Insert your custom message here. close ×
+

I Do What I Do (And I Don’t Pay No Mind)

It was an understandable mistake. The first time the recording studio producer typed in the name of the song, it came out “I do what I want”. That one word difference, though, was too much – I had to change it back to the original “I do what I do…”.

The song is not so much about doing what I want, as about continuing to press forward – without being distracted by unproductive criticism, or past mistakes, or regret. It’s about finding meaning in work – although getting paid for what you do is lovely and provides resources to meet goals, meaning is what helps a person to endure and persist. It’s about being prepared for opportunity by putting in the necessary groundwork so as to be ready to go when the right time comes. It’s about being authentically oneself.

It’s not a complicated song, and the words in it aren’t particularly difficult or unusual. The grammar is definitely not proper. But all that stuff in the paragraph I just wrote, was stuff I wanted to express in a straightforward way and with a tone of dogged persistence and a sense that there is a wealth of experience beneath the words.

Here are the lyrics;

I do what I do, and I don’t pay no mind
to what naysayers say, or what muckrakers find.
I do what I do, and I don’t pay no mind.

Like everyone else, I’ve left stories behind.
Some I think of fondly, some I’d like to rewind.
I’d like to retouch some of my history,
but I’m not looking back, ‘cuz that’s no place to be.

If you put in the work, your heart will be satisfied –
it’s not seeking reward, it’s not stroking your pride.
If the world needs what you bring,
you know you won’t be denied –
but the far greater thing is the warm glow inside.

I’ll sit back and wait –
I’ll know the time when I see it.
I won’t rush to be great –
don’t wanna fake it, but be it.
I’ll sit back and wait –
I’ll know the time when I see it.

Well, I do what I do, and I don’t pay no mind
to what naysayers say, or what muckrakers find.
I do what I do, and I don’t pay no mind.

**The other unusual thing about this song, for me, is that it’s in 6/8 time. Generally my songs are in 4/4 time, but this is the first of two of my most recent recordings that is in 6/8.

You can find my music on any streaming service, and it can be downloaded as well from Apple Music and from Amazon, to name two.

Share : facebooktwittergoogle plus
pinterest

When I See You Fly; Celebrating Youth and Their Accomplishments

Ultimately, what my children or my students do is their accomplishment, not mine. I can encourage, model, and suggest ideas, but I can’t and shouldn’t claim their success as mine. What I can do is celebrate that success and be happy for them.

Our children, our students, our mentees, need to know and feel that what they have done is a result of their efforts. To claim or point out a parental or educator role in that success is in some way to try to take it from them, to diminish their efforts – and that detracts from and discourages young people and other students from making those efforts. We are all better off when our young people and the lifelong learners among us are celebrated and acknowledged, because that pushes our whole society forward with their innovations and energy.

I originally wrote ‘When I See You Fly’ to celebrate my own kids, but I wanted it to be applicable to celebrate anyone’s accomplishments and growth. The first time I used it was for a video for our middle son’s grade 6 graduation party, along with slides featuring his classmates. That video was never made public, as a result of general privacy concerns. I made another video for my YouTube channel featuring our 3 boys, where the photos in the slides went with the lyrics of the song. This latest recording is music only. I wanted it to be available for others to use in the same way that I used it to celebrate our boys – for their personal celebration videos and occasions.

Here are the lyrics;

You’re so much more than just potential
Long ago, you burst out of your eggshell
And in the intervening hours
You were like that superhero
Learning to control the powers
Of the suit that you were building

Everyone has their moments
Of flapping, of falling, of faltering
The strongest winds may be blowing
Against you so hard, you’re not sure you can keep going

But the moments do pass
I see you take off, see you lift off
You are darting and gliding way up high

And when I see you fly, I fly
You’re soaring through the skies
My spirits also rise
As you’re free among the clouds
I want you to know
That even though I’m here below
When I see you fly, I fly

It’s not about keeping you on the ground
And not just to know that you are safe and sound
I’d love to see the treasure that you found
You stop, and then away you bound

And when I see you fly, I fly
You’re soaring through the skies
My spirits also rise
As you’re free among the clouds
I want you to know
That even though I’m here below
When I see you fly, I fly

Share : facebooktwittergoogle plus
pinterest


Express-sing the Inbetweens

Sure, celebrating big moments & mourning big losses really is important. But every moment is worth our awareness, and all of life should be lived fully.

Songs often are about our high points and our low points. Part of what I hope to do is express those emotions that are in between the extremes.

There’s a risk of confusing action or drama for meaning. Sometimes I think I get bored and try to find a way to make a fresh storyline for my life. I don’t think I’m alone in that… in our fast-paced world, we develop a taste for drama like wild predators develop a taste for blood. Action and the high and low emotions help us to avoid or forget our true anxieties and existential concerns.

So what I want to do is bring out the middle colours of emotion – like doubt, hope, concern, caring, anxiety, dissatisfaction, contentment. Maybe if we can more fully express the range of our emotions, we can avoid leaping from one extreme to another too. Maybe we can more fully live our lives in the day-to-day, and feel alive doing it – or at least have a greater acceptance of ourselves and our emotions because we are more able to name our experience.

My songs ‘I Don’t Know What I Want’ and ‘When I’m Dissatisfied’ are two of those in which I try to express some of those midpoints; indecision, regret, and discontent that seems to arise for no reason.

The lyrics for those 2 songs follow. First, “I Don’t Know What I Want

Share : facebooktwittergoogle plus
pinterest

Decades Later, One Cry Still Echoes

As the (not especially good) director of a caravan day camp in Northern Manitoba one summer, I made the decision to switch over our program entirely from a wilderness skills based camp to an arts camp, since there were a lot of forest fires and we weren’t able to continue with the hiking and campfire-building program that had been the basis of our success for a number of decades. To be fair (to myself), the forest fires were actually significant enough to strand us for a portion of a week, and the air and sky were a greyish-orange because of them.

I had written the first version of the song ‘One Cry Echoes’ while in Northern Manitoba, partly expressing a longing for relational connection, and partly reflecting my sense of the landscape around me.

A First Nations band near The Pas, Manitoba, had a talent night the weekend we were there, open to all. I decided that participating in the talent night was right up the alley of a group that wanted to engage with local communities and had a fresh focus as an arts program, so some of us went there. We got a friendly reception, and I sang my song. I didn’t win any prizes – which was only right, because there was a lot of talent there, and winning prizes wasn’t the point for us. But I was encouraged that one young man sought me out to tell me that he really appreciated my song. So if any of you folks wish that I would really just stop… well, blame him – because his encouragement was part of what kept me going.

Anyway, there was something about the way I paced my lyrics in the original that didn’t seem quite right. I tried changing the words, tried changing how I played the guitar, but nothing was ever quite satisfying. Years went by. Then finally, last year, I decided to try changing the melody and the whole musical structure of the song. Now, finally, it feels right to me. So I recorded it and put it out there.

That’s the story of “One Cry Echoes

Share : facebooktwittergoogle plus
pinterest


1 2 3 4 5 6 8