By: MJ
This post gives some context to a part of my mission statement.
I have been composing since I was a late teen, and lyric writing since maybe a year or two after that. Only because my mother challenged my hidden dragon and postulated to me that I was probably musical, since she was. So curiosity caused me to answer the question. It’s a hobby, but also a therapy.
If you read what Neil Young or Noel Gallagher say about writing music, then you will get a good glimpse into the problems of this hobby. Kudos to them and others for making a living out of it – it can’t be easy to get so many variables to align. Songwriting is a somewhat consuming beast that rages between being a blessing and a curse, and a kitten and a crocodile. I don’t do it for fame: I do it to get my cognitive wiggles out. I have no idea why one becomes a vector for these sorts of things, but one has to make peace with it and accept that maybe it is simply human nature and how we are wired. Music exists across cultures, and has been a driving social factor in cultures and civilizations, so it is nice to feel a part of that. Of all the potential things one could become consumed with at times, this is fairly benign but sufficiently ancient and unnerving. That said, any hobby that lets you experience flow probably has similar characteristics.
The song that follows was written in January 2017 as an internal reaction to the fear and uncertainty of this enormous change we were planning. It somehow got attached to a riff I fiddled around with in about 2006 – a riff I had saved as an audio file on an old flip phone from California that I was attempting to reboot to get rid of in late 2016. My sisters are probably happy that this song has some semblance of rhyme scheme.
Finishing this song was like feeling the dense click of a key releasing a heavy lock. The feeling of completing something can be that specific.
SOMETHING LIKE THAT
You know it’s something like that. You know we don’t get to choose.
We flew a flag and a fist amongst the serial news.
Another feather in the hat. Another dose of the blues.
Stumblin’, stumblin’, again.
— Better keep an eye out: For something like that.
Before the tyre goes flat – should start absorbing the views.
Before the tyre goes flat – you’d think we’d paid all our dues.
Another feather in the hat. Another dose of the blues.
Stumblin’, stumblin’, again.
We’re beating somebody’s mat. We’re betting red and then blue.
We’re getting wayward, on…
Something…
Something…
…but not everything.
We’ll give a tip of the hat We’ll grab a bunch of reviews.
It’s kind of hard and its late in this cluster of brews.
You know it’s something like that. Now I’m not one to amuse.
But let us tighten… and tighten… and tighten the screws.
— Better keep an eye out: For something like that.
We had a dog and a cat. But let’s go visit some zoos.
Maybe it’s time to renew…
Something…
Something…
You know it’s something like this:
We’ll get the whole damn tattoo.
From the album: Shades of Yesterday #6. Released May 1, 2017.
https://footonthedoor.bandcamp.com/track/something-like-that
https://footonthedoor.bandcamp.com/track/something-like-that-6-track-version
(In making recommendations the site owner may receive a commission if a purchase is made on any of the Amazon links below.)
