Listening and watching time go by while living life. I realize it has been a long dry spell from writing here, yet within that lapse of time I have written a song. I went as far as to begin writing a piece about that writing experience, that was then never completed. Music remains high in my list of interests so I work at it every day for the most part. There are days where I fail to touch an instrument though. A couple of weeks ago life took me another direction with a dose of the flu bug. I am still here!
I have just begun playing and singing again post bug. It seems I need more practice to stay and be in that magic space, than what used to be true. The older brain seems to forget lyrics or even timing for moments. In playing music, moments are all there is and we hope that it will flow smoothly, all while realizing the humanness of being. Sometimes it works and sometimes, not so much.
Last night I listened to some of my recordings still incomplete, just a review to jog the memory, seeing the names, hearing the various parts, and enjoying the experience. It is somewhat exciting to hear some of these songs. I am referring to songs that you have not heard. Their representations are being created so that you may one day hear them, they are many and I can but hope I am able to complete this project. Over this past fall and winter I experienced some very serious physical problems that forced me to stop playing the guitar for weeks at a time. I made some changes to hopefully allow those neurological problems to fade away.
Here in this room where I live most of my life, I am now again looking at what is only a very rough outline about writing the last song I wrote. This song now has the name, Ode to Your Heart. Now that I am looking back on the songwriting experience from such a long gap in time, that experience is rather blotted out, covered by the experiences since then. January 18, 2018 was the day this song was created. I must have had an unusual state of mind on this particular day, because, as this outline says, this song was deliberately written rather than it being a spontaneous response to impressions that come in thought, as though the universe is talking and I hear it, which leads to capturing those images, my normal way of writing. For some time before this day, a period of maybe a couple of months, I had an idea about a song, yet without any type of structure at all. It was the idea of using a womans name in a song. The name I had concluded would have to be somewhat light, sweet, maybe lilting, I didn't really know, the thought was one of more image than substance. The character behind the name completely lacks meaning of any kind. By choice I decided that were this the name of a person I had any association with, ever, that name would be disqualified. Thus on the day in question, the name came to me. I should say a name that became the name used in this song. Lilyan is the name.
Soon after the name was realized, I came to the computer and began to write. As is almost normal the song pretty much wrote itself. I was present, aware and altering the words on the page. They flowed smoothly into place. I recall fighting with spelling the word, eerie. Me and the dictionary in all of its forms, are less than good friends. Yet I depend on spell check, for without that, you would not survive reading the attempted words. The structure began as two verses and a chorus. Actually these two parts seem to differ in apparent subject, while it is assumed that usages of the female name and the word 'she,' represent the same character. After completion and review, I decided to begin this song with the chorus, then end it with the same. I wrote this first, having previously just decided what the name would be. I started with that word, Lilyan. Lilyan, I found you, but then I changed that to: Lilyan, you found me, I was walking. Actually here it does take the assumption I mentioned and voids that thought's credibility entirely. What wound up being the first line of verse, after several changes and shifting of its three and four word phrases, the verse evolved into, "I awoke the morning, sky an eerie dark, felt it crying, oo, oo, ooo..." Yet I lack having an actual cognition of where that line came from, I mean the subject expressed. Seemingly it has everything to do with the character speaking in first person. The line sort of sets an overall tone which seems dark in nature. Furthering the dark expression, I stated her to be missing, without any reference as to where or how this happened. The expression then takes on the concern of those whom are affected by this missing status. The second verse takes this expression deeper into this status of a missing person. The song lacks any resolution to the conflicted, leaving the audience without any conclusion, then chorus repeats to close out the lyric.
I really should have taken the time to write this out when that described here in was fresh in real time. So it goes.
****************post edit****************
February 4, 2020
The song Ode to Your Heart has now been recorded and posted on the website, here
Saturday, July 28th, 2018 allowed a new song's creation. This came about toward the end of my normal morning routine. I'd completed a morning review of the credible news that I prefer from the traditional sources provided on the internet. Weekends usually offer less viable news, thus the time it took to review the content, seemed brief. Living in my mind, forming thoughts that can formulate plans where none may prioritize my action for a day, or better stated as living in the moment, is the methodology I regularly utilize and prefer.
Having done this, while drinking my usual dose of strong coffee to wipe away the lingering slumber of night and sleep, a decision as to what to do next entered my thoughts. The possibilities are truly endless, yet I am rather set in habitual patterns, where mornings and plans come together. Because I seldom plan what I'll do with days, the habits come into play quite often. This day followed that course for a short time after completing the news review. I then turned toward listening to the prerecorded music of others, of my own choosing. It is seldom that I allow the choices of others (radio etc.) to determine what I'll allow to fill my space, as I prefer making my own choices as to what may influence my day, because sometimes doing so will alter its mood. For me, music can sometimes strongly influence and temper how my day evolves.
The previous evening I had chosen a course, deciding to learn another song, written and performed originally by Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman." I had been inspired by viewing the dvd, "A Concert for Bangladesh," where as, having seen Bob's rendition with the group on hand for that occasion, I paused the player, to learn the song for myself. In doing so that evening, I had called up the song from his album "Blond on Blond," to my media player in order to review its original form and to study its structure. Unknowingly, this sequence of events set up the circumstances that allowed this new song's creation the following morning.
Thus after completing the news review that morning, I opened my preferred media player, Amarok. It had in its memory the single song "Just Like a Woman" retained in its playlist from that previous nights application. Seeing this, the thought to again fill the room with the presence of Bob's recordings, yet wishing to add to the play list, I called up a new songlist of Dylan recordings, including the album "Modern Times." The media player went through many songs while I prepared and ate a breakfast, when I again found myself sitting here listening, the track "Thunder on the Mountain," was playing when, near the end of said track, a trigger in thought occurred. In an instant, this caused me to shut down the music, to open a word processor and I let words begin forming in my head, typing them into the computer.
I began writing out the words that came to mind. In those moments, I followed the slate of inspiration. It lacked any preconceived idea as to what might form. The only thing I understood in those moments, were that those words "thunder on the mountain," separate, standing alone, hold a somewhat iconic theme for me. It is sourced in my own life's experience. I have experienced lightening and its thunder on mountains well above timberline. At that time being there in that situation provided a potent experience that conjured up survival instinct, leaving an altered sense of awe in its wake. Even so I lacked a desire to express that situation in any way. Also, in thought was my desire to remain fully separated from either the words or expression I'd just heard in Bob's song. I wrote out lines, a full verse worth of them, then paused to review and alter them. At present, memory has little recall as to the content of those lines. I knew that I wanted to shape an idea that could express a personal core value in regard to our shared environment, that which we all in some way share commonly, this earth and foremost, the alarming trends that I notice.
Upon editing those first few lines, a shape and direction began to jell. I have heard thunder and have noted in its presence what could be termed as anger or in this instance, rage. It could be that the human response to the immediacy of lightening and its associated thunder, is what caused ancient humans to consider the existence of there being something much more powerful than they. Knowing nothing of the physical forces displayed during these weather events, I suppose the alarm of being in its presence was the cause for what is now known as a God. However; this is not my point, nor is the content of what came there after in my writing. The first line evolved then, into, "I've heard that the thunder, has to loose its rage." In this case the word rage might be a reflection on my own reaction to being in its presence in high elevation places, where the threat of lightening's force, I personally recognized as, immense. With this alteration and some others in those initial lines of verse, a direction for the song took hold. Even so, I was without any clear intention as to the sought destination of their collective expression. The first line here (although unknown at the time) is used only as texture for what was to be this vignette of words, that in the moment of conception possessed no music or even a hint there in.
Now for certain, there is no deliberate "other person," in the words of this lyric. It is my understanding of the importance of interpersonal relationships, which brings another person into the story. I believe doing so provides a place that others may be drawn into, as we humans instinctively associate ourselves as being, a part of the whole. And with this comes an understanding of our own mortality, a condition that in my own aging, tends to hold a distinct significance. We will all eventually pass from what we know as living, and go on to what ever comes there after, something or nothing. Since I neither know the answer to that unstated question, or possess desire to instill it into this song, I have simply referenced it via the imagery in, we may, "feel age."
From this point in the process, a contextual situation is created by the introduction of a commonly understood yet hypothetical location, that being, in the mountains. Now observations from the observer's view begin to form, bringing the thunder back into play as a shared experience. The effect of our relationships in and on this planet are employed here through the use of imagery. I brought birds and the season of spring in at this point because both have the potential to be an influence and be influenced, in our lives.
A separate set of ideas is then introduced as a chorus. It acknowledges some of the most basic things that make up our lives and the conditions which shape them, water, sun, the revolutions of our earth and time.
The song's last two verses attempt to clearly bring the seasonal cycles in living here into play. Summers end, birds migrate, fall comes and the seasons change throughout our lives. Hopefully we can all find inspiration in living. For myself and so many others, singing is both a producer of happiness and of hope. Doing it by a campfire is even better!