Lyrics - Free Writing
Monday 30 March 2015 LyricsLyrics
Free Writing - this is an exercise I employ quite often to see what is lurking beneath the surface! I recommend it to anyone with writer’s block, anyone who wants to unlock some creative space with words and download their subconscious.
For those who haven’t tried this before, you pick a starting word/theme, and then write non-stop as fast as you can for two minutes/until you fill the page/until you get cramp in your hand!
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For those who haven’t tried this before, you pick a starting word/theme, and then write non-stop as fast as you can for two minutes/until you fill the page/until you get cramp in your hand!
Read More...
Song Of The Week
Saturday 28 March 2015 LyricsSong of the Week
The Luxury of Failure
Thursday 26 March 2015
“Nothing will work unless you do” - Maya Angelou.
Maya, lived, worked, created and inspired in countries across the world. She was not afraid to try anything. She danced, she was a cook, a university administrator, a writer, director, a newspaper editor, a human rights activist, a coordinator, a singer, a streetcar conductor and a poet.
In all of the beautiful success of Angelou’s life, there is a common theme. She failed. Plenty of times...
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Maya, lived, worked, created and inspired in countries across the world. She was not afraid to try anything. She danced, she was a cook, a university administrator, a writer, director, a newspaper editor, a human rights activist, a coordinator, a singer, a streetcar conductor and a poet.
In all of the beautiful success of Angelou’s life, there is a common theme. She failed. Plenty of times...
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Lyrics - To Speak
Monday 23 March 2015 LyricsLyrics
I’m tied up by my tongue,
Lassoed and cruelly led,
These handcuffs on my wrists,
Make me a silent, smiling shell,
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Live in Hong Kong
Friday 20 March 2015 LyricsNews
This week I’ll be recording my EP live. Doing a live recording is pressure! In some ways, it is easier; you have the energy of the crowd to play off, it is quicker, there are no long, long evenings in the studio trying to figure out if you got the take you wanted...
But on the other hand the pressure is on to get that perfect sound, to pull it off in one go and capture all that you desired those songs to emulate...
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But on the other hand the pressure is on to get that perfect sound, to pull it off in one go and capture all that you desired those songs to emulate...
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Song of the Week
Tuesday 17 March 2015 LyricsSong of the Week
Piece of Crap - Neil Young and Crazy Horse
I was talking with a friend this week about artists that we keep coming back to, and both of us said that it’s the ones who have stories to tell. Mine, of course, is Sting. One of his is Neil Young.
He told me about a song called “Piece of Crap”... a tongue-in-cheek poke at consumerism. The song itself is awful, literally a piece of crap... but it really does a good job at getting its point across. Ironic.
Take a listen...
I was talking with a friend this week about artists that we keep coming back to, and both of us said that it’s the ones who have stories to tell. Mine, of course, is Sting. One of his is Neil Young.
He told me about a song called “Piece of Crap”... a tongue-in-cheek poke at consumerism. The song itself is awful, literally a piece of crap... but it really does a good job at getting its point across. Ironic.
Take a listen...
Lyrics - Solo
Sunday 15 March 2015 LyricsLyrics
I met a boy, modern wonder of the world,
The sharpest eyes, knowing smile,
Words that won me under his under cover.
Don’t worry, there’s no other, he said...
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The sharpest eyes, knowing smile,
Words that won me under his under cover.
Don’t worry, there’s no other, he said...
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More is Less - Part 1
Wednesday 11 March 2015
For Lent, I am eating for HK$20 per day. (US$2.50/£1.70)
For years now, I have worked with and advocated for those who live below the poverty line. Actually, they live WAY below it. I work with those who live on $0.50 per day. And as much as I have cared for and tried to understand those living in poverty, I have never ever really felt what it might be like to live with hunger, with no choices, with no hope for a future. And I am grateful that I have never had to.
For me, cutting my food budget to a fraction of what it usually is has been a way to start to understand just a tiny bit of what it must be like to live in poverty. I am just over half way through lent now, and I am learning a lot...
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For years now, I have worked with and advocated for those who live below the poverty line. Actually, they live WAY below it. I work with those who live on $0.50 per day. And as much as I have cared for and tried to understand those living in poverty, I have never ever really felt what it might be like to live with hunger, with no choices, with no hope for a future. And I am grateful that I have never had to.
For me, cutting my food budget to a fraction of what it usually is has been a way to start to understand just a tiny bit of what it must be like to live in poverty. I am just over half way through lent now, and I am learning a lot...
Read More...
Song of the Week
Sunday 08 March 2015 LyricsSong of the Week
Fading Lights - Genesis
I grew up on progressive rock, thanks to my Dad’s taste, and I often wonder if it comes out in my songwriting style at all... Of course, I haven’t yet written a 12-minute song with an epic synth solo. But I think the deep, full sound and sweeping chord progressions are part of the harmonic fabric that I try to recreate.
I grew up on progressive rock, thanks to my Dad’s taste, and I often wonder if it comes out in my songwriting style at all... Of course, I haven’t yet written a 12-minute song with an epic synth solo. But I think the deep, full sound and sweeping chord progressions are part of the harmonic fabric that I try to recreate.
Lyrics - Party On
Friday 06 March 2015 LyricsLyrics
Hot red dust, fire yellow corn,
Windows down, sunglasses on.
The road stretches on far and long,
To towns where fortunes may be found.
Build, borrow, build,
Can your desire be filled...
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Windows down, sunglasses on.
The road stretches on far and long,
To towns where fortunes may be found.
Build, borrow, build,
Can your desire be filled...
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Fighting For
Tuesday 03 March 2015
On Sunday, I caught up with the twelve children who form the ICM Children’s Choir. I’ve worked with these kids for the past five years and they are the most humbling-ly beautiful, generous and wonderful people that I know.
We are preparing for a show later in the year, and as part of it, Gretchen will share some parts of her life-story. She’s now 17, but when I met her she was twelve, shy, often late to or absent from choir practice, hardly spoke English, and sang so quietly I hardly knew she had a voice...
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We are preparing for a show later in the year, and as part of it, Gretchen will share some parts of her life-story. She’s now 17, but when I met her she was twelve, shy, often late to or absent from choir practice, hardly spoke English, and sang so quietly I hardly knew she had a voice...
Read More...
Song of the Week
Sunday 01 March 2015 LyricsSong of the Week
Fall In - Esperanza Spalding
Quiet, tempting, full of fate and the spirit of letting go... Fall In’s melody, sumptuous chords and creeping tempo are the perfect soundtrack to our laid back week in the Philippines.
“They say if you die in a dream, you die in real life,
But I just died in your arms, hopelessly lost...”
Quiet, tempting, full of fate and the spirit of letting go... Fall In’s melody, sumptuous chords and creeping tempo are the perfect soundtrack to our laid back week in the Philippines.
“They say if you die in a dream, you die in real life,
But I just died in your arms, hopelessly lost...”