Now I Have Inspiration....

I wrote previously that I was happy and thus had no adversity to inspire anything creative. Well, now I should commence being very prolific. Now I should be inspired.

She’s gone.

She just decided one day that she didn’t love me.

She just decided one day that we shouldn’t be together.

I don’t know how long she had been thinking that way.

I don’t know how long she had been “close friends” with her accountant – but they seemed to get together very quickly after she decided we should separate. Work that one out!

How? Why? What for?

The main reason she gave was that I devoted my life to our daughters and not enough to her. I don’t know how much more I could have done as I have devoted every minute of every day to her and our family since we got together ten years ago. I don’t have/know any other way of being. I always had me at number four on my list of priorities – with her and our two daughters being equal 1, 2 and 3.

So now she graciously allows me to have them in my life 50% of the time. So for the other 50% I am lost.

I don’t want to go out and meet new people. I don’t want a new relationship. I don’t want to be anything apart from a Father in a loving family. But that’s not possible now. I must be happy with being a single Father 50% of the time. Maybe she will want to take her new freedom further and just wander off into the sunset with her accountant hero… and leave me to 100% of the 2 people I cherish most in the world.

If only….

Modern Electric Guitar

This is a continuation of a thought in a previous blog:

I previously put up the idea that you never hear music as good as the music you heard in your teens. Well, following on from that: for me, there aren’t many things in this world more satisfying than hearing an electric guitar played by someone who really knows how to play it. You know that old saying of “it sent a shiver up my spine” or “it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up” – well there are quite a few pieces of music that still have that affect on me now. All of them recorded before 1990 by people that were born before 1960. Nothing I have heard recorded since 1990 played by anyone younger than 46 years old has had that same sensational affect.

Modern music in general, and electric guitar playing specifically, are very derivative art-forms. It has always been a case of someone picking up a guitar and playing something they have heard before that they have liked, adding a bit of themselves and bashing something out. This method has created moments of pure genius and those shiver inspiring moments I mentioned before. But, have we run out of ways to play the old guitar that are original? Have we run out of ways to re-invent moments of brilliance in a new way? Have we run out of new guitar players talented enough to further the art of the old masters?

Is anyone interested in it anyway? A quick listen to modern radio and most music that has been released since 1990 will show that awe inspiring electric guitar is a thing of the past. The world needs a new young lad (or lady) to combine the chunk of Keith Richards with the fluidity and melody of David Gilmour and the passion and dexterity of Stevie Ray all the while knowingly nodding to the masters of 20th Century electric guitar and adding their own contribution to its evolution. I have tried – I can do that (sort of) but I can’t do it any better or any “newer” than it has been done in the past.

No one can!

No Adversity for Inspiration

In the past most of the songs I have written have been inspired by something bad happening to me – you know: another horrible woman did me wrong again or here I am all alone again. That’s probably been the inspiration for some of the best songs in Rock ‘n’ Roll. But anyway, I wrote a song for my wife back when we first got together (To try and impress her – maybe it worked?) and since then I have been extremely happy and have had no adversity to inspire creativity.

So, finally, I have come up with something happy – about my wife – inspired by a little saying our daughters have:

You’re Everything

I saw you in the movies
I caught a little glimpse of what could be
I never lost that feeling
It grows and grows whenever you’re with me

You’re a Beauty Queen, a Movie Queen
A Pop Star, Rock Star – Everything

You’re everything and I love you
Like the moon and the stars and the whole wide world
You’re everything and I love you
Like the moon and the stars and the whole wide world

It’s plain to see . . . the happiness
The smile on my face – the jubilation.
You give to me . . . everything
Everyday a happy day – a celebration

You’re a guiding hand, a helping hand
A mother, a lover – Everything

You’re everything and I love you
Like the moon and the stars and the whole wide world
You’re everything and I love you
Like the moon and the stars and the whole wide world

In Jokes

The other day I was reminded of something that I really enjoy – In Jokes.

You know, the type of joke or comment that only you and one other person get.
I love sitting with a group of people then saying something that only one other person will understand. While everyone else just wonders what the hell I’m talking about. It may alienate you more from most people in the room but it brings you and that other person much closer – having a little shared moment. Or you could bring everyone else in the room in on your joke and everyone can enjoy the moment. You do create a problem when you have a little joke with just you, yourself – it can be fun but everyone else starts thinking about booking you in to some mental institution or simply not inviting you around anymore because you’re too embarrassing (which may or may not be a good thing).

Anyway, another place I enjoy “In Jokes” is in music – where a performer will add something to a song from somewhere else that some people may not notice, or everyone may notice. Examples that spring to mind are Elton John slotting The Who’s “Can’t Explain” riff on the end of his version of “Pinball Wizard”. Or Jimi Hendrix launching in to “Strangers In the Night” in his guitar solo in “Wild Thing”. It shows they are thinking of more than just the music and the words!

Isabella Is dancing

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Chorus:
Dancin’ around on the breeze in the backyard
Spinin’ around to the sound.
Music is catching, music is taking
Music is lifting her up from the ground.

She’s washed away in the liquid noise,
Floating higher and dreaming.
The rest of the world disappears in a trance
When Isabella is dancing.


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Zen and the Art of Lawnmowing

Well not quite, but….

Have you ever noticed the meditative qualities of Mowing the Lawn.

It is a “place” you can go, a state of being where you can ponder life, the universe and everything – or anything. The regular back and forward, round and round paths you travel while mowing do not require a lot of focus from the brain – allowing it to wander away from that activity to where ever it would care to go. You can try listening to music using headphones/earpieces, but that just gets too frustrating trying to hear your favourite guitar solo over the relentless moaning of the mower – also, suddenly, violently pushing the mower aside and launching into your own air guitar mime of the afore mentioned solo creates more than a little confusion amongst the neighbours who thought you were just casually mowing the lawn.

But anyway, while pushing forward and back, round and round the mind can go places it would not normally go. One day I formulated a whole philosophy on the different stages of being. One day I wrote a whole song in my head. One day I worked out that dog droppings must be as dry as possible before being able to be cleared away by the mower. It is just a wonderful place for your head to be.

The Best Music Ever!

The Best Music Ever!

A while ago I read a fantastic truism – it said that you will never hear any music better than the music you hear when you are sixteen. How true is that?

I know that for me I have always looked for but never found better music than what I heard when I was sixteen. Because when I was sixteen I was a music sponge. I found out that there was more music out there than what I heard on the radio. I searched and discovered then searched more and discovered more. Every corner I turned led me in a new direction and new discoveries. Sure there was a lot that I heard that I didn’t like. But there was so much that I did like and the feeling of hearing those sensational sounds for the first time was so overpowering that it has been impossible to re-create with anything I have heard since.