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No Place To Go But Rising

November 1, 2019 No Comment

My music and song writing stayed on the back burner for many years.

‘No Place To Go But Rising’ is about beginning to work on my music more seriously after a long period of neglecting that aspect of who I am. It’s about trying to be authentic, while recognizing my family responsibilities and financial obligations.

Just making money isn’t enough to nurture a person’s spirit. Making a living, on its own, isn’t enough to give meaning to life. For me, life is about nurturing significant relationships and about authentically living out who you are while in the process of contributing to community.

It’s okay to feel like you’re beginning something fresh and from out of nowhere. Like the song says, “…(at) least I(‘ve) got my direction”.

Ironically, when I did this one in the studio, I didn’t really have any ‘direction’ for the ending. So I kind of just went with what I felt, and in the end I’m pretty pleased with the energy that emerged.

Here are the lyrics.

No Place To Go But Rising

No place to go but rising
Least I got my direction
From here any more surprising
Come from dregs of perspiration

Need to figure out what’s to get ’em
To part with they money
Right now my upper crust
Is a long way from milk and honey

Make my way with dignity
Nobody buying desperation
Maybe someone gonna sing with me
Maybe get my compensation

Gotta do what I was made for
Even getting what I need
Gotta have some joy here
Though there’s someone here to feed

Nowhere to go but up
Up is where I’m looking
And right now I’m getting up
For going up

Up for going up
Up for going up
Up for going up

Up for going up
Up for going up
Up for going up

No place to go but rising
No place to go but rising
No place to go but rising
No place to go but up

No place to go but rising
Least I got my direction
From here any more surprising
Come from dregs of perspiration

Nowhere to go
nowhere to go
nowhere to go but up

Nowhere to go
nowhere to go
nowhere to go but up

Up for going up
Up for going up
Up for going up

Up for going up
Up for going up
Up for going up

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Meet Again (My Old Friend)

October 5, 2019 No Comment

Reconnecting with old friends over social media is exciting. And kind of nerve-wracking.

Because we all change over time. We encounter various challenges that confront and perhaps alter our assumptions about what life is and how to live it. Perhaps we understand each other more… and perhaps we move apart.

Still, for me, I feel a need to integrate my past with my present and my future hopes. So I reach out to people I once knew, try to establish conversation with them again.

It’s about remembering good times, or about being grateful for important influences in my life, or about making amends – or any combination of those, and more. Sometimes that results in a real world meeting.

When I was a kid, it seemed like many friendships came about by chance or by parental influence, or around common connections like school. It’s not like kids get to choose a lot about their lives. So reconnecting with childhood friends, particularly, carried a certain level of nervous anticipation for me.

Once I got together with those friends, though, it became apparent that it wasn’t just chance that drew us together in the first place. Although shared experiences definitely help to forge relationship, maybe kids could have a better handle on the intangibles of friendship than adults do. Kid have fewer preconceived notions of what a good friendship should look like, so maybe they can be better at recognizing -on an intuitive level- when it’s happening.

Even though I don’t always occupy the same space on the political spectrum as all my longtime friends, and other aspects of our lives and notions don’t align, I’ve found that renewing those acquaintances has flowed into more natural interactions than I had hoped for. And that has been great.

Here are the lyrics for my song Meet Again (My Old Friend)

There’ll be a little bit of ‘Hallelujah’,
And a whole lotta ‘Remember when…?’
But will we wonder, ‘What’s it to ya?’
When we meet again, my old friend?

Will we feel the need for some ‘I’m Sorry’s,
Or has the river washed ’em ’round the bend?
Is there precious mettle still in those quarries,
When we met together my old friend?

And I know… there’ll be holding on, and letting go.
There’ll be letting things run with the flow.
And a bit of ‘You old so and so…’
– Then listening about the things we didn’t know.

And so… as we’ve traveled these years apart,
There have been moments that have brought you to mind.
And those memories we made long ago
Have become a kind of guide.

I think that is what tugged my heart
And made me really want to find
The person that I used to know.
I feel no need to hide.
I feel no need to hide.

So I’m glad that we have reconnected.
And I think that we’ll find in the end –
Once everything has been dissected –
It’s been good to see you, my old friend.
It’s been good to see you, my old friend.

There’s been a little bit of hallelujah
And a whole lotta “Remember when…?”
So I’m glad that we have reconnected.
It’s been good to see you my old friend –
It’s been good to see you my old friend.

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Decades Later, One Cry Still Echoes

December 11, 2018 No Comment

As the (not especially good) director of a caravan day camp in Northern Manitoba one summer, I made the decision to switch over our program entirely from a wilderness skills based camp to an arts camp, since there were a lot of forest fires and we weren’t able to continue with the hiking and campfire-building program that had been the basis of our success for a number of decades. To be fair (to myself), the forest fires were actually significant enough to strand us for a portion of a week, and the air and sky were a greyish-orange because of them.

I had written the first version of the song ‘One Cry Echoes’ while in Northern Manitoba, partly expressing a longing for relational connection, and partly reflecting my sense of the landscape around me.

A First Nations band near The Pas, Manitoba, had a talent night the weekend we were there, open to all. I decided that participating in the talent night was right up the alley of a group that wanted to engage with local communities and had a fresh focus as an arts program, so some of us went there. We got a friendly reception, and I sang my song. I didn’t win any prizes – which was only right, because there was a lot of talent there, and winning prizes wasn’t the point for us. But I was encouraged that one young man sought me out to tell me that he really appreciated my song. So if any of you folks wish that I would really just stop… well, blame him – because his encouragement was part of what kept me going.

Anyway, there was something about the way I paced my lyrics in the original that didn’t seem quite right. I tried changing the words, tried changing how I played the guitar, but nothing was ever quite satisfying. Years went by. Then finally, last year, I decided to try changing the melody and the whole musical structure of the song. Now, finally, it feels right to me. So I recorded it and put it out there.

That’s the story of “One Cry Echoes�, and why it lay dormant for decades.

Here are the lyrics;

One cry echo
across the waters of my soul

One cry echo
in the hollow that only I know

It’s a cry that often lingers
though it sometime disappear
It’s a cry that greets all strangers
and then hide when they come near

Sound like a loon I hear some evening
Come around like a tune a poor man sing
Sound like a loon I hear some evening
Come around like a tune a poor man sing

One cry echo
across the waters of my soul
One cry echo
I see the lake is getting low

One cry echo
across the waters of my soul
One cry echo
in the hollow that only I know

One cry echo
in the hollow that only I know

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I Lie To You Sometimes; The Song

December 1, 2018 No Comment

Truth. Trust. Fear. Vulnerability. Those are a tough mix to work with. That’s what ‘I Lie To You Sometimes’ is about.

The song is like a kind of confession – a partial confession. It isn’t a perfect expression of vulnerability and trust – in fact, it lays a bit too much of the onus for relationship on the other. But our confessions are seldom whole, and I for one am not always fully fearless and open about expressing the times when I am not ‘fine’. And really, the lies this song is talking about are those sorts of lies – the ‘little’ lies about being okay when in actual fact okay-ness is not quite settled. It’s about not having important and open conversations, and just letting the comfortable status quo rule the day, and then in the long run paying the price of feeling misunderstood and alone.

By the end of the song, the ‘voice’ of the song is starting to reach out, although not fully taking ownership of fault in the stagnation of the relationship and moving to full emotional honesty and availability. There’s still a kind of self-protective emotional blame game involved.

In real life we aren’t perfect. A song doesn’t have to reflect perfection and resolution. If a person is alive, a person is in process – and a song should reflect that reality. I feel that we have a tendency in our time to rush to a kind of false resolution, to not allow a real emotional process to occur. I may, for example, know how I ‘should’ feel, and therefore try to claim that ideal state of being instead of allowing my emotions to really get worked out. Our general sense of being ‘busy’ and wanting to be ‘efficient’ may work into this trap as well.

The difficulty with rushing to a false emotional resolution is that the real process can get undermined and go unconscious, so that I might in some ways act out the emotions that I still feel but am denying. That can’t be healthy – there has to be some middle ground. In being committed to honest relationships, we give ourselves – and our significant others – the opportunity to really go through those internal processes, and honestly arrive at real resolutions in a more natural timeline.

Here are my lyrics;

I lie to you sometimes
try to hide the things inside
try to slide atop the tide
yeah, and take you for a ride

Don’t want you looking at my soul
You might see that I’m not whole
Might find ashes, might find coal
where you thought you would find gold

I lie to you sometimes
– no looking at my soul!
I lie to you sometimes
I lie to you sometimes
…sometimes

I lie to you
try to hide the things insdie
try to slide atop the tide
yeah, and take you for a ride

It seems easier this way
seems like everything’s okay
and we talk about the weather
’cause there’s nothing else to say

Don’t get sad, and don’t get close
’cause that’s what I hate the most
makes me uneasy and morose
makes me take a double dose

Makes me deal with the pain
makes me have to start again
– does that mean things will get better
or will sunshine turn to rain?

I lie to you sometimes
– no looking at my soul!
I lie to you sometimes
I lie to you sometimes
… you know

I lie to you
please don’t believe the words I say
because the greatest price I pay
is when you smile and walk away

I lie to you sometimes
Please don’t believe the words I say
because the greatest price I pay

… is when you smile and walk away

(The chorus here is supposed to be like an emotional pivot point, at each repetition leading to a direction of greater self-awareness and taking some more ownership for honesty and a healthy relationship, even with risk)

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Lyrics for ‘Perfectly Happy (Wedding Song)’

August 7, 2018 No Comment

Gave the whole story of the song last blog post, but forgot to post the lyrics. Oops! So here they are.

PERFECTLY HAPPY (WEDDING SONG)

I’ve been called particular,
Although I often laugh.
It’s true that I know what I want,
And most don’t know the half.

You caught on pretty fast-
I must admit that I’m impressed.
The state of this union
Will surely be blessed, because I’m…

Perfectly happy,
perfectly happy, ooh –
perfectly happy with you.
Yes I’m perfectly happy,
perfectly happy,
perfectly happy with you.

I know precisely
You are the one for me
And I can say exactly
That where you are’s where I want to be.

I’ve given this some careful thought
To conclude that I love you a lot.
So let’s pick out a special day,
And then we’ll find a spot… because I’m…

Perfectly happy,
Perfectly happy,
Perfectly happy with you.
Perfectly happy,
Perfectly happy,
Perfectly happy with you.

This could change the way I’ll be addressed,
Yes the…
State of this union will surely be blessed.
Whatever circumstance we may go though,
I am perfectly happy with you.

Yes I’m… perfectly happy with you,
Perfectly happy with you,
Perfectly happy, perfectly happy,
Perfectly happy with you.

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