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No Place To Go But Rising

My music and song writing stayed on the back burner for many years.

‘No Place To Go But Rising’ is about beginning to work on my music more seriously after a long period of neglecting that aspect of who I am. It’s about trying to be authentic, while recognizing my family responsibilities and financial obligations.

Just making money isn’t enough to nurture a person’s spirit. Making a living, on its own, isn’t enough to give meaning to life. For me, life is about nurturing significant relationships and about authentically living out who you are while in the process of contributing to community.

It’s okay to feel like you’re beginning something fresh and from out of nowhere. Like the song says, “…(at) least I(‘ve) got my direction”.

Ironically, when I did this one in the studio, I didn’t really have any ‘direction’ for the ending. So I kind of just went with what I felt, and in the end I’m pretty pleased with the energy that emerged.

Here are the lyrics.

No Place To Go But Rising

No place to go but rising
Least I got my direction
From here any more surprising
Come from dregs of perspiration

Need to figure out what’s to get ’em
To part with they money
Right now my upper crust
Is a long way from milk and honey

Make my way with dignity
Nobody buying desperation
Maybe someone gonna sing with me
Maybe get my compensation

Gotta do what I was made for
Even getting what I need
Gotta have some joy here
Though there’s someone here to feed

Nowhere to go but up
Up is where I’m looking
And right now I’m getting up
For going up

Up for going up
Up for going up
Up for going up

Up for going up
Up for going up
Up for going up

No place to go but rising
No place to go but rising
No place to go but rising
No place to go but up

No place to go but rising
Least I got my direction
From here any more surprising
Come from dregs of perspiration

Nowhere to go
nowhere to go
nowhere to go but up

Nowhere to go
nowhere to go
nowhere to go but up

Up for going up
Up for going up
Up for going up

Up for going up
Up for going up
Up for going up

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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�.

I don’t know what I want
Many good thing pass me by
I don’t know what I want
Many good thing pass me by
Hope something’s still out there
When I make up my mind

Well, it might have been love
Maybe just infatuation
…but it might have been love
Hope someone will have me
In the fullness of time

Maybe should have said yes
Maybe it just as well
Maybe should have said yes
Maybe it just as well
I don’t know what I want
I don’t know what I want
I don’t know what I want
…many good thing pass me by

The ‘No Regrets’ slogan irritates me at times. Maybe I’m the only one. I realize that it’s supposed to be about living to the fullest and not being afraid to make mistakes.

But I think the idea of denying any regret also kind of denies that what I do has impacts on other people, and that sometimes those impacts could be more positive. That’s where I carry regret – when I know that things I have said or done were self-serving or ignorant. Of course I don’t want that regret to paralyze me and lead to inaction, because that could only compound harm or fail to serve the good.

So yeah, ‘I Don’t Know What I Want’ is about having that regret and uncertainty, and being in the moment of it, and recognizing that sometimes the loss we experience comes from not taking the opportunities that we had when they were offered, and those missed opportunities affect ourselves and others too.

When I’m Dissatisfied

When I’m dissatisfied
I can’t find a reason
No matter what I try
There’s no pleasin’ me

I get anxious and impatient
Though I have no place to be
And my family starts wondering
What’s going on with me

When I’m dissatisfied
When I’m dissatisfied

When I’m dissatisfied
I can’t find peace
Every song on the radio
Sounds like noise to me

When I’m dissatisfied
I’m dying by degrees
I get soul-weary, tired
And I’m filled with apathy

When I’m dissatisfied
When I’m dissatisfied

Seldom do things seem to matter

Often time feels blah at best

Nothing ever really seems to
Change the east or move the west

Then I try to mix it up
Try to get out of my rut
Do different things, change my routine
Try to move myself, but

When I’m dissatisfied
I am dissatisfied
When I’m dissatisfied
I am dissatisfied

… I think ‘When I’m Dissatisfied’ is worth my time to sing because simply expressing discontent is sometimes enough for me to feel a bit better. Also, it’s a song that doesn’t blame anyone or anything for the fact that I’m feeling a bit grumpy or a bit off. Sometimes a person just feels off, and that’s okay, and it’s probably better to recognize that and accept it than to look for a scapegoat for that sense of discontent.

So to sum up, I believe that if we come to better understand and express the daily emotions that we feel in all of their complexity, we may ultimately feel more at peace and content. Forging such a connection to our emotions – a kind of spiritual connection, I believe – may help us to avoid the pitfalls of seeking more drama or action in a misguided quest to fill the void we feel when we don’t understand the root of the emotions that we have.

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