Friday 31 January 2014

"Have Your Cake And Eat It"

Or not. I've been taking an interest in diet and nutrition for a while. I think it's what's supposed to happen to you, unless you're particularly happy go lucky, when you get past 40 or 50. You're brain starts to tell you: hey mate, you're MORTAL!

So I've read a lot about foody stuff. One of the things I've decided is probably correct is that it is not a good idea to put fats (proteins like meat, fish, and oils)  and sugars (including sugar, and carbohydrates like wheat based items ) together. So...Cake? No. Doughnuts? No. Processed foods of most descriptions? No. You knew that of course.

But also. Potatoes/ rice/bread and meat. No! You can eat those things separately, but it seems that when you put them together it turns on some addictive triggers in our heads which stop us knowing when to stop. In fact a lot of the big companies (clue: money making businesses) sussed this years ago and pay evil science types  millions to discover the exact addictive proportions of fats and sugars needed to make you simply HAVE to have one more bag of Wotsits. Or another Big Mac.

Now, you might think this is hokum pokum, and likely to cause unhappiness and stress related ulcers. And perhaps you're  right. But I have realised that when I think of giving up cheese on toast, I get  exactly the same nervous, twitchy unease that I used to get when I contemplated giving up cigarettes.

I know. One is Food. The other is a dangerously unhealthy carcinogenic drug. But the science seems to suggest that I might be doing myself damage with my tasty snacks too. And that I am in fact addicted to certain combinations of food. Which leads me to eating things that make me more likely to get...well, you know, the usual suspects. Deathly things.

So I'm experimenting. I'm basically going to eat  most of the usual stuff, but not mix my carbohydrates and proteins, the sugars and fats. In short I'm going cold turkey on pizza.

I discovered when I stopped smoking ten years ago that most of the cravings that told me I MUST HAVE a cigarette were psychological. And just by stopping, and carrying on stopping, the cravings have gone. And I realise that I don't have to smoke. More than that, I really, really, don't want to.  I learned to enjoy other things instead. Remarkably I'm happy without cigarettes. Happier, to be honest.

 Because of that experience, I've no doubt I can learn to like foods in certain combinations, and stop craving food in other combinations. And I don't care if you think I'm being silly. I know I won't live forever. But I want to give myself a good shot at staying as healthy as a dying person can be.

Incidentally, I am not giving out any dietary advice here. Hence, I've not put links to any of my highly classified sources. I'm telling you what's happening simply because people are ringing me, messaging me, emailing all the time to find out what I'm doing at any given hour of the day. It's exhausting keeping up. Hope this helps.

Disclaimer: if you die because of anything you read in this blog it's not my fault. Fact!  



The line "Have your cake and eat it" is from my song "Have Your Cake And Eat It"  at Fee Comes Fourth. September 4th 2012.





Thursday 30 January 2014

"I Don't Like You, You Annoy Me"

You may know that we have foster children. If you've been taken from your original family, even if they weren't the greatest, it's never going to be fun. Imagine what it must be like, if you can. Getting taken away from them just because someone says you have to leave is going to hurt, even if they've neglected their parental responsibilities. They were still your parents.

One of our boys was taken away from two mother figures he had become attached to  at a young age. The first his real mum, the second another foster carer. He  used to say/shout the title line of this blog to me quite often for the first 2 or 3 years of being with us. Sometimes he still does. On one occasion he repeated it over and over for an hour. "I don't like you, you annoy me". In the end I picked up my guitar and started singing that line right back at him. It made him laugh, and broke the spell.

Anyway, the line and the verse that had popped out had  potential. And it became a song. A song about something different. About the kind of love/hate relationship that can sometimes materialise when two people are together for a long time. The kind of relationship which looks like a divorce statistic waiting to happen, but somehow doesn't. And somehow, despite the rocky horror, a deep down affection, remains clinging to the rock face, like a limpet at the bottom of a cliff on a stormy shore line.

Somebody once called "I Don't Like You"  a fantastic love song. To my face. I was delighted that the fella got that out of it, because it is a love song. But he was from Glasgow and they see everything differently there.

The song came to mind when I read a really good article by my long lost, but recently and happily found, South African cousin who writes an interesting blog about being a christian and  life in general. Often he writes  directly to other christians, but sometime it's  for everyone. The blog article in question is called Marriage Sucks and suggests that jokingly insulting your partner is not  the best way to build a healthy relationship.

And he's right.  I agree with pretty much everything he said.  I feel challenged by the ideas put forward. Definitely worth a read and a ponder. I like the way Brett takes a knife to a certain sort of cynicism.

 Despite that, I personally think that divorce is the only answer for some couples. And I also have deep admiration for those who manage to cling together like two sinking ships leaning into each other to stay afloat. Because that situation seems quite familiar to me. For some couples, the joking, and not so joking insults,  are part of the "leaning into".  And something special can appear out of the most unpromising wreckage. Which  is kind of like the perspective I sometimes have on my own marriage to Ineke, who I love deeply.


The line "I don't like you, you annoy me" is from my unreleased song "I Don't Like You". It was suggested, unwittingly, by Brett Fish Anderson.


Fee Comes Fourth



Wednesday 29 January 2014

"You Don't Have To Be Strong"

A friend of ours from Iran heard this lyric and her response was: it's not true, we do have to be strong.
She lives in a country which has become dominated by Islamic fundamentalism to a degree which has made life oppressive and sometimes dangerous for those that step out of line. For women even more so. It didn't use to be like this. But years before the British/American alliance was going to war in Iraq, Britain was supporting the USA's interference in Iran. And our governments played a part, possibly a major part, in bringing the current situation about. What are we like with our democratic ways?

So my friend doesn't consider herself free because she is at the mercy of religious dictates from a vastly male dominated leadership who take their views from the Koran, their Word of God, and not from democratically informed reason.

In order to be herself, to live, in that country, of course she needs to be strong. In order to stay alive, to achieve our goals, to cope with pain, to be there for the people we care about...of course we have to be strong.

But I would like to complete the line. The all important context is: You don't have to be strong...here in my arms.

Of course my arms aren't the important feature here, you might be pleased to hear.  The important matter is that we all need somewhere to feel safe. And the more unsafe our environment, the more true that becomes. The more we are surrounded by troubles, the more vital that we have a place to go to, a person to sink into.

I wrote the song out of an awareness that I need arms to hold me when I am weak. We all do.

The line "You don't have to be strong" is from my song of the same name and was chosen by Steve Byrne. It is on my album A Human Being

Tuesday 28 January 2014

"Oh Tuesday, Don't Be Blue Day"

This line was from a song  collaboration with a few songwriting friends. So it's quite possible I didn't even write it. But on a song collaboration everyone takes the blame. And everyone gets the praise. If there is any going. Collaborations are good when you're struggling to do it on your own.

I'm feeling a little bit short of inspiration right now.  It's the down side to committing to doing something, anything, on a regular basis. The well will run dry, but the job still has to get done. And the truth is I've got a brain, so the well is never really dry.  There is hundreds of stuff in there that I haven't even begun to tap. And some of it you might even want to hear about. Some of it I might even want to hear about.

But I'm squeezing the lemon hard right now, as you can tell, and though the drips are still dripping, I'm seeing far more seeds, and pith, and skin than juice.

But don't be blue. I think I've got just enough for a pancake. Alright, it's not Shrove Tuesday, but hey, I'm married to a dutch woman. Pancakes are for anytime.

Anybody got a teaspoon of sugar?


"Oh Tuesday, don't be blue day" is from the song All I Want To Do (Wanna Dance) - July 4th 2013 (Co-Writers Steve Jones and Tina Pluchino)

Monday 27 January 2014

"Looking At This And That. The Avoidance Tactics."

I think I heard someone say that the main purpose of life is to find enough distractions. Which sounds a little bit lacking in ambition. But I know what they mean. Having been someone who bust a gut looking for a purpose, a big purpose, to my being here, I can now see the appeal in simply looking for distractions.

Of course, those distractions don't have to be meaningless and trivial. Although I am partial to a game of solitaire or sudoko on my iphone when I'm in the little boy's room (that's really not very sexist in our house, because it mainly is a little boy's room). But you could get distracted by trying to prevent poverty, solving world peace, becoming a Pope who actually sides with the folk from the wrong side of town, or something less enormous, but never the less altruistic.

It's nice to get distracted by stuff that will make the world a better place for other people. Though that is sometimes a hard one to get right. Unasked for help can be condescending and cause more problems than it solves. But as long as you're prepared to change tactics mid "help" it's still a very good distraction to be distracted by.

I'm getting distracted at the moment by trying to write a song for a commercial artist who is a young woman in her early twenties. No, I don't consider myself the best candidate for this job. It's simply a challenge I've set myself this year. And, no, there isn't anything worthy about this particular distraction. But it does stop me thinking too many pompous, conceited, holier than thou thoughts about the modern pop world. Mainly because it's bloody difficult. It's not just about writing a brilliant song (at least in modern pop terms). There are a million other hurdles to jump through too.

But I'm giving it a shot. It's keeping me off the streets. Though it probably won't change the world very much in other ways.

Yours Distractedly

Fee


The line "Looking at this and that. The avoidance tactics" is from my song The Book (unreleased, though there is this rubbishy youtube vid of me singing it in my boudoir).

Sunday 26 January 2014

"Life Is Good"

So, this morning I was playing a song I'd written sometime last year called Life Is Good. And a few minutes later I rang our Daughter-in-Law in waiting (DIL for short) who was choosing the line for todays blog. And she chose the title line of that very song. Serendipity!

The irony is that  the next Fee Comes Fourth song (February 4th)  is  called Life Is Difficult. And irony upon irony, The DIL, inspired that one too! (Chuckle, chuckle). When she came down to stay for christmas she brought with her  a book called The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck which I had read back in the day. And I was reminded of it's opening line, which is:

"Life is difficult".

And there we have it. The paradox. And who doesn't love a good paradox. I know I do. Life IS difficult. And the acceptance of that fact, which was largely the theme of Scott Peck's book, is actually one of the major steps we need to make in order to survive and hopefully thrive in our lives.

But that doesn't over ride the fact that:

"Life is good".

I doubt many people who are more than a few years into existence on planet earth would disagree with the "life is difficult" statement. Because each day contains many problems to which we have to find  solutions. And we either embrace that "difficulty" or we are overcome by it.

 But where is the good? Even if we put aside our subjective experience, the memories of painful times, and look at the Universe from an objective point of view, it would be easy to describe existence in very "un-good" terminology. The wider universe looks cold and lifeless. And our world, though full of life, is full of life which manages to exist by hunting, consuming, and causing pain to other life. What is good about any of that?

Perhaps it is what we choose to see.  Like on family holidays. We demand sunshine, because we deserve it. After all we live in THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. GIVE ME SUN! I NEED SUN! But then, it rains. Again.

And there we have the "difficult" bit. Ok, not major difficult, but still.

Good is usually very personal though.

Fortunately we've been able to bring our very own Good Detector with us for the last couple of, sometimes rainy, summer holidays. Because our eldest son Daniel, did a clever thing, and found himself a lovely girl who will  officially become part of our family in April. She's our very first daughter, with a first class honours degree in "Silver Linings and Finding the Goodness in Life". Welcome to the family Susanna. Life is good.


The line "Life is Good" is from my song of the same name (unreleased) and was chosen by Susanna Angus.


Fee Comes Fourth












Saturday 25 January 2014

"She Burns With A Passion, She's Taming The Wind"

What I like about doing this blog based on lines from my songs, is that it can go in so many directions. But I'm going to avoid the potential discussion about flatulence, that I might have chosen, until another occasion.

I could have talked about Scotland and independence, because the passionate woman in this song was intended as a metaphor for the wild, funny, passionate, contradictory, independent  country that  I have made my home.

This  could be about the importance of spending your life doing those things that you really care about. For instance, if you are not in school anymore then you really don't have to take French, or anything else that you happen not to like, just because that's what you've been told to do. Life is short, and perhaps we should be finding a way, anyway, of doing the stuff that makes us feel alive.

I've decided not to talk about the environment and wind power, or to ask whether the industry which has become such an important part of the local economy here in Kintyre, is actually a red herring in the search to find a suitable replacement for oil, as well as a blight on the wild places that help to refresh us.

Or to write about self control, and  assert that having passion isn't enough in itself. Which is why premature ejaculation has never been a cause for celebration.

But, what I am in fact writing about, it turns out, is that in every endeavour, the most important part is to start. Because if you don't start you won't finish. And even if at the finish you're not happy with the outcome, you have learned something that will help you do better next time.

The End.



The line "She burns with a passion, she's taming the wind" is from my song Tartan And Lace (October 4th 2013). It was chosen by Daniel Fee.


Friday 24 January 2014

"The Outlooks More Hopeful When You Come Around"

It's not the done thing, especially in the British Isles, but here's a FACT I really like about myself.

I'm awfully honest. I don't mean honest in the sense that I always tell the truth. Or that I'll always say what I'm thinking. God forbid. Nothing as simple as that. Or that I wouldn't lie to a Nazi in order to protect the  gay, black, jewish, paraplegic friend (Nigel)  who is living in my attic. (Don't ask!)

It's more at a fundamental level. If I think that I'm doing or saying something that gives  you the wrong impression, or delusional ideas about me, I'll go out of my way to redress the balance. If I say something, and later think that the thing I said was bullshit, and if it's not something really trivial, I will tell you. If I one hundred percent believe something to be true, and preach it from the rooftops, and then change my mind, or get a bit of doubt, I would rather look very stupid, than pretend that my views were still the same. I care that stuff is true. Not surface true, really true. I'm so honest that sometimes I'll lie to protect people who can't cope with true. Including myself, ironically. Because honesty, like any other quality, is not an island, and I would be lying to myself if I pretended that honesty isn't always appropriate. Often gentleness and patience and simple friendship are needed. I have mixed abilities with those qualities. But it's the honesty bit that I'm patting myself on the back for.

And this might seem a bit narcissistic, in fact it almost certainly is, but I think that the mixed bag of qualities I have, are ones that I look for in The friend. I don't mean A friend. We're talking Soul Mate here. The one I've never found. And I've come to suspect  that  the term Soul Mate, is in fact simply a description for someone who is really a twin brother or sister. A slightly different reflection of oneself. Somebody, in fact, who doesn't actually exist. Even if you happen to have an actual twin brother or sister.

In other words, Soul Mate is probably an unrealistic expectation to put out into the world, or to put onto the shoulders of the folk who qualify as friends, despite never quite being... well, you know...me.

So, in all honesty, I'm here to say, that  I've decided that you qualify as The Friend if, to return to my title, "the outlooks more hopeful when you come around". That simplifies matters. And suddenly I find I've got a lot more friends. Result!



"The outlooks more hopeful when you come around" is from my song When You Come Around" from my album A Human Being










Thursday 23 January 2014

"I'm Not Going To Heaven, I'm Not Going To Hell"

I am a fairly rare breed. We all change as people, but not many leave the tribe they were born into. Most people tend to stick, to a greater or lesser extent, with the one they're brought up with, and are happy to accept the label even if it's only a label and not a sign of anything deeper. For instance the Catholic who doesn't go to mass, or necessarily believe in God, but still identifies with the wider culture...the football team, the guilt, the Pope's infallibility etc. Some might not have labels they wear openly, but if you are born into a secular, humanist family, you're likely to continue seeing yourself as part of the non-religious world.

To be honest that's a fairly pragmatic way of approaching things. Making the best of what you've been given. Taking what you like from the pile, leaving the rest, but still having a tribe to belong to.


I don't think there is any superiority to be claimed in being an idealist, albeit a pragmatic one, and someone for whom the fundamental truth of an issue is important. But never the less, that is the kind of person I am. And that kind of person is likely to question even their relationship with the tribe that brought them up. 


As a result I have experienced two large portions of my life with two very different world views. I started off with the one, a very all encompassing one, which was evangelical christianity. And because it is so all encompassing, and I'm a sensitive soul who never wanted to offend anyone, least of all God, this resulted in a slow, painful, but wholly unavoidable process of changing my mind. I doubt I could have acted any differently.


It is still difficult, because unlike some born again atheists, I don't want to divorce myself from the people and friendships of that other world. On the contrary, in some ways I am quite keen to build relationships and bridges, because everything bad that happens on this planet, happens when we put the needs of our own sub-tribe above the wider world.


But there is a grieving involved in leaving a tribe. Especially a tribe that affects every area of life. So I don't find that communication easy. And although I have absolutely no desire to steal anyones faith, how do I honestly communicate with someone when they believe,  for instance, that the bible is God's word, and can be allowed to usurp (if it comes down to that) a reasoned argument. Which is, of course, a wholly logical stand point within it's own parameters, if you believe that God has access to a higher reasoning that we have not yet acquired. And that he speaks through the people who wrote the bible.


You'd think it would be easier because I come from that world. And trust me, I was completely immersed. In some ways yes it is, in some ways no, it's harder. The long and short of it is that this sort of communication is a work in progress for me. Some would say "why bother?". I don't know really? It just matters to me. And I know it's just as difficult for the ones who are trying to genuinely communicate with me.  I appreciate those who try, particularly when they don't try to hide too much behind "God's Word" but engage on more neutral ground.



The line "I'm not going to heaven, I'm not going to hell" is from my song Devotion of April 4th 2013 at Fee Comes Fourth











Wednesday 22 January 2014

"Waiting Till The Wild Geese Have Flown"

Birds again. I love watching them in the wilds. And almost as much, sometimes possibly more, I enjoy watching them on TV.

The close ups are closer, and if you can  listen to a passionate, funny and knowledgeable  birdie like Bill Odie (wherever he is now) or Chris Packham talking about them, then all the better.

But the thing I'm really looking forward to is a time a long, long way in the future (he says kind of hopefully, but also wistfully). At that time I will have absolutely no sense of responsibility, in likelihood little mobility, few scruples, and probably even fewer marbles. And I will be sitting outside in my Y-fronts on a sunny day watching some common tits and finches on my bird table, while I try to learn how to whistle in their language.

And I hope that thought brings you some very comforting and uplifting mental imagery. My pleasure.


The line "Waiting Till The Wild Geese Have Flown" is from my  unreleased song of the same name.



Fee Comes Fourth

Tuesday 21 January 2014

"See The Lamp Light Shining Through The Curtain Gap"

I've been a good sleeper most of my life, but recently it's not been great. And I don't know why. The only explanation I can find is that I've been thinking. About family, songs, work to the house, songs, family, work to the house. The state of the world. Death. Songs. Family. The usual stuff.

But I've always thunk a lot, and the themes haven't changed that much. Maybe it's the male menopause. My body adjusting to the beginning of the beginning of the final act. Which, by the way, I intend to extend to the point where people are dragging the curtain down  and physically kicking me off the stage.

Sleep is important we are told. You can have too much of it, or too little. Go to bed at roughly the same time. Good patterns. I am trying to develop good patterns. Habits have become important to me, even though, by nature, I am in love with spontaneity. I'm trying to choose the habits I acquire now, rather than letting bad ones bully their way into my life and then stick around like scruffy squatters.

But those quiet times, awake in the night can be some of the best (when they're not some of the worst) for quietly letting the mind wander . To plan and hope and dream. And find solutions. In peace. Anything's possible. Maybe I struggle to get to sleep so that I can spend time imagining impossible, big dreams. Maybe my sub-conscious brain never got the hang of waking me at the right time in the middle of the right dreams to tell me whatever I wasn't listening to during the day. So it's thinking. Stuff this, I'm not gonna let the little beep drop off so easily anymore.

Anyway, no point in fighting head on with Mr Sleepless. You have to catch him unawa


"See the lamp light shining through the curtain gap" is from a recently written, but unrecorded song called Wounded Soldier.


Fee Comes Fourth



Sunday 19 January 2014

"I'll Be Spiderman, Dangerman, Bananaman"

As a songwriting friend called Murray Webster wrote "Don't get bitter, get better".

And that was kind of the theme of what I like to think of as my cult, ahem, classic, Potatoman, from which today's line is taken. I performed a part of it, only a part, at my first ever singer/songwriter gig at The Cruban bar in Carradale about 14 or 15 years ago. It wasn't called Potatoman at the time. It didn't have a name. But I went back and played another gig a couple of weeks later, and a fella said "play that Potatoman song". And I had to think for a minute because I didn't have any songs with potatoes in. Never mind songs about people who dressed up as super hero root vegetables. But the penny quickly dropped and my new song had it's very own title/jacket.

I got a decent recording of this song done with the Twisted Melons many years ago, but it's changed a little bit since then, and I would like to do it again. Maybe with the Melons once more. Who knows? But these days I've got songs coming out my ears, and lots of other things I have to do and it keeps getting put off. It will happen though.

Potatoman came at a time in my life when I suddenly, and scarily, could see a little bit of connection between myself and those folk you sometimes meet who seem to have had all the life and ability to laugh or smile, surgically removed. I had never sensed any possible connection between me and those people. But then I lived a little bit. And some of my plans, and imaginings, and dreams died a death. And I realised that things might not always, might never, turn out the way I had expected or hoped.

I began to suspect that people aren't in fact born with a bitter gene. Instead, bitterness is a combination of hard life experiences and a failure to dream new dreams when the old ones die. It's a protection against the cold, easterly winds of fortune. And I am as capable of coming down with it as the next human being because we all yearn for a bit of protection from hard reality sometimes. But I really didn't, I don't, want to become bitter...and so I wrote a song about it.  Remarkably, it didn't contain any potatoes.

...I'll be Spiderman, Dangerman, Bananaman, but please don't let me end up a bitter man.


Fee Comes Fourth




Saturday 18 January 2014

"We Could Stand At The Edge Of The World, We Could Do That..."

I've just returned from a rainy walk up Ben Gullion which is the hill overlooking Campbeltown. Don't go to the very top actually. Just to the bench. It's the top point of a series of paths that run along the northern face of the hill. And it has become a great place to start my mornings with one of my sons, Samuel, on four days each week.

It's usually been dark on the way up (though today we went later, and my wife Ineke  and 8 year old Aiden joined us) and we get to the bench in time to see Campbeltown waking up. I'm rubbish in the mornings, but by virtue of pushing ourselves up the steep climb, getting the lungs working hard, and feeling the smug satisfaction of achievement, the morning sickness has disappeared by the time we reach the bench. And as it gets lighter we can sit for a few minutes  and look out over Campbeltown Loch, Davaar Island and Arran to the east and to the west the Atlantic Ocean and the islands of Islay and the Paps of Jura in the distance.  And in between Campbeltown, my home and, it has to be said, the best wee toon in the whole goddamn Universe.

And I'm gonna say it. I'm a lucky bugger. And it's good to appreciate what I've got, because I've not always been able to do that. I hope I can appreciate this view from the edge of the world for a good while yet. If you're ever around, you are welcome to come and join me.


The line "We could stand at the edge of the world"  is from my song Angels For Today (June 4th 2013) and was chosen by Gary Carey, whose own album should be coming out soon (or I won't be held responsible for my actions!)


Friday 17 January 2014

"They Were Never Interested In Fifteen Minutes Of Fame"

I picked this line by the age old art of closing my eyes and sticking a pin in the direction of the donkey.

It's from a song which is one of the very earliest I wrote, which I have never performed, and which I doubt I'll ever record. The date was 14th March 1996 in the days when we didn't have a TV and we had four  young children at home. Of course we still have young children at home, and that is because we live in a curious time warp which scientists are trying hard to understand.

Anyway, I went into the library one day and found myself reading headlines in the newspapers about the tragic massacre in a Dunblane school which had happened the day before. The stories I read tore me to bits. It felt so close to home simply because I had children, and I could begin to imagine how the parents of the children must be feeling.  And so I wrote the song to get all those stormy, fragile emotions out of my system, and to try and make a connection with people  who were experiencing a kind of suffering that I hoped I would never have to.

You will probably know that tennis player Andy Murray was one of the children who was in the school at the time all of that happened. Which is one of the most surreal pieces of trivia. He's become one of those tiny minority of people in the world who spend the majority of their lives in the public spotlight. A bit of a legend. I doubt that is any comfort to the parents who lost  children though. Nobody wants to experience their cruel sort of fame.



The line "They were never interested in fifteen minutes of fame" is from my song Fifteen Minutes (unreleased)

Thursday 16 January 2014

"The Wind Pierces Deeper"

I am reluctant to make any comments about matters that I know nothing about. But it seems to be getting windier.

In my intuitively emotional head this is all loosely, or directly, connected to global warming and human kinds messing, to an excessive level, with our fragile planet.

Of course this is probably all cobblers. You can't really judge the direction a several billion year old planet's weather is heading based on the impressions of one puny lifetime. But I'm glad that at the very least I'm putting the blame, these days, on something that it is possible to change. Divine apocalypse is off my radar now. I've come to realise that the end, my end, the worlds end,  is far more likely to be a humanly instigated apocalypse, or a random meteorite.

But I have been known to be wrong, so don't place your bets quite yet.


The line "The Wind Pierces Deeper" was chosen for this blogging by Michael Fee. He was trying to be funny at the time. It is from this months Fee Comes Fourth song Crossing The Wild Lands.

Wednesday 15 January 2014

"Would You Like My Last Polo And A Piece Of Advice"

Sweeties with holes in the middle are a marketing scam. But also...

Somebody probably said, or perhaps lots of somebodies, that as you get older you become more aware of everything you don't know which makes your increasing knowledge seem ever smaller. This is potentially a blessing or a curse.

It's a blessing, like most things, when we let it be. For instance,  what if you happened to be lost in space like Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in Gravity (a rare Hollywood blockbuster recommend from me). It could fill you with awe. Make you think of all the possibilities. It might actually help to keep your feet on the ground. Envelop you in a sense of perspective. Or it could lead to despair and a desire to give up.

Clooney's character, Matt Kowalski, is a seasoned space veteran who manages to be content, relaxed, philosophical, practical and alert...while floating around space stations tied on by , or cut free from, a piece of space string. And we watch Dr Ryan Stone, played by Bullock, learn all of these lessons out of necessity, during the most  incredibly challenging couple of  hours anyone could face, on the runaway roller coaster ride dealt her by fate, and her decision to go to work 375 miles above the earth.

To be honest, the amount of challenges she faces are stretching it a bit...you and I, and I suspect, the average astronaut, would have almost certainly succumbed at the first...but for once I was able to suspend disbelief. The film is a great metaphor for the life that can open up for us if we keep getting up each time we get knocked down. OK, our own choices won't ever seem so dramatic, but in a way, all the while, we either choose to live or choose to die.

And choosing to live does change the way we think. We see that happen to Ryan Stone. And in my own experience, it is a certain fact that my own mental health has improved the more I decide to get up after a kicking. The more I choose to get up.

We all have limits of course. And we all need help along the way. But we do have choices that no one else can make for us, and that can only help us become more firmly attached to the universe even as we float through it. Better that than spinning wildly around in  a death filled panic, or turning off the oxygen and giving up.



The line "Would you like my last polo, and a piece of advice" was chosen  by Joel Fee and is from my song You Know You're Alive.

Monday 13 January 2014

“Sometimes I’m a Dragon, I Breathe Fire”

Yeah. It’s true. And there is a place for fire breathing. Especially when it comes to bringing down the bad guys.


But it’s not really the thing for domestic situations. However, anyone who has spent any amount of time living with me knows that, despite being a peace loving bloke, it is not unknown for me to have outbursts of fairly intense shouting. Otherwise known as losing my temper. It is not an attractive feature.


I’m the kind of person who feels things very deeply and passionately. And I think a lot about right and wrong. I came into adult life with a lot of insecurity and a tendency towards depression, which at times in my life has bordered on the suicidal. In the past all my frustrations and emotional turmoil was directed inwards. It was very self destructive, and it didn’t make living with myself very easy. Or easy for those around me.


There was a point, and I’m not quite sure when that was, when I perhaps started to get a sense that I wasn’t the cause of everything that was wrong in the world. I became more balanced, and started blaming persons and situations outside of myself. Which was a kind of step in the right direction. But depression got replaced at times by anger. And that isn’t easy to live with either.


But I’m at a time in my life where I’m doing something about some of the bad habits that I’ve developed over the years. In the widest sense this is simply about taking responsibility for my world, my actions and my speech. I do of course have some good characteristics, and I learnt a long time ago that a guilt complex does nothing to change behaviour. But putting a name to the bad ways is an important part of change.


Which is what I am doing right now.


ps. I asked my wife to pick the song line for today’s blog.




The line “Sometimes I’m a Dragon, I breathe fire” comes from my song A Human Being which is on my album of the same name.

Sunday 12 January 2014

"Hey, hey, I'm the monkey, belly getting chunky"

This line, in fairness, was written a long while ago, when I smoked and ate food, and before I became the finely tuned athlete I am today.


But the question it begs is: are we related to monkeys? Or only to chimps? This is a question I ask myself every time I have a banana.


Several years ago  I read Charles Voldemort Darwins “The Origin of Species”. This was in the days when I was a Christian, and I was getting a little miffed at a lot of the simplistic explanations and dismissiveness towards anything scientific in the circles I inhabited. I think I read it  after I discovered that there were Christians I respected who didn’t think that a belief in evolution was incompatible with being a Christian. That in itself was a bit of relief. It’s very painful cutting off the blood supply to parts of the body, for instance the brain, because you happen to think that God wants you to.


So I read the book and the lightning didn’t strike. I mean the judgemental lightning. The book itself was never going to set the world agog as pure literature. It is very methodical, detailed, and to be quite frank a little boring. But it sets out it’s argument very clearly, and it was a kind of revelation to me. It enabled me to think about the world as it actually appeared to be rather than as I had been told it was by years of  fairly “fundamental” evangelical christian upbringing. And as a result I found myself breathing air that felt a little bit fresher and more honest.


If you like reading and are the littlest bit interested in the why’s and wherefores of our being here then I would recommend it. But if you have faith, don’t expect it to take your faith away. Belief in evolution has nothing at all to do with belief in God. It only messes with the world view of a particular kind of mindset that boxes God into a corner as a kind of Magic Conjurer behind the Curtain.

It happens that these days I would describe myself - simply in regard to faith because this is not a label that has loads of other beliefs attached to it - as an agnostic atheist. Google it. But that fact is nothing to do with Charles Darwin, who only ever described what he observed, and he observed a lot. He simply, and really quite bravely, drew the obvious conclusions in an age where the power brokers were using the bible as a science textbook. As some still are in parts of the world. He is esteemed for his incredible thoroughness and clarity of thinking. Not for declaring “Avada Kedavara” in the face of the Almighty.



"Hey, hey, I'm the monkey, belly getting chunky" is from my song A Cord Of Three Strands (unreleased).

Monday 6 January 2014

“I’m Gonna Clean The Cobwebs Out The Corners Of My Mind”

I like spiders. I once spent half an hour watching one spin a web. Amazing. Try it yourself sometime, instead of watching the latest Hollyoaks episode. You won't regret it. 

I like spiders in the house. They kill flies. So that has got to be good. But my wife, and nearly life long love, hates spiders. And flies. And there you have it. The challenge of living with people and animals in a cobwebby nutshell.


But you know, first you’ve got to live with yourself. And there I am in a song talking about cleaning out the cobwebs in my mind when perhaps I should be preserving them. I mean, I’ve picked up lots of rubbish in this thing they call a brain along the way. But  I’ve probably picked up some totally mental spiders too. Maybe I should be cultivating them, rather than trashing their homes. Maybe those mental spiders could be eating some virus carrying six legs. Maybe they are. It’s worrying how easily I put words that could result in the demise of a cure into a song. I should be more careful about that.


On the other hand my wife would find solace in those words. And that is also good. She would be pleased that those cobwebs were disappearing, and it does me good to make her happy. And maybe there is more than one way to kill a fly. Although they too have a reason to live.


My life, in all of its messiness, is still one I am happy to be living. With all it’s spiders and flies, wife, offspring, and a very nice cobweb that I call home.

There was an old lady.



“I’m Gonna Clean The Cobwebs Out The Corners Of My Mind” is from the Fee song Last Song Standing - July 4th 2012.

Sunday 5 January 2014

“I Chat Her Up Inside My Head Again”

I’ve written several romantic songs. This line is from one called Be Still (My Beating Heart) which is available in my Fee Comes Fourth series. It’s about a young fella in love, where all the action happens inside his head. And that’s how it all begins of course. And that's a link of sorts...


Last night I watched a film called Amour which is reviewed at Rotten Tomatoes by those who can describe the cinematic experience far better than I can. But basically this film travels all the way down the line to the end of the romantic journey. In a very stark, bleak, but amazingly touching and thought provoking way, it captures the end of it all for a couple who have been together for a long time. There is nothing obviously romantic about this story. It’s a very difficult watch. The action is sparse but totally engrossing, as the wife gets a stroke, which very gradually and painfully takes her to the end. We watch her unravelling and the effect it has on her relationships, primarily the one with her husband. It doesn’t provide any answers whatsoever. But it does draw out questions that we might not want to ask, but will all have to face at some point.


There was a time when this story would have depressed me beyond help. I don’t recommend it to everyone, but if you happen to think it is important to confront the difficult questions about death and dying and the way it will affect us all at some point in the future, then watch it. And afterwards don’t despair. Think about how our lives are all about giving and receiving, about getting and losing, about holding and letting go. There is simply a time when we all have to let go of others, and finally of ourselves, for the last time. We all share this future.


It’s a sad thing, but it’s not necessarily morbid. And I’ve been inspired to think more about the practical side of that final letting go, and how to let other people be part of it, as far as we are able to control any of these things. So that’s a good result out of a difficult experience. I’ve been getting very tired of the Hollywood world view for quite a long time now so this film was, in a perverse way, also a very refreshing experience for me.


By the way. I don’t charge anything for being here to cheer you up.

Saturday 4 January 2014

"The Raven's My Brother"

Apparently, though when it comes to this sort of stuff I'm always a little bit sceptical, my name Fee comes from the Irish Gaelic word for Raven. And since I learnt this FACT I've always felt an affinity to that particular bird. Which is partly how it ended up being used in the song I released today called Crossing The Wild Lands.

 Watching birds was an escape for me as a boy. It started with my mum (it would have definitely been my mum) buying me a birthday membership to what was then called The Young Ornithologist Club, or YOC for short. You don't get snappy names like that for kids clubs these days. So in a very amateurish way I started noticing birds. We got Jays in our garden in Birmingham when this started. They were a great bird for a young ornithologist, being a little bit secretive, but quite big and exotic. Seeing them didn't happen all the time, but they have a bright pink plumage which made them striking and fairly easy to see when they did fly through the trees. Like the raven, the jay is a member of the ever so intelligent crow family. Oh, yes, the crows are THE cleverest birds in the world.

 The bird watching was an even more helpful escape when I was a teenager getting bullied. I used to run away from school to the local nature reserve. Better than school in every way at that time. And I'd have romantic daydreams of becoming a Warden on a nature reserve on a Scottish Island. That never happened, but I have ended up living on the west coast of Scotland on the island-like peninsula of Kintyre. And I go for walks and see the ravens who these days are more associated with wild places. There was a time when they were common in cities. And as in my song, the raven does "fly like a dancer who has learnt to forget that gravity rules us". They can fly upside down, and they do a lot of that sort of thing when they are courting their partners. The show offs.

 But not everybody likes ravens. Turns out that rural farmers hate them because they are thought to attack newly born lambs and do nasty stuff like, pluck the little lambs eyes out. Nice. I don't know if that actually happens, but nature is not a polite environment, so it could well do. I'm still proud to call the raven my brother though. I hope we do meet up one day. Preferably when I've learned to fly upside down as well.