about it.
While we can do, we probably should.
Before things become X.
Discover Fee Getting Wild About Wolves
Blow The Flame
....and cheat if you need to.
A while ago I tried to start a fire from scratch.
I bought a fire-stick which, with a bit of technique, creates sparks. And then if you’ve got the right sort of dry tinder, you’ve got the beginning of flames.
Like a lot of things that look easy on a youtube video, it’s harder to achieve than it looks. After a lot trial and error I was managing to get good sparks happening. But those sparks were not lighting those carefully shaved bits of dry driftwood that I was attempting to ignite.
I tried for a long time. And in the end I used a small cheat. I put a small bit of cotton wool soaked in vaseline. The cotton wool lights fairly easily, and the vaseline causes it to stay alight for a good while.
So, in the end Man Make Fire.
I’d like to be able to do all of that properly. But getting a little bit of success, even with help, is what keeps us trying. We need to know that thing we’re trying to do is possible.
Impossible doesn’t have a big following, unless your name’s Tom Cruise.
Discover Fee Attempting To Displace The Most Popular Song In The World
Droom Je Al
Sleep tight.
Are you dreaming already? Or as they say in Dutch…Droom Je Al?
It was a wee lullaby I wrote in Dutch for my grandchildren. My daughter-in-law used to play it to them when they were littler than they are now. And it worked. I sent another audience to sleep!
Here’s the English translation:
The wind, she sings a song for you
So that you can fall asleep
You are tired, but she is flying
Blowing across the whole of the world
Are you dreaming already?
Are you dreaming already?
And the moon is your guardian, right?
When he is sailing by your window
You’re yawning like a big cave
As he circles the planet
Are you dreaming already?
Are you dreaming already?
Are you dreaming of high mountains
With snow lying on top?
Sleep without a care
Until the sun knocks upon the door.
Dream with me
Dream with me
The stars are in the heavens
A guide for seabirds and for people
And love will never leave
We will always love you
Are you dreaming already?
Are you dreaming already?
Are you sleeping already?
Are you sleeping already?
Dream with me.
Dream with me.
Are you sleeping already?
Are you dreaming already?
Discover Fee Getting Sleepy
Making Bacon
Suitable wedding material?
Making Bacon was the slightly odd song I wrote for the wedding of my eldest son and our daughter in law, over ten years ago. It was intended to be light hearted and funny, to those in the know
There’s a story behind it of course, but I won’t bother you with that here.
My youngest son is getting married next year. He’s vegan, and the wedding will be vegan too.
I’ve written their song.
Horses for courses though. Not even the slightest whiff or sizzle of bacon in this one.
No lentils either, to be honest.
Discover Fee Messing Around With Food
(worth a listen if only for Mr Sam Hales increasingly and amazingly fast guitar licks)
Cheer Up
Harder at times ...
It wasn’t the best start to the day.
At 7pm I took my almost daily walk along the sea front and around the beautiful cemetery we have here in Campbeltown. As good a place to be dead as you could imagine.
It lies on the edge of Bein Ghuilean, and I sometimes see deer grazing on the green grass of the graveyard in the early morning. I saw one this time, but it was not running free. This one was screeching like a banshee, and was clearly trapped in some way.
I watched to start with, from about 30 metres away, knowing that getting closer would cause it to panic more. I’d been in a similar situation before when another deer I came across managed to set itself free from some barbed wire without any assistance
But things didn’t look good for this one. It appeared to be hanging off the side of a wall. As I watched, what may have been its mother and a sibling arrived, and started pacing anxiously and then nuzzling, nose to nose, with the poor animal. They didn’t even see me to start with. When they did they inevitably ran away.
I approached cautiously, which predictably caused the young deer to start flailing about even more. And also meant that I could see the horrific situation it had got itself into. Somehow it had slipped from a wall onto the sharp pointed section of an old iron gate. One of the points had gone right through its hind leg. And it was hanging from the gate in this way, unable to support itself at all.
There was no way I could have helped it without making things worse for the deer and getting injured myself. And I didn’t have a phone on me, so starting running back towards Campbeltown. I knocked on a door of the house of somebody I knew, fortunately not too far away. They let me ring an out of hours emergency vet number, who told me they would get hold of someone immediately.
I started to head back, but not knowing what else I could do (the cemetery workmen weren’t around yet, nor was anybody else) I turned and headed home. Thirty minutes later I got a phone call from the vet who, despite my fairly clear description, hadn’t been able to find the deer. It is a big graveyard.
So I drove over to meet up with her. We found it still hanging. As suspected there was nothing she could do, and she was visibly upset. The young deer was a lot weaker, forty minutes after I’d first seen it, but still very much alive.
We managed to put a towel over its head, which calmed it a little. And as I supported its weight the vet gave it a lethal injection to the heart. Seconds later the struggle and the pain was over.
I was just glad it was beyond suffering. After removing the sad victim from its cruel instrument of death, I carried it back to the vet’s car. She told me that it would not be buried but cremated, as the injection could endanger other animals that might potentially feed on it.
Covered in blood I returned home again.
Sometimes, “Cheer Up” isn’t the right song for the occasion. But that’s the title that came up today. I won’t link to it on this occasion.
Hey Jean
Jailbreaking.
Jean Tear is a lady who lives in a home for “adults with learning difficulties” that I used to work at. That’s one of the ways we can fit her into her own little box. She is also deaf and mute. That’s the box getting a wee bit more defined.
Not that we haven’t needed these labels and generalisations to get by in life. To make everything work. It’s how we humans operate. We aren’t where we are without any of that. Without all of that.
Where we are? Where are we?
We’re in a universe, in a life, that is beyond any remotely comprehensive comprehension. And I like it when my own walls and definitions and understanding become, if not broken down completely, then at least revealed for what they are. It’s liberating. The more it happens, the more liberated I feel, even if everything stays the same otherwise.
In a life without walls, it starts to become harder to imprison anybody.
The song, Hey Jean, was an imperfect attempt to see past the walls in my own mind.
Discover Fee Dancing With The Jean
A Cord Of Three Strands
Not quickly broken.
A Cord Of Three Strands, interwoven, is not easily broken. That’s from a bible verse, so it must be true. It was the theme of the sermon that the preacher gave at our wedding.
I’ve been trying to think of the three strands that give my own life overall expression and strength these days. But to be honest I can’t think of any suitable summing up words, that don’t sound simplistic at best, or misleading at worst.
My eldest son, who was eight or nine at the time, said to me, many years ago … “I think the three most important things for you are God, then mummy, then us”.
It’s amazing what children see and how they perceive things. But in fact, at that time, I was towards the very end of my highly committed dalliance with faith and religion. So God was about to drop right off the list.
And resulting from that, I have gradually stopped looking for any easy, answers, solutions, or catch-all phrases to glue everything together. It’s probably because of the cliche that “the more we learn, the more we realise how little we know”.
Words are we all have to describe anything. And “This” is all there ever is.
And that about sums things up.
It’s become enough for me.
Discover Fee Singing With And About Mrs. Fee
Dancing At The Disco
Got to be on the dance floor.
A song is an attempt to put a story to words and music.
The way we do this is personal to each songwriter. But it’s also a skill that we’re learning on the job.
Listening dispassionately just now, I realise that I didn’t quite pull if off in Dancing At The Disco, from a few years back. The main protagonist in the song has a happy ending. The song itself is more of a near miss.
Still, you got be out on the dance floor, to get a dance.