In the South

I’m back on schedule!  Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is just around the corner.  This year has flown by!  It always does. I’m going to be spending some time down South with family soon and cannot wait!  I love the food, the slow pace of life, the humid weather.  Since the South is on my mind right now, I thought this song — South Alabama is a good one for today. I wrote this one messing around one day and I knew it wasn’t really a complete song, but I liked the light-hearted, playful beat of the music.  If you haven’t been to the South before (shame on you if you haven’t), you may get a little taste of it from this song :).  Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone!

Thanksgiving

This week I did not post any new songs because I was running around trying to get things ready to go out of town and have our Thanksgiving dinner with family. I have been posting every Wednesday and Friday and I will be back on that schedule next week.

Exciting news:). I have been working on some newer songs lately. Although I am excited, I have also been a little frustrated. There is sound…music that I hear in my head and I just do not know how to produce it in the real world. When your creativity in one area is given boundaries by your inability in another, it can be maddening. When I find myself in this place, where creativity and inability collide, the idea to collaborate with others comes to mind.

I have never collaborated with anyone on a song. I would looove to work with a REAL musician and share ideas and go somewhere I haven’t been able to go to. I’d love to experience a beautiful mistake with someone, where we went into the process with one concept and came out with something completely different–something beautiful, something genuine, something with soul. I’ll be looking for the opportunity to do that, but until then, I’ll keep plugging away, doing what I can with what I have and being thankful all the while there is a song in my heart–even if in my heart is where it must stay for a time.

Learning to Love

No one tells kids when they are little that “love” is going to take them years to learn. No one tells them that it involves more than simply saying,”I love you.” No one tells them that it is an act of will…..an ACT of will. ACT, as in ACTion. You have to do something…..you cannot simply mouth three little words. You cannot hope love will materialize in a way that another person can see, feel, touch, smell, hear, taste it.

You build love.

You start with the foundation and one cornerstone….one point of connection between you and another….and add on, attach more bricks. Brick by brick….bricks can get heavy. And just like laying brick, loving others is a skill that takes years to master. It gets even trickier when two masons are involved because they must work as a team, make sure their walls match up, make sure they keep speed with each other. But what is time, what is effort, when you can stand before the house you built–together—when you can take shelter in it from any wind and rain that may come? Here’s a cheers to laying bricks….

May you find yourself before a beautiful house of bricks with your “crew member” right by your side.

It’s Friday!!! —- Break it Down

ode to Warhol

Helllooooo Everyone!  It’s Friday! I’ve decided to call today Frisky Friday in honor of today’s song post — Break It Down.  This one is just plain fun… you can’t swim in deep waters all the time, sometimes you gotta’ go to the shallow end of the pool and take a little breather.  Ya’ know?  Have a wonderful weekend….it’s almost Turkey Time:) and I am so excited because this is the first year in 6 years that I’ll actually be eating Turkey (as I am no longer eating purely vegetarian)!

The Breath

Today’s song post — the breath — pretty much speaks for itself.  Whatever you “breath into” or put energy into may have lasting effects…so use your breath wisely.  I love this art piece and thought I’d share it here:

Deepness of my love…

Today’s song post is …deepness of my love — love is deep….it is silly….it is many things….

Can the people we love ever know…..really know…just how MUCH we love them? Can we ever express the deepness of our love enough for them to know?  Words are inadequate.  Even the word love, itself, does not really mean what we want it to when we say, “I love you.”  It falls flat and has been rendered meaningless.  Though our loved ones may never be able to fully comprehend the depths of what we feel for them, I think that shouldn’t stop us from trying everyday to show them anyway.  What about you?

Damn the Economy

This photo made me laugh and I thought it went well with today’s song post.  This song— Damn the Economy (Angry) — is written from the perspective of a relationship caught in a catch 22.  The woman wants the man around, but she knows he has to work to provide for the family.  The man wants to be there for his family, but the only way he can “be there” is by NOT being there and by spending his time, instead, working hard to make sure they have everything they need and more.  The way our economy is now, I think many relationships are under tremendous stress.  But, like the woman in the song…you have to see down to the bottom of it all.  What is it that really matters?  Love is what matters.  Love is what conquers all.  Love is what keeps it all together when the rest of the world is burning down in flames.

Inspiration

Yesterday, I had a nice conversation with a dear family friend about inspiration. As we talked, it became very clear to me how heavily I depend upon inspiration in my life. Why do I wake up in the morning? Why do I do what I do in the day? Why do I write? Why do I play? It all comes back to inspiration. And…what is it that inspires me?

The wind on my face, rain, trees, blue skies….

The sound of my son’s laughter….

Good music ……

Art…..

Deep conversation with a special someone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And…

Stillness.  When I am surrounded by silence in a dark, quiet room, that is when I can slow my thoughts down to zero and feel the stillness inside.  That is when inspiration ABOUNDS.  What a beautiful gift inspiration is. Where would we be without it? What about you….what is it that inspires you?

Raindrops

It’s raining today in my part of the world, so I thought it would be a good day to share this. I wrote this song — Raindrops — one day a long time ago. It was very sunny outside, but inside of me it felt like the rain was pouring down.  No one around me knew, at least that’s what I thought at the time.  I didn’t want them to know….no one wants others to see them so vulnerable, so broken.  We want everyone to believe that we are always so perfect and happy and there are no worries.  After all, we have everything we could possibly need, right?  But things can shake you up and make you lose sight of that all for a moment.  And…you think that if others know how down you are, they will feel obligated to be the one to make you happy and you don’t want to do that to them.  Because you know, no one can help.  You have to sit in the rain….watch it tap against your window….until the song it sings changes from one of despair to one of hope.  When you come out of the rain, hopefully, you will have learned something and you will be stronger for having felt it’s force against you and survived.

On the flip side….

there are other times when you are happy, flying high, and the people around you can’t stand it.  They do things to try and bring you down.  There’s no getting away from it…there are always going to be those kinds of people around.  You just have to accept that they can’t help themselves and keep cool, keep perspective, and keep them from bringing you down with them.  Happy Friday everyone…and for those of you who might be sitting alone in the rain, just know it will not last forever.  You will find your way out.

Foreign Labels

Just sitting here. Staring at a page……

I want to see into the past and future, to zoom out and look beyond “my” life into how it is connected to every living being that has come before and will come after me. This because of that, that because of this. It all goes together. How, then, is it so easy for us to divide ourselves? To separate who “we” are from “them.” It is a boundary that was invented long ago that is, in my opinion, becoming obsolete–vestigial. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Civil wars, the Congo, Gaddafi, Iraq, Iran, “Illegals”, family feuds, “class wars” — the violence in word, in deed, in mind. If only we could all just zoom out…..way out….and see the interconnectedness of it all. I need you and you need me. We, the human race, have been here on this Earth for a while now, but we have much evolving yet to do. This song –Foreign Labels– comes straight from one of the deepest of my desires—the desire for commonhood. Call me naive, call me an idealist….call me what you will. If I stop hoping for it, my heart will break and, I fear, it will never repair. Bob Marley….ONE LOVE….smart man. But, they kill smart men (and women) – see also Martyrs of Peace. So, maybe I should pose this post as merely a suggestion, a hypothetical….rather than an imperative just to be on the “safe side.”

and yes, I do like using quotations around more words than is necessary, but in the words of the one and only Bobby Brown…”It’s my prerogative!” 🙂