Played at the Family hotel’s ‘plug and play’ the other night. I don’t want to learn ‘Dock of a Bay’ - much though I like the song - in order to become an entertainer. I don’t have the time nor the inclination. I barely know my own songs let alone those written by ‘whoever it is that everybody likes.’ I’ve been reluctant to sing since a month or two back .... but none of this is negative.
I’ve been focussed on my pentatonic blah, blah, blah .... and scales and such .... but Pete had rung to wish happy new year and to ‘chew the fat.’
Very few know my songs. Why should they? I’m not being silly about this. I really haven’t had that much impact. I’m an obscure journeyman and happy to be so blessed.
Pete is an accomplished musician who has always been happy to play along when I get up to play the allocated ‘three songs or fifteen minutes.’ at the ‘plug and play.’
In the course of the conversation I say - I don’t want to play my songs - as written - within the confines of a rigid chord structure and little else .... and I really don’t get the feedback to know what songs I’ve written actually connect.
I’m not looking for reassurance but he tells me that ‘Volcano Burning’ is a powerful song as is ‘Walk the Precipice.’
I haven’t played the latter song for perhaps ten years or more.
In 1968 our family emigrated to Australia. We were ‘ten pound immigrants’ favoured at the time by circumstance and the remnants of a ‘White Australia’ policy.
We arrived in early April and walked from an English winter into ten weeks of blue sky and the glorious heat of an ‘Indian Summer.’ It was another reality after so many years of grey.
‘Walk the Precipice.’ is about the recognition that we are all refugees at some point and in some way. I wrote it, I loved it as an infant song, I recorded it a few years later and then pretty much forgot about it. Pete remembered it and that, in itself, moved me enough to get a bit enthused and go out and play.
Playing was ‘very good’ and reinforced in this somewhat reclusive being that while your songs might be one thing, your presence is the other...... and I am reclusive enough to understand that being part of the audience requires a determination of the spirit sometimes not too different to that required of the performer.
Taking a break from music and work.
The financial shenanigans continue around the globe. It’s hideous and all the more so because it’s happening in front of our eyes and being exposed on a daily basis while not many notice because the latest television - which watches you - is being rolled out and touted as something wonderful.
The Brave New World, the Animal Farm and the 1984 of my childhood reading openly emerge. The flocks have been herded and continue to be shorn. Not a brilliant metaphor as even a sheep can turn ferocious.
It’s no great fun being a one eyed sheep in the country of the blind. Nobody but the other one eyed sheep believes the bleating.
So - as a one eyed sheep I strain to see the new pastures and while they all look green, the breeze carries with it the smell of fresh paint and fake grass.
‘Climate warming’ becomes ‘climate change’ and, as yet, mainstream science is stuck in a model of a Universe which fails to recognise that the Universe is electric.
Through all the appearance of a world where evil runs rampant I can still choose to keep developing the ‘gifts given’ and to remain as ethical and open as I’m able. What else? .... give in to despondency?
Ignorance wasn’t bliss - not for me. There were always enough discrepancies between what was said and what was done for me to be a bit unbalanced.
Then, when you know that you don’t know ... and also realise that you don’t know how much you don’t know ... well .... it just adds to the sense of unease. It took a great deal to change all that and now - chuckle chuckle - who knows?
In the garden, the tiger lilies have come and gone. The parrots feast on fruit not yet ripened and the circular garden bed of Canna Lilies, which appear to die off in the frost each year, are now resurrecting and waist high. Soon, the pale and the bright yellow flowers will jostle the flame reds and stand as high as a man.
The threat of bushfire is never distant when you’re living in a necklace of towns and villages, connected along a ridge and surrounded by wilderness.
For today, the birds are singing and a light cool mist replaces the heat wave conditions expected.