Just wrote this tonight. Was thinking about the years when I sat in between decisions, not knowing where to go, what path to follow. I wish I'd had this song then.
The wind has changed
Is it a shift of consciousness
Is it a tender sweet caress
That blows on and leaves me here
The wind has changed
Will it take me away
Or will I remain the same
Or will I get swept away
The wind has changed
And if I don't go
Am I letting life pass me by?
Or do I hear its sweetest sweet reply
"Stand strong and fight"
But if I heed its call
I don't know where it leads
Could my best days be all behind me?
Which way is right?
The wind has changed
And so have I
I call to it
Don't get no reply
It's up to me
To decide who I will be
2007. I felt so focused and so sure about everything. I thought I could control the whole world if only I was in the right frame of mind, but that's another song and another entry. The only thing I wasn't very sure of was myself.
But I found good friends. 3am friends, do nothing and feel at home friends, singing friends, conversation friends, be there when you need them friends. One of them was all of these things.
Some part of me, though, never quite believed that someone like that would want to hang around with someone like me. And so I hesitated, didn't say what I should have, said what I shouldn't have, thought constantly of the future when I would leave and lose these shining times, let myself drift away. And did not come back. Maybe it mattered, maybe not, but years later, I still think that I let something good pass by without realizing it.
When I went to that new city, I had no regrets. When I returned a year and a half later, I was full of them. But my first regret was that I didn't let go of all those things and be the friend that I was so lucky to have.
I will never hear this song without remembering the best of times.
It's not always rainbows and butterflies, it's compromise that moves us along My heart is full and my door's always open, you come any time you want-
They say there are two kinds of people in the world - lyrics people and music people. I always thought I was the first kind, but as this and the previous song show, maybe I'm not. Or maybe you really can't make the distinction.
Rewind back to junior year of high school for this one. I was going through a very, uh, awkward music phase, where I pretty much listened to Celine Dion all the time. Lucky for me, those who knew me well were doing their best to get me out of this rut, but no one more so than my sister, whose life's mission, it seemed, was to learn about good music and share it with others. I have met many such people in my life, and now I am one of them.
My sister was studying Spanish, and had recently discovered the local Spanish pop station. And as was the custom in the 90s, we would tape our favorite songs off the radio. This was one of those songs, and the one I listened to most often off those tapes. I really didn't understand a lot of Spanish - just what I had picked up from Sesame Street and from my grandparents, who lived in Spain. So I understood about a dozen words from this song, and they were all in the chorus. But that was really all I needed at the time. You can get the 'feel' of the song from just that and the music - it always served as a "motivational" song for me.
How motivational? This song was on probably 90% of the mix CDs I made throughout college and afterwards - usually as track one. It was my way of saying "I am here, the party can start now."
And throughout all this time, I never bothered to look up the lyrics on the Internet or ask my sister to translate or anything.
It was what it was.
My Spanish has improved greatly over the last few years, and I started understanding bits and pieces - but when you listen to a song you don't understand for years and years, your brain can't figure out the words, even if you know the language well. (I still can't make out the lyrics to a number of Journey songs!) So when I started picking up these bits and pieces, I wanted to know what the song was really about. So I looked up the lyrics online. And when I read them and understood them for the first time, I knew what the song was about and what it meant to me.
Now, this song was not my own song of motivation, something to take into myself, it was advice. It was me being able to take my own life and experience and pass them on to those who come after me. It's me arriving at a place of wisdom after so many years of learning and passing on that wisdom - and the music - to others.
Here's the lyrics and my translation (which may not be literal or even totally accurate.. I don't have a Spanish degree :>)
En tu rincón protector
Se te ve como un rey
Luces muy bien en tu cómoda piel
Pero yo se, que te va,
que te va muy mal
la vida es una mujer
una belleza tan difícil de conquistar
para ganar su voluntad
tienes que ser un huracán
In your protective little corner
I see you as if you were a king
You're looking good, comfortable with yourself
But I know that you're not doing well at all
Life is like a woman,
A beauty that's hard to conquer
To win her consent, you have to be a hurricane
Sin Miedo, por fin atrévete
Sin Miedo, esta vez, sorpréndeme
Sin Miedo, con fe, con decisión
Sin Miedo, lánzate igual que yo
Without any fear - just dare yourself
This time, surprise me
With faith, with certainty
Throw yourself out there like I would
Tu corazón dice no
A llorar, o a reír
Es un error, un estúpido error
Abrazar nada mas, a la soledad
Sal por ahí, vuelve a sentir
La melodía de los sueños de libertad
Para perder, para ganar
Hay que jugar hasta el final
Your heart says no to crying or laughing
This is a mistake, a stupid mistake
To never hold someone again, to be alone
Get out of there, go back to feeling
The melody of the dreams of freedom
In order to lose or to win
You have to play until the end
I figure if I'm going to call this blog what it is, I should probably post a little about those songs that are the soundtrack to *my* life. What they are, what they mean, how they all come together to describe and explain me. Some people say they are indescribable. I'm not - but you have to hear that music to know the story.
Sunset on a summer weekday, pinks and golds filtered through the miniblinds, the last rays of sun creating the setting. I was sitting alone in my room because that's what teenagers do. But while most were talking on the phone or thinking about what will happen tomorrow, I sat there in my nostalgia of the few years I had already experienced. I was still young enough to remember what it was like when reality wasn't filtered by experience yet, but not so young that I still looked at life through those all-seeing lenses. And I thought days of being four or five years old, knowing this song at that young age. I don't remember hearing it for the first time - this song was just always present, as far back as I can remember.
The song is calm, it's backwards-looking, it's the doorway to that world of endless possibility and unfiltered life. It's syncopated synths and deep, pure voices. It is the sound of my soul, although the words have never really moved me nearly as much as the music does.
This is an evening song...
a song for seeking peace...
a song for the calm times...
the past-oriented times...
my first taste of nostalgia.
It starts with a tsunami. Some drive, some emotion, some event, something bigger than you, more overwhelming than you can take, happens .. at least in your own mind. But without that happening, there is no song. You can't say "I should write a song." there are no shoulds.
Starts soft and slow, in the same part where your conscience lives. That same still, small voice speaks up, but in rhyme. Or music. Or just a beautiful turn of phrase. And then you know it's begun. You can keep about your everyday life or go to some quiet place and let it take over.
I write in the car sometimes. I don't know how safe that really is. When I wrote the song below, I had music on that I will probably never listen to again. And I wrote my own lyrics, based on the events of twenty minutes prior. The whole world changed as the song took form. South became North and large buildings shifted to the other side of the street.
You wake up after the song is in form, at least in its first form. Then your conscious self takes over and you fix the details. The rhymes, the little tweaks to the melody, the variations.
But none of this would be possible without those semiconscious moments when you "switch off the mind and let the heart decide" ... without the ability to let go and let yourself truly immerse yourself in the present moment and the past catalyst moment both at the same time, let them wash over you and let the music come from a place you rarely access.
untitled as of yet.. but lyrics are finished. this song only needs one verse, and lots of music.
Under a night sky I walk alone
Searching for the only home I've ever known
The music's on the paper
The song waits for my voice
And as I sing I waver
I know that I have the choice
But the one thing that sets me free
Is the one thing entangling me
You want me to stay forever
Part of me wants to believe
So I sit here and sing in wonder
Till I leave....
We all return To where we've been But don't you know A new day begins again You'll return to the snows of your youth I'll return to my longing for truth But we find that the place is the same From where we came, though it's today And the circle begins again A circle without an end The circle begins again On and on without end
Don't you know That what we hide Is what we hold Closest to us inside My old dream of moving away Came true, but in a different way Looking back, I can see that the pain Brought me to where I am today
And the circle begins again...
We are the same but ever new There is a thread that pulls us through We are the same but ever new What is this thread that pulls us through?
