like many people i know, i use art as a way to work through intense emotions. and, like many of them, a lot of those emotions are not pleasant ones. one well of emotion and imagery for a lot of my songs is all the rubbish i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been through thus far. so, you know, safe to assume that the songs are generally not happy songs.<\/p>\n
lately, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a lot not going awesomely in my life. in most every area. but, somehow, i recently had a very beautiful moment where i realised that i am at peace with my past. in some cases, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a general peace, and in others more specific, as i see how things i have been through that were not pleasant have led to good now.<\/p>\n
today, with no external reason or obvious improvement in my life, i have actually been feeling very calm and hopeful. odd, but cool. and perhaps that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why i got a random urge to flip through all the songs i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written the last two and a half years or so and see which of them had hope.<\/p>\n
see, i think that even music that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not happy can give you hope. i know that the songs that made me most sure i wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t alone and was going to make it through dark periods in my past had no hope in them. but just knowing someone else had felt as i was feeling and was still around and was turning it into good music? that gave me hope. but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the hope i was looking for here. i wondered if i could give or was giving hope of another sort in those lyrics.<\/p>\n
at this moment, i have lyrics for 108 songs finished, and am one verse shy of finishing number 109. i can be a bit prolific sometimes. it’s been an artistically dense two and a half years…of those, i found messages of hope in 53 songs.<\/p>\n
do you need a moment to pause, process, pick your jaw up off the floor? because i did. even songs we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been playing and actively working on all this time that i didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think of as having hope.<\/p>\n
but as i flipped through, i saw bits of hope, here and there. sometimes, the whole song was encouraging to me. sometimes, it started poorly but ended well. sometimes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a line in there. some of the hope is pretty straight-forward hope, like songs where i say i know i can make it or i know the relationship will make it. some of the hope is more sideways, like songs where i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m encouraging someone not to give up or i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m realising that, yeah, i want you and i can have you. really, i count anything where, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re paying attention, you see it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not all just wanting and lacking and broken.<\/p>\n
because sometimes hope is just that there is something good in all the mess. at least to me.<\/p>\n
so when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re having a listen or singing along, feel free to take comfort in the bits that aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hopeful, in knowing someone else made it through all sorts of unpleasantness (lots of someones, really, as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not all always about me). but be sure to know there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hope in there. and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay to hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
like many people i know, i use art as a way to work through intense emotions. and, like many of them, a lot of those emotions are not pleasant ones. one well of emotion and imagery for a lot of my songs is all the rubbish i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been through thus far. so, you know, safe to assume that the songs are generally not happy songs. lately, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a lot not going awesomely in my life. in most every area. but, somehow, i recently had a very beautiful moment where i realised that i am at peace with my past. in some cases, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a general peace, and in others more specific, as i see how things i have been through that were not pleasant have led to good now. today, with no external reason or obvious improvement in my life, i have actually been feeling very calm and hopeful. odd, but cool. and perhaps that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why i got a random urge to flip through all the songs i\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written the last two and a half years or so and see which of them had hope. see, i think that even music that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not happy can give you hope. i […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirations-influences","category-lyrics"],"yoast_head":"\n