Of Life and Storms and Cloaked Men

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Eagle’s Wings is a song about being bigger than your troubles. It is often said that life is hard. I used to get a little annoyed at that statement because often when people say it, they do so from a high horse, admonishing someone for having the indecency to share their troubles.

Nevertheless it’s true. Somehow I figured that much out when I wrote this song. I also figured out that you can’t let that get you down. You have to be better than your circumstances.

Looking back though I think I stopped short of another fact. A lot of times, the things that seem so hard and painful are really the things that make us who we are, get us where we want to be, give us character and generally make life less boring. So I wrote this poem-thing and posted it here for you to read while you listen to my song.

Of Life and Storms and Cloaked Men

I met you on a dance floor on a Monday night.
Early Tuesday morning, I guess, is when we gave her life.

She must be impatient; A little bit like dad.
Thirty five weeks later, she came early, just a tad.

It’s true we made a people. That still surprises me.
After all it was the first of firsts and I’m the son of a missionary.

I know there’s folks a sayin’, “Pshaw!” with mouths agape.
The news was too unbelievable. The irony had no escape.

I traded in my silver ring for a night of lust.
Now I’ve got a daughter. It’s true. Her name is “Gus”.

I said I wasn’t ready and I may have complained.
But she locked eyes with me and I knew it was a good thing.

You see life is all a mystery; A stranger in a hooded cloak.
He’s waiting in the alley. By all accounts; he’s a charming bloke.

He waits ‘til we’re not looking. He sits and smokes and bides his time.
Then he does some silly party trick and we give him each a dime.

Then later, buying cigarettes at the local grocery store,
We all get mad and cuss a bit because we came up ten cents short.

Later as we think it through amidst thoughts of regret,
We realize the treasure of smoking one less cigarette.

Now if you think I’m saying that I’ve got it all worked out,
Then you’d be wrong. That’s for dog gone. ‘Cause I still have some doubt.

But I liken myself to a skipper at the helm in a stormy sea:
The wind in gale and waters crash and on his breath, fresh Hennessy.

And he knows the storm is a lady who needs a steady hand.
But she’s mad and bad and raging and he is but a man.

He’ll use his skill and wisdom gathered up through stormy years.
He’s seen ones like her before. She laughs at tears and fears.

He knows that she will storm and crash and boom and wail.
But soon she will grow weary and calm seas will prevail.

There will be days of sunshine and easy sailing more.
But firm resolve is needed to get his ship to shore.

With the storm subsiding he breathes a sailor’s sigh.
“One more for the books.” He says, sparkle in his eye.

For he is yet alive, and more fully quick, at that,
For having sailed one more angry sea and placed one more mark inside his cap.

The storm, she is a lady. Make no mistake, she’ll make you quake.
The stranger in the hooded cloak; He’ll make your fists to shake.

But as you sit and drink a drink upon your old age porch,
You’ll know that storms and cloaked men were no more than a torch.

They lit a fire inside you and sparked with flame to make things bright.
They stirred up dregs of dullness and made you curse and fight.

In fact they put some beauty in your ordinary life.
They were the balm of vigor and not the bonds of strife.

They gave you life and memories and people to love and trust.
They gave you battle-scars of beauty…
And a daughter, named “Gus”.

Take My Hand

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Love songs are strange. They are a testament to a deep emotion that once was and may or may not still be. Emotions are not static. They change. I imagine that’s the reason that a lot of love songs get classified as ‘cheesy’ after a while. When you are high on love you say cheesy things. You say all the clichés from a thousand songs and poems and you think that they mean something when you say them because you actually mean it. They don’t feel like a cliché when you are the one saying them. The song though, remains the same as it was the day it was recorded. Whatever happened to the girl (or guy) and whatever happened to the feelings, the song stays the same.

There’s a song on Dave Mathews’ latest album in which he says, “Someone’s broken heart becomes your favorite song.” It’s true that we don’t always get the whole story when we listen to a song and we don’t always care. We just like the way it sounds. Maybe we like the story that the song evokes in us and that story may be far from the actual one.

They say that true love isn’t so much about feelings as it is about doing. Love is a verb. The kind of love that makes people stay married or makes people give money to poor people is probably a more important kind of love than most of what gets sung about. That’s because that kind of love seems more boring. It’s not as exciting as the emotions of new love.

As a songwriter I’m continuously desperate for something to write about. There’s plenty of stuff out there to write songs about but it’s always obvious when I’m trying too hard to write about something that’s not real to me. So when love comes along it makes for a great muse. Suddenly clichés come rolling out of the abyss and present themselves in ways that seem normal, and even good, even though they are mostly the same things everyone has been saying and writing and singing for hundreds of years.

“Take My Hand” is a love song. I suppose it’s a little cheesy, and more so to me because I know the full story. I’m not going to tell you the whole story because I’m tired of that particular story and the telling of it. I hope that it tells a good story for you.

As a songwriter I hope to write lots of cheesy love songs that are so catchy that people can’t help but buy them. As a person I hope I get to write a love song one day that I won’t look back on and wish that the love was as enduring as the song.

Response...Something Inside Me

This is a response to the previous blogs comments. I had originally intended to write something about this in the previous blog but it didn’t seem to pan out. After the comments I realized that I didn’t quite express myself accurately so here goes….

I picked up a guitar one day and began learning to play. Another day I wrote a song. Another day I stopped watching t.v. and wrote another song instead. After that I played my guitar most days and became better at it. Some days I wrote songs and in the past 14 years I’ve gotten better at that. Another day I played my first song for an audience…I kept doing that and got better at that too.

When I was in college studying Biology and later while getting my masters in Biotechnology I was completely distracted by music on a daily basis. Whenever I had a minute free I’d be writing or playing or trying to figure out how to get enough money together to record an album. One day I started recording my own songs. I kept doing that and I’m still getting better at that too.

One day I made a decision to make music my career. I stopped teaching so that I could do that. I turned down a job with a missions organization so that I could do that. I started playing lots of shows in my hometown. I got better at playing shows and got better at promoting myself. Later I turned down a job with the company I’d been stationed at during my masters degree so that I could move to America and continue pursuing music.

The examples above are the highlights but the point is this… For the past 14 years I’ve been working steadily in this direction. It has been said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become truly successful at something. I don’t know if I’ve reached that mark yet but I’ve certainly put in a few. Over the span of 14 years a person makes a lot of decisions… In my own life my decisions keep drawing me further down the path of a career in music. It doesn’t happen all at once but when you look back you realize that returning to where you once were would take almost as much work as it took to get to where you are now. When you stop using a path it stops looking so much like a path and becomes a faded remnant of a trail that once was. Bridges get burned and bottles get broken on your back trail. To go back might sometimes be necessary but it’s not going to be any easier than putting your head down and slogging it out with whatever is ahead that keeps making yesterday look so attractive.

What I’m saying is this… I am where I am on purpose. It’s no accident that I do the job I do or that I live where I live or that I’ve made the decisions I’ve made. Little by little, one decision at a time, I have burned bridges and broken bottles for 14 years to get here. I’m not sure just anyone would want to live in my shoes but I do want to live in them. I don’t expect everyone to understand what I’m doing but I do understand it. In general I’m excessively happy that I’ve made it this far and that I’m on the path that I’m on. There are specific things about the current moment in the path that I don’t like and I’ll admit that I probably spend way too much time dwelling on those things and preaching my woes for the world to read. I’m a complainer…so sue me.

In writing about the songs on the album I’m trying to capture the emotions of the songs and of the album in general. Sometimes that means putting myself back in the moment of whatever I was feeling at the time. The song “Something Inside Me” was written when I was absolutely confounded and frustrated and ready to throw in the towel. I wanted to give up. I wanted to stop trying. I even tried to give up music. But I found out that my passion for music and writing is something that is deep within me that I can’t control and which will never die. It’s too deeply ingrained. Perhaps it’s by design that I am this way. So I wrote the words “I’ll never give up because I don’t know what those words mean.” At the time in my life when I was utterly frustrated, completely depressed and most wanted to give up I wrote a song about not giving up. When I say I can’t give up… I really mean I can’t give up.

The album was titled “Beautiful Frustration” not because I thought it sounded like a cool name but because it captured the sentiment of everything I’d been through to get the thing done. It was the overall emotion that I was feeling during the writing of that album. I was frustrated but it was the kind of frustration you get when you are continuously working on a project that seems to progress too slowly. But there is progress and that’s why it’s beautiful. It’s the knocking of yourself against a problem over and over again that makes you stronger and eventually leads to a solution. I imagine that the guys who built the space shuttle, or Einstein (no I’m not comparing myself to them) would understand ‘beautiful frustration’ completely.

I am beautifully frustrated. My apologies if I let off steam about that too often. But I am determined and I am stubborn and I am committed to this thing I’ve set out to do. I’m investing in a future that I can live with instead of fixing my present to be satisfied now.

I will reach 10,000 hours. I will reach my goals. Say what you will or think what you will, I am realizing that I don’t much care anymore what people think because it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t change what I’m going to do. When I find myself in those moments of complete disgust and frustration with my reality I remember this song and I tell myself that “I’m trying…come try with me. I’m fighting…come fight with me. I’m flying…come fly with me.” I sing those words to the heavens as a kind of challenge. I sing those words to the walls that seem daunting as if I were a boxer squaring my shoulders to my opponent, bouncing lightly on the balls of my feet, glint in my eye, jaw set and saying, “Alright. Let’s do this.”

Something Inside Me....To Thine Own Self Be True

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I’m worried about where this is heading. Is it heading anywhere? Am I deluded? Should I just ‘get a job’ and do what everyone does? Maybe I should. But I’ve been down that road. I know what happens to me when I’m stuck in a job that I don’t want to be doing. I start to become someone I don’t want to be. I start to come unglued and disheveled. I start to become a bitter old man and I’m not even an old man. I become unhappy about pretty much everything. I start to die….just a little bit….every day. I lose that part of me that loves the sunshine. I forget how much I like to be outside. I forget the joy of feeling wind in my face.

I studied Biology in University. During our third year we went on a “field trip”. It was one of the most gratifying experiences of my college career. I remember coming home after ten days in Itala Game Reserve with scratches all lover my arms and legs from walking through thick African bush. Each day after we’d finished in the field we’d walk down to the river and sit in a small pool of water and check ourselves for ticks. We’d let the tiny fish nibble our skin. Each day we ate lunch off the back of a truck. It was horribly wonderful. At night we’d type our data into computers and then sit by a fire and talk.

The scratches hurt but I was kind of proud of them. I said to someone that walking through the bush, riding on the back of a truck, sleeping in a tent by a river, cooking in a makeshift kitchen for ten days, getting scratched and tick-bitten made me feel alive. I don’t remember most of what I studied… I remember that trip. I remember conversations and truck rides and scenery and moments. I remember it because for those ten days I was more alive than I had been during my entire time at University to that point.

We had to stop working one day because a rhinoceros was too close and the game guard thought he looked agitated. Walking with rhinos makes you feel alive. In 1996 I learned how to play the guitar and I wrote my first song. I still don’t know why or how but something about writing a song; something about performing it for people makes me feel alive the way working too close to a rhinoceros does.
I’ve had people tell me that I should be using my degree instead of working as a waiter. I’ve had people tell me that I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. To those people my response is this song.

I don’t like serving sushi one bit. I’m not even sure I like Nashville one bit. I don’t like worrying about money and whether I’m going to earn enough this month. I don’t like the demeaning nature of the job. I don’t like picking up after people and dealing with their “I deserve everything NOW!” attitudes.

I spent seven years in college studying something that I didn’t really want to do because…well..I had to study something. But the moment I wrote that first song I knew what I really wanted to do. There is a deep motivation in me to make this happen. It simmers in my soul. It’s a glowing coal that never dies.

I could give up and go make money designing pharmaceutical drugs, or working with genetically modified somethings. But I don’t want to do those things. I want to write songs. I want to play them for people. I won’t stop trying because…honestly…I can’t. Something inside of me won’t let me.