Dream Myself Alive

My apartment is a mess, which reflects my mental state. My Nanna used to say her bedroom was "upside down" when it was messier than she liked, and therefore off limits. Mine however, is apparely, "sideways".

Feeling busy, lazy, tired, excited, creative and overwhelmed all at the same time. Big plans to use this blog like a verbal fencing pit in the next while... Tossing things up in the air, skewering some, letting others fall...

I have been writing a lot lately. Music, that is, not this kind of writing. It's good for me....each song feels like a major accomplishment if I complete it, and if I still like it once it's finished.

In the past I have written mostly about my relationships--usually when they are new and exciting, or when they are failing painfully.... eg. "Afterglow", "Happy", "Inside", "Noah", "On The Highwire", "Blame", "Never Fall", "Half The Man"...

But for the last year and a half my love life has been stable and supportive, which although wonderful, leads to me having little to say musically. I hadn't written a song in maybe 6 months. Then in June, I wrote one for a dear friend who finally found the courage to leave a very destructive and abusive relationship. I was thinking about how scary that can be...wondering if you'd ever heal, wondering if anyone would ever find you attractive again, whether you'd ever find anyone else attractive again...? It's a quiet, private little song, just for me and her. Nobody else will ever hear it.

It sparked me, musically. All these repressed melodies came bubbling up: at the studio, clay-covered drill in hand, humming, searching for some way to record the persistant little melody that demanded to be written down. I discovered a function on my new cellphone: it makes voice recordings. How handy! Hopefully I won't accidentally text message them to people hahaha.

I 'd take the melody home to the piano, ruminate for a while, and elaborate on it. But for the first time in my life, I had this panicky feeling like I had nothing to say. It went deep, this panic, because of my secret fear that I am actually a shallow, hollow person with no real opinions or intelligence. (This fear was launched by an ex-boyfriend who said something like that to me in the heat of an argument, once, years ago. I know it's not true, but it remains, a kernal of insecurity stuck in my mind, forever).

In actual fact, it's not that I had nothing to write about-- it was just that I had to change techniques, create new pathways in my songwriting process. I had to look beyond the immediate desperation and emotion that songwriting has always emerged out of, and ask myself what I have been thinking about lately. What are things that are important to me that I have never written about, and why haven't I written about these things before?

The environment, obviously, is a big one. How can I be so vehemently "green" in my lifestyle, but never consider it in my music? After some serious soul searching, I wrote a song called "Manufactured Landscapes" which is a title I stole from a book about Ed Burtynsky.

Another big issue for me is Canadian patriotism (or lack of). This concept first tweaked in me when I moved to America for a year in 2000, and later became a part of the regular discourse of my design work, but never of my music, thus far. I am very pleased with the fun little song with (what I consider) a big message that was born a couple of weeks ago, which I have entitled "Humble Pie."

Another new song, less political and more theoretical, is called "Starting Tonight." It's a little self-pep song about "the best night of my life" and all that would occur on such a night. It has a line where I imagine I am a train whistle, all swoops and overtones...

And just a few days ago, I tackled a subject that has been very purposefully avoided by me for the last 2 years: the death of one of my best friends, Christina Jarvis. I sat down and wrote this little bossanova tribute to her, with the only rule being I could gush all I wanted, but no sappiness or depressive lyrics. It is written almost entirely tongue-in-cheek, (as she would have LOVED) but I will confess I do get fairly emotional when I play it. It was supposed to be the song that I waited 2 years to write in order to NOT make myself (or anyone else) cry when I played it... I almost succeeded.

So, as it turns out, I DO have lots to say. What a relief!


Hmm. I was planning on writing about a recording experience I had on Wednesday with a world renown musician, and personal hero of mine....but I guess I will save that for the next post, cuz I have to go to a bbq now. Mmmm...sweet BBQ! Has anyone written a song about you and your charbroiled goodness? :)