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What’s he building in there?

– Tom Waits

Hi Friends,

I’ve been carrying on with a foot in two worlds: Summertime is nigh. With its arrival each year, it’s always hard to stay in studio rat mode. While I’ve yet to take the live rig to the park, there’s been no shortage of barefoot hangs in the local grass. It feels so good to sit under the trees again. That said, I am still in studio rat mode. The new recordings are going so amazingly well. I’m finding time to be parkside and in the studio. There’s a rhythm to it all. Finish work, get outside for a blast of sunshine and earth, grab dins, walk, sit on a bench and yell at the clouds and/or hold court with the locals, head home, fire up the gear as soon as I walk in the door, and get down to it.

There are nine new songs in the works. This week saw me writing a strings intro and a piano part for Hideaway, the last of the acoustic guitar-based numbers (there’s one full piano composition on deck that’ll be the subject of its own blog, very excited about it!). The strings bits came smoothly and mostly fully formed. The piano part is another story. I banged it out piece by piece. It’s interesting, being the guy writing and performing everything. I’ve always had band envy, the practice of rehearsing a song together til everyone gets their parts really tight before recording. I occurred to me this week that I’ve been lovingly getting the different parts together as though I was a member of a band playing his instrument. The depth of energy it takes to be the one writing and playing everything means taking time. I let the parts simmer. Listen to the dailies. Keep nurturing the notes and delivery.

In this recent case, with the piano on Hideaway, I’ve gone deep. The better part of the arrangement licks came freely. When it came to the break, I knew how I wanted it to feel. I banged it out. It was full of clams (bad notes and obviously mistakes), but the feeling was there. I knew where I wanted it to go, but the technique it required was beyond me. Today’s technology would allow me to piece together the parts with mouse clicks. I’ve done this sparingly in the past, it’s handy. I made a conscious choice to not do that here. I decided that I wanted to sit with it, to rehearse and develop the part til I could lay it down with groove and conviction.

It happened. And it was worth all the effort. As a result I’m a better player. A better arranger. More tools in the toolbox. More art in the art house. So good.

Here’s a bit of the outro from last night’s session. Hope ya dig…

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Out of sorrow, entire worlds have been built
Out of longing, great wonders have been willed

– Nick Cave, Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair

-Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

With summer’s end approaching, the Khalil Gibran quote above is fitting. I’m rereading Gibran’s The Prophet, a well-worn standby. No one else comes close to putting divinity and unspeakable beauty into words. I’ve spent countless hours this summer barefoot in the grass at the local park. Much of that time has been spent singing for the people. Much of it has been spent writing & reading, and much of it spent starfished and gazing up at the sky and trees. These have been this summer’s meditation.

Each year, I always feel a sense of back to school energy. It’s a time of renewed focus and creativity. This has been a season of retreat, healing and (some) relaxation. Fall is a welcome one this year. I’m excited to be working on new music and keeping the Stereophile flames fanned. I’m writing today to share Dark Horse, one of the tracks from the record and book.

The oldest song on Stereophile, Dark Horse was written years ago, while house-sitting. The words and music started to come to me while sitting amongst piles of bird shit. Say what? It’s true. I was housesitting for a wonderfully eccentric, elderly neighbour, Nancy. She’d been an opera singer in Ireland in her youth. She married a U of T prof and they spent many happy years together before his passing. Nancy, in her later years, kept birds. Not wanting them to be stuck in a cage, she let them fly free about the house. They shat everywhere. She was happy to let sleeping turds lie. There was no shortage of crusty droppings lying here and there.

From these avian-based beginnings came Dark Horse. I’ve been working with depression all my life. At the time the song was written, I was particularly aware that a sensitive being, one prone to chemical imbalance, is also often one that’s very aware and insightful. While the lens we see life through can cause difficulty and be sometimes very messy and devastating (to us and those around us), it’s also something very special. It allows us to see and feel deeply. Nick Cave’s line in today’s first quote always hit me. Pain and longing, when brought forth, have willed great wonders.

Dear Subscribers: If you’re reading this via the email drop, the Soundcloud player doesn’t appear in your email. Click here to listen to the song: Dark Horse

As the years went by and Dark Horse stuck around, it began to take on new meaning. I’m close to someone with a number of different neurodiversities. I see a great awareness, insight and creativity in them. These traits are not limited to those of us who have experienced depression. So many of us with cognitive and emotional challenges look to art to allow us to process. To come back. Our sensitive natures often result in us feeling diminished by the heaviness of the world. Not just its obvious atrocities, but the ever growing isolation we’re feeling, and the general direction of disregard in which the speed of life is taking us. I’ve recently read, in don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, that we’re all, as he puts it, living in hell. This hell is based on all the societal and familial agreements we’ve made with ourselves, those that beat the wild bits out of us, with an aim at domestication and burying our true nature. I don’t disagree. We’re in the throes of global human tribulation. Our masks are suffocating us and very few among us have found the means to shed our personas and all that we’ve learned, to go with an open, authentic heart.

The chorus lyrics in Dark Horse:

Don’t you know you’re not alone
I want you to know you’re not alone

While I’ve always been happy with the song’s verses, the chorus lines are crucial to keep in our hearts and minds. When we’re down in the dark hole of anxiety/depression/ADHD/OCD/basic human sadness, etc., and it feels like there’s no way out, they’re a reminder that we are not the first or the last to feel this way. Reconnection is always available, if we can find the wherewithal to drop our false notion of feeling like a burden and reach out. These words have for me more recently been a much needed reminder of our interconnectedness. We are not alone. Each of us is made of the same light, separated at birth and finding our way through this strange and beautiful place, so often feeling solo, when we are anything but.

Interestingly, for all the years Dark Horse has been around, I’ve never until now recorded it and have never performed it live. I’d like to record a simple live video version of it here at home. Maybe in the fall. It’ll land in the live set at some point. This year has been quiet on the gig front and, for the first time in decades, I’m happy and comfortable saying that. That said, I’m feeling a bit itchy. We’ll see what autumn brings.

May we all find our way back home. Back to ourselves and each other, and the love that waits patiently, with open arms, for our return.

As always, thanks for reading. Enjoy the track…

K.xo