Contemplation Time

I am sitting here listening to a song, The River Knows Your Name, by my favourite singer-songwriter, John Hiatt. It’s from the album Walk On which was the first album of John’s I bought and still the one which captivates me the most.

In the town in which I live are three rivers and the smallest one flows into a larger one and then further along that river flows into the largest. So there are 2 points along the journey of each river where a river merges with another and becomes one before individuating once more.

I am reminded of the quote attributed to Rumi – “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” I like that. We don’t have to surrender our individuality in realising we are each more alike than different.

I was thinking about water and how it often represents emotion and just as the song began, rain started to pelt against the window. There’s a whole world outside that window. I used to get up really early and walk about and streetlights would be on and the occasional lighted window in the houses around me but by and large, everyone would be in the land of slumber having hopefully nice dreams and who knows, maybe some astral travel as well.

The rain hit the windows hard and I was reminded of the musical warrior, Gord Downie. A remarkable individual. I was introduced to him through the parent band, The Tragically Hip. The album was Live Between Us. It was so different to anything I had heard before yet I was captivated at once by the sound and feel of the band and the deftly poetic allusions created by Gord as he expressed himself artistically through song.

The first studio album I heard was In Violet Light and I was especially taken by a song called “It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken.” Gord Downie died in 2017 of an aggressive form of brain cancer, called glioblastoma.

In the time remaining after his diagnosis, he went on a final tour with The Hip and that last show is on YouTube in its entirety. The song Grace, Too is incredibly hard to watch because in the screams contained within the song is a man railing against the dying of his own light. He begins to cry. The screams become a cri de couer. It makes me want to reach into the screen and hold him and tell him everything will be okay although he and I would know that it wouldn’t be. I would still want to reassure him in some way. At least to let him know I value/valued his presence on this Earth.

Gord also recorded a haunting album entitled Secret Path which charted the short life of Chanie Wenjack, an Anishinaabe boy who ran home one night from an Indian residential school before sadly succumbing to hunger and exposure. His body was found next to a railway line. He had walked for 36 hours in sub-zero temperatures, wearing just a windbreaker. It’s a powerful musical statement pertaining to a terribly sad time in the history of Indigenous peoples living in Canada.

When I was in Intensive Care last year, I got chatting to a nurse who worked there. She was mad keen on the band Rush, another group of incredible Canadian musicians and it was through her I reacquainted myself with them. The drummer Neil Peart had himself passed away due to brain cancer. I had in the past been crazy about the band and had seen them in London on their R30 tour. The only concert I have been to where people not only stayed for the drum solo but awaited it with baited breath and Neil didn’t disappoint. Three master musicians.

Anyhow, I started watching YouTube videos and I came across a performance of “It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken” performed at the 2021 Juno Awards with the remaining members of The Tragically Hip and with special guest Feist on vocals. It broke me in two. Here I was, still close to death and yet suddenly remembering how precious life was/is. Sometimes I forget. I have healed and life goes on. Gord isn’t here. Neil isn’t here. Their music however remains, as do I.

And as do you reading this.

If I could, I would reach out from this screen and hug each and every one of you and let you know, in no uncertain terms, how grateful I am that I know you.

Thank you for your Earthly presence in my life.

1994

I have been absolutely miserable since 1994. Yes, all that time. I was thinking back to then and trying to work out what could have occurred to make me feel that way and I realised it was the year I got into organised religion. Organised religion may work for billions of people however it didn’t work for me at all. It caused me to wallow in depressions, caused me to hate myself and it definitely caused my mind to fragment.

So, I started thinking back to that time. What brought me enjoyment? Music. I had discovered some great musicians around that time and I had my Sony Discman and my rechargeable batteries and I would charge up a load to get me through a day’s listening and really give my attention to a couple of albums, not flitting between mp3 albums like I got into the habit of doing. I wonder if I would have loved music the way I used to had I been brought up on Spotify? I developed a kind of musical ADHD in relation to it. I would be partway through an album, see the tab for Related Artists and before I knew it I was listening to another album and then another and so after a few tracks into each album I would be off listening to something else. You really can have too much choice.

I grew up with a television which up until 1982 (I was born in 1973) had only 3 channels and the programmes didn’t go through the night, there was a cut off point around about 1 a.m. but there was always something to watch, not like now when I can trawl through 50+ channels which are on 24/7 and seldom find something I a) want to watch and b) is actually edifying to sit through. Most of it is dross. There was infinitely more quality back then.

So, I made the decision to go out and buy albums again. We have a charity shop here in the UK called Oxfam and they have stores dedicated to music and books while their other stores deal with clothing, bric-a-brac, jigsaw puzzles, board games etc It was in one of these the other day I bought 2 albums, one by Ray Wylie Hubbard and one by North Mississippi All-Stars. Both still factory sealed and at £2.99. I felt that old rush of excitement buying music. I have not heard these albums but I know something of the artists in question so I know I will like them. To actually give my time to music rather than keep zig-zagging about.

So, today I connected my mp3 player to the dvd player and have sat through individual albums again. One interestingly from 1994.

Those albums are:-

(Blues) Freddie King – Burglar (1974),
(Jazz) Esbjörn Svensson Trio – Seven Days of Falling (2003),
(New Wave) Men at Work – Business As Usual (1981),
(Psychedelic/Space Rock) Ozric Tentacles – Become The Other (1995),
(Rock) Dave Matthews Band – Under the Table and Dreaming (1994),
(Heavy Rock) Dynamite – Blackout Station (2014),
(Contemporary Rock) Albany Down – South of the City (2011).

This was how it used to be. My Mum and Dad would give me a tenner (£10) each week and at the weekends I would head to the record stores and pick up an album or 2 and they would get played through the week. If I liked the music, I would seek out other albums by the same musician/band and if I didn’t like it, I would swap the album for something someone else had and didn’t really listen to or else I would give them to charity shops.

I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to music today. So far, all of the albums I’m keeping. If I come across some I don’t like I will just delete them from the device to make way for something else.

I have also jettisoned organised religion from my life and I have renounced everything from the Abrahamic faiths. I was happiest when I was involved in Earth Spirituality. Mother Earth, Father Sky. No names for it. Just a simple appreciation that everything is living and wanting to connect with all life forms, from the smallest insect to the largest cetacean.

In my mind, it’s 1994 again and I’m on the correct path once more. I wish I was 20 again rather than nearly 50. I’ll just call it 1994 with 30 years worth of experience under my belt.

Bjørn Eidsvåg

It’s funny how we close ourselves off to things when we don’t understand the language.

Yet, we are pretty much the same the world over. I think good art, whether it be music, literature, paintings, sculpture, dance … it shouldn’t be limited by our understanding of the underlying culture.

Discovering the music of Bjørn Eidsvåg was a revelation for me.

Here is this man, living in Norway which is just 750 flight miles away (London to Oslo) and if I hadn’t been drawn to the cover of one of his albums “Rundt Neste Sving” I would never have known he existed at all.

I’m glad I took a chance on the album and by so doing, discovering a musical artist I have gone on to love.

Today’s Album | Logical Elements – Unexplored Elements

There was me thinking I could quit listening to music altogether. It’s all about a feeling for me and most music nowadays, even stuff I have loved up until now simply brings a sort of heaviness with it and depresses me whereas Ambient, Psybient and Chillout music has an expansive, open, epic feel to it which does the opposite. I find it both meditative and relaxing.

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