My niece did a walking pilgrimage across Spain and afterwards went to a Monastic retreat. When she told me of these wonderful experiences I was filled with envy for the silent retreat away from the world. At the time I was in the thick of my teaching career and incessant noise was weighing heavily on me.
I had recorded a demo of it after I first wrote the song, but I was never totally satisfied with the result, so when I was recording my solo acoustic album I re-recorded it using my Greenfield guitar.
If there was a place that I could go to
And be silent all day long
I’d try and put that silence in a song
And when I drop my heavy load
at the end of my weary road
After climbing a hill so steep
You know I’d sing, I’d sing myself to sleep
And when I’m asleep Nothing can harm me
Cause I’m dreaming all night long
When I awake I’ll try and catch that dreaming
In a song And I will sing
You know I’ll sing it all day long
There is a place that I can go to
in my heart all day long
my heart beats in the world of song
it won’t be long til your heart beats to my song
it won’t be long til your heart beats to my song
A friend of mine relayed the story of her elderly mum’s death to me. My friend’s Mother was given a break for the weekend from looking after her husband who was quite “labour intensive” due to his advanced Alzheimer’s. When the husband was returned to their apartment, his spouse was gone. She had died over the weekend.
Many of the lyrics in my song are actually transcriptions of his words in his bewilderment. Picture a child’s perspective of trying to understand loss and at the same time the life partner’s shock at having lost.
“Someone always leaves first” is an expression my wife uses often. Although inevitable, it is always a shock.
How can this be?
how can you do this to me?
What am I going to do without you?
How cruel and unkind
To be left behind
I wanted to go with you!
I've looked for you nearly everywhere
You're not in your room, or your favourite chair
There isn't a note,
how can you be so remote
When you know I've devoted
The best of my years to you
How can this be?...
You're nowhere to be found
And I don't understand
How you could leave me behind
You were here yesterday
But you aren't here today
I'm going out of my mind
How can this be?...
I want to hear your voice
I want to be given a choice
I loved everything about you
You left me here, stranded
I've come up empty-handed
I can't go on without you
How can this be?
I was fortunate that when my father died, I had the freedom and space to mourn his passing. I am a strong believer in feeling one’s feelings, expressing one’s emotions and being real.
The last month has been rife with preparations for yesterday’s funeral for my father-in-law. I watched as Sharon prepared: 1. transport from palliative care to funeral home. 2. Arrangements with funeral home. 3. dealing with the liquidator. 4. choosing the design for a commemorative bookmark. 5. Choosing the music for several different parts of the funeral. 6. Digitizing photos and creating a photo montage for the visitation. 7. dealing with the caterer. 8. Dealing with her mum. I am exhausted just writing about it, but you get the idea. The mourning has come in waves for Sharon. The lull between duties. Maybe a photo triggers a fond memory, a saved phone message. Much of the mourning came as death approached nearer and nearer.
My song is a creation culled from many memories, not just my own father’s funeral and burial. The first funeral I ever saw was JFK on a black and white TV. It was grey and cold in late November 1963. Then, 4 grandparents and so on. It seems as we age, there are more funerals now than ever before. Not just relatives, but friends, siblings leaving too soon as well. The heroes I had as a younger man are dropping. Jazz musicians, songwriters, sports heroes. We are all hurtling towards death anyways, so I make the most out of living each day to the fullest.
In “Grey Day” I tried to evoke the loneliness of mourning and the restorative power of crying and the need for fellowship to heal and continue. Not a day goes by where I don’t have reminders of my father. I miss him, but no longer to the point of tears. Music helped.
Dreamers and creative people who dwell in a world of fantasy and possibility are at odds with the “bean counters” and “suits” of the world. There seems to be a lot of thoughtless energy out in the world designed to quash this liberty of the artist.
My mother, when I told her my ambition of writing and performing music said “Oh, They’re a dime a dozen!” I loved my mom, but what an ignorant thing to say (and believe). There is not a day that goes by where I don’t hear those words in my head and I have to remind myself that creating music is not a “commodity”, it is an art. It would be lovely to have thousands that hear my songs, but it is not necessary for a song to be successful. A successful song is one that is finished and that satisfies me. The rest is just fluff.
I want to be a stardust collector
I want to catch rainbows
I want to be a moon reflector
the scent of flowers in my nose
II: don't tell me I can't ,don’t tell me i can’t
don’t tell me I can’t
don't tell me that it's (1)too late :II
(2)im-possible
I want to ride on a Unicorn, I want to swim up waterfalls
I want to sleep inside a Stradivarius
and vibrate in the best concert halls
I want to fly with a dragon by my side
I want to live inside an old oak tree
I want a world where tears are jewels
where nobody frowns and everything is free
I want to stay awake and never get tired
I want to live in my richest dream
I only want to drink the finest wine
and feast at the table of the king
I want to live in Shangri La, Lothlorien or Brigadoon
I want to live on the bottom of the sea
and take vacations on the moon
This song came about after a conversation I had with a good friend. We were talking about her husband who is a confident and trustworthy and successful human being, and her brother-in-law who is almost the exact opposite. It turns out that most of us know of family situations that resemble this or are perhaps part of one themselves.
The sons in this song could very easily have been daughters. I was thinking of many of the people in my life experience where one sibling follows a steady path and another flounders. Nature/nurture argument doesn’t apply. I know a set of twins where one twin is a successful psychologist and her twin occupies the fringes of society and has trouble staying out of jail and/or being sober. They both had the same genes and the same parenting….the same opportunities, the same privilege.
one son flew..... one son fell
one son knew..... the other …not so well
Both were loved both were fledged
both free range birds both led to the edge
one son flew...
one flew straight away. he returns when he can
building his own nest was always part of the plan
One son flew...
one worries in circles. he never really left
afraid of the ledge afraid of the test
One son flew...
afraid of the ledge. but longing to be free
clinging to the branches. of a disappearing tree
one son flew ...
in order to soar. you need to trust your wings
It’s never really too late to try on different things
The coddling can’t continue you’re really on your own
waiting for the words..... “This bird has flown”
The Lorelei legend is about a rock on the river Rhine that is sometimes mistaken for a beautiful maiden.
My Lorelei is about a beautiful maiden who masquerades as a rock.
You were recklessly abandoned
So you floated to love
You chose a mate at random
And you gloated above
You lived your life in tandem
Until you’d had enough
And then with reckless abandon
You let push come to shove
Stick your chin out – hang tough
Lorelei Lora Lorelei, Don’t let them see you cry, Lorelei
Sticks and stones can’t hurt you
Through your rough tough had enough skin
And people can’t desert you
If you never let them in
And if you never buy a ticket
It’s for sure you’ll never win
If there’s a problem you can lick it
Or just take it on the chin
That’s the ticket – that’s the spin
Lorelei Lora Lorelei Don’t let them see you cry, Lorelei
But I see you in the forest
Looking slight beneath the trees
I hear you sing another chorus
Lilting lightly on the breeze
And I sense your skin is porous
When I see you on your knees
But then you tense and you ignore this
And return to your deep freeze
Another day – you didn’t seize
Lorelei Lora Lorelei I love to see you cry, Lorelei
I wrote and recorded this shortly after reading “The Life Of Pi” by Yann Martel. There were many aspects of my life that were out of whack. I felt stuck…no goals to reach, no safe place to land…no going back… ennui.
Darkness and shadow can be overwhelming. A friend showed me an experiment. He asked me to cup my hands so as to have a small pocket of darkness. He then asked me how much my pocket of darkness affected the room. Then He turned out the light and struck a match…
This song chronicles the crooked path I had to take from trying to salvage something that had changed forever to forgiveness of myself and my first wife. I had just watched The Buona Vista Social Club and my setting for this song kind of reflects that. I particularly loved "Chan Chan".
I used to see the sky
Reflected in your eyes
The stars, the clouds, The fireworks
Revealed your soul
But now they don’t look back
Except when they attack
There’s an overwhelming lack
And a gaping hole
The days are getting shorter
and the dark drags on forever
and the sleepless nights
so heartlessly provoke
now that shadow rules the day
the truth gets in the way
and the fading light’s
obscured by smudge and smoke
If we could find a balance
Between our torments and our talents,
Change our habits and create an equinox
We need something to remind us
Of another place to find us
Than between the proverbial
Hard place and the rocks
Come into the light
Keep it in your sight
Let the stars above
Illuminate your soul
Forget about your ghosts
‘cause life’s too short to host
resentments, hatred
will never make you whole
In August 2007 a bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. In September I was driving to work which included a few kilometers on highway 25. One of the overpasses had been dismantled and they were building another one. I got to thinking about “what ifs” and imagined a young couple “hot to trot” that each lived on opposite sides of a river. I imagined someone in Lachine in love with someone in Kahnawake on opposite sides of a river that freezes in winter (The St.Lawrence)
Reading the lyrics just now, I am struck by how much this lyric resembles a Roadrunner cartoon plot. Only thing missing is a delivery from ACME.
I took it to the bridge, but the bridge was gone
I couldn’t get back to my baby
The river’s very wide, couldn’t see the other side
So i had to decide what would the way be
(I said)
Why’s she gotta be so far away
How come I can’t get to her today
I just want her to come out and play
But today it’s here I gotta stay
I took it to the bridge but the bridge was down
I couldn’t get around to my baby
I’d have to dive right in, had to be sink or swim
I might have to drown for my baby
(I said)
Why’s she gotta be so far away
How come I can’t get to her today
I just want her to come out and play
But today it’s here I gotta stay
I went to the bank to see if I could ford
But I just can’t afford to see my baby
The bank was very steep and the water, way too deep
And baby, baby it was way too wavy
(I said)
Why’s she gotta be so far away
How come I can’t get to her today
I just want her to come out and play
But today it’s here I gotta stay
I went to find a boat but it wouldn’t stay afloat
I couldn’t get across to my baby
The water’s way too cold, it’ll freeze soon I was told
You can walk across and take it to my baby
But I had no winter clothes, and in trying, froze my toes
Now how am I supposed to find my baby
(I say)
Why’s she got to be so far away
How come I can’t get to her today
I just want her to come out and play
But today it’s here I gotta stay
I retired gradually. My teaching career was becoming less and less my passion, and the generation gap was becoming more and more evident. I went down to a four day week for two years and then down to three days until the pandemic sidelined most of us and my career just petered out. Before the pandemic hit, the school council voted to eliminate music in favour of “Arts Dramatique” which discouraged me. I jokingly asked: “Are you saying I’m irreplaceable?”. They said it is too hard to find a bilingual music teacher, but they did not even attempt to find one. I was always having to deal with “the more important subjects” to get any sort of extra time for rehearsal or for anything that disrupted the status quo. I was feeling kind of bitter, but I realized that change is constant in this world. buildings get re-purposed, roads get re-routed, occupations wither and die, etc.
The caboose has always attracted my attention. I thought “How cool, a fort on wheels” As a child I was always finding cool places to be alone and play at establishing a new home. Putting junk and “treasures” in it and delving deep into my imagination. A caboose represented the acme of all that. I was appalled when in the mid 1980’s the caboose was replaced with an electronic device. No longer needed, they became redundant, scrapped, repurposed and entered into history much like blacksmiths, video stores, journalists, mom and pop stores,etc.
As my relevance waned, I felt more and more like a relic of the past, but coupled with a fierce determination to remain relevant in my art and have produced more music in the past few years than I had in the previous decade.
I recorded this as part of my “just me and a guitar” sessions at Boutique de Son nd the album was almost done when the pandemic hit. Throughout the pandemic I wrote and recorded profusely and my “already in the can” material sat unheard. I released three albums this summer which is kind of an overload, but I see it more as unclogging a drain and letting things flow unimpeded now the music is out there.
I commissioned my friend Jacquie Dinsmore to paint an orphaned caboose.
All the jobs I ever trained for Tend to fade away
They say that I'm Redundant They say I'm In the way
I used to dig the ice out of the river over there
I'd store it packed in straw They don't need that anymore
I'm a caboose, I'm a caboose
I used to have a function I used to have a use
I'm a caboose, I'm a caboose
They left me at the junction When they cut me loose
I used to stoke the engines With my sweat and filthy coal
But technology replaced me And I've got nowhere to go
I wanna be a classic car an antique shop filled with artifacts
I wanna be a 10 cent chocolate bar, But, they say, there's no going back
I'm a caboose, I'm a caboose
Rusting on a rusty spur Waiting for things to occur
I'm a caboose, I'm a caboose
They left me at the junction When they cut me loose
I used to sell their products until the products disappeared
Or else they're made overseas They can't afford to make them here
The world is spinning way too fast And I used to ride the Trunk
The treasures of the recent past Now are worthless junk
I'm a caboose, I'm a caboose
I used to have a function I used to have a use
I'm a caboose, I'm a caboose
They left me at the junction When they cut me loose
I've always been quite attached to trains They always know which way they're going
Now the trains they whistle past, They don't slow down, they move too fast
I'm a caboose, I'm a caboose
I used to have a function I used to have a use
I'm a caboose, I'm a caboose
They left me at the junction When they cut me loose
I'm a caboose.
Vignettes and Bagatelles 