Author: Sarah (Page 2 of 2)

I know that I have not posted the new song. There is a good reason. I couldn’t sing for about 2 weeks because of “the crud” and then when I finally started playing through the song with Steve there was an altercation. Okay, not really an altercation,an honesty session. Steve, very gently, expressed his opinion and I stormed out. The lyrics are good but the tune was boring and lacking. I wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to creating music. I take every criticism so personally. The fact of the matter is when I really listened to the tune it was boring. I just wanted to come to that conclusion on my own. Steve is a talented man and I have enormous respect for his opinion and, bottom line, I was embarrassed. 

I cannot create in a vacuum. If I am really going to pursue this I have to grow some thicker skin and humble myself. Both are extremely hard. I want people to tell me that the songs I write are amazing all the time but they aren’t going to be. Steve’s heart is for me. I know that he loves me and he wants me to succeed. Sometimes it’s just hard to hear the truth and accept it. The thing that is so neat to me is that he has been working on a great melody for weeks. I started to sing along with it with the lyrics that I have and it sounded really good. I’m not going to be able to do this alone and there will be times when the truth will hurt but it all will make me a better songwriter and hopefully a better friend. In the end truth always wins.

I’ve got to sat that I have been listening to the best music that I have heard in a very long time . It almost rivals the first time I ever heard David Wilcox….. I said, almost. The man’s name is Ray LaMontagne. The album is “Trouble”. Rays music is the kind that takes you somewhere and inspires you to be more in tune with yourself. Right now this is my “life soundtrack”. I hear it in my head constantly. I have been listening to it for about 3 weeks now and I still am not tired of it. He starts singing the chorus on the title song “Trouble” and I get goosebumps every time. I know that he is not Jesus or anything but “crap” can that man write and sing. I want to be able to do that for people. I want to take them somewhere with my music. I want to inspire and encourage people to look deeper and see the world in ways that they haven’t before. Steve says that Rays music is roadtrip music. That is definitely true. It makes me fall in love with music again. David Wilcox does that for me too. These singers and songwriters make music so accessible. 

I want to write my heart. I don’t want to write in such a way that manipulates people into feeling a certain way I want the music to speak for itself. It just makes me excited, to hear new things and know that my sound is all it’s own. I don’t have to sing like Patty Griffin or write like Sting but I can give my own perspective and gift to the world through my music. My friend Sarah gave me a great T-shirt it says “Music moves people” It does…. it definitely does.

P.S. Steve wanted me to make sure that he got the credit for introducing me to Ray’s music. He actually does bring all the great music into the house. There’s another guy to check out. He did the soundtrack for the movie “Dan in real life”. His name is Sondre Lerche……. delicious.

I have a heavy heart tonight. I feel exhausted, not physically but emotionally. I feel as though my heart cannot take much more and then “BAM”, there’s more. I don’t mean to exaggerate(I know that I have that tendency) I just want a day or so of quiet. I am surrounded by hard and stressful things and situations. Situations that I can do nothing about. Marriages cracking under the weight of disappointments and “life” fatigue. Children carrying the weight of other mens sin. People whose lives are slipping away as they sit in offices without any human interaction listening to the hum of their computers and the buzz of florescent lights. Now I’m really being dramatic.

Life is hard. Plain and simple. Tonight I feel that more than usual and it makes me want to run away. It makes me want to get in my car and drive. I am hurting for people that I love dearly. I ache for friends who are facing things that I have nightmares about. Does it stop? Do we get a break? At this point living in a bubble of delusion looks pretty good. Where everything works out just like you want it and everyone is happy. Pain is far away and no one that I know is suffering. Like in the Matrix. Why is that so wrong? I want to save these loved ones. I want to make it all better but I can’t. I want to heal the marriages and make people love again.I want to make the nightmares go away and bring the sunrise but I can’t fix anything, so I am left feeling helpless. But not hopeless. There is always hope.

Life is hard, but God is good.  That is what I will remember as I fall asleep tonight. Steve is sleeping next to me right now as I type. I can feel his breath on my arm. Comfort. I finished my first song in 10 years yesterday… I’ll post it tomorrow.  There is hope…… hope and comfort.       

I have been singing the same song to my oldest son Andy since he was 18 months old. The song is “You can close your eyes” by James Taylor. I’ve sung others but that was the one that stuck. It is our bedtime ritual. I can’t even count how many times I’ve sung it. Tonight as I sang to him and looked at his sweet chubby cheeks I realized that some day I won’t be singing to him every night. Someday he will be going to bed after me. I will lay in my bed listening to my husbands sleepy breathing waiting for the sound of my  son pulling up in the car. These thoughts terrify me. Right now his world revolves around me. I’m not trying to be narcissistic but it does. The day is coming when this crazy time of kid littleness will be over and all I will have are pictures and memories. I recently read a wonderful essay by Anna Quindlin about parenting. She talks about not always looking to the next thing but really being in the minute with these little people because it really will go by in 2 seconds. I thought of that tonight. I thought about his chubby toddler hands and his blue newborn eyes blinking in wonder at the blinds in the living room. He is my first, he is the trailblazer, he is the leader to the other two coming up behind him. I want to remember nights like this one when I’m fed up with parenting, when all I want is to run and hide from the weight of responsibility that kicks me in the gut sometimes. That song will forever encapsulate Andy’s childhood. That song will send tears rushing to my eyes on the day he gets married. That song is a gift to me and to him because I know that that is the song he will sing to his little one and so the legacy will continue. So, that is the impact music makes,it really does change people, even little people and maybe some big people too.