A week in creative rest

Sunshine between the showers

I'm very impressed by young writers these days - whether that's on blogs, songwriters, authors - they have a great sense of honesty, openness, authenticity.  Perhaps it's our growing up in a society where it wasn't ok to speak your mind - you didn't know who was listening - but I find it very difficult to be that open.   This week we saw the restart of our Stormont Assembly, after 3 years of not working.   Doubtless our health and education services were used as pawns by the powers that be to coerse our idiots to get beyond school yard politics and start behaving like politicians - I wonder how much honesty will be evident there. 

My view from our studio this week

We've come away for our annual visit to Tyrone Guthrie House in Co. Monaghan. - hopefully I"ll get some nice photos from here for next week's Scavenger Hunt. 

It's a great place to re-focus priorities - move back into my own realm - after such a busy couple of months with choirs and an impending tour of the Emigrant Woman's Tale, it's hard to find space to hear your own thoughts and tunes and see where you want to move to next - to find your own honesty. 

So we've both been going through hundreds of voice notes and memos on our phones, dumping, editing, rearranging and getting into a rhythm of work that's exciting us both and setting a way of working for the coming months.

We've use of a studio although mostly we're working in our cottage but I absolutely love having access to a beautiful piano to work through chord progressions when I get stuck in a riff on the guitar.  And looking out across green fields through rainy windows is better than being stuck in front of the tv or computer screen at home.  

As always, there's an international group here this week - several writers, a couple of painters, a pianist rehearsing for an upcoming concert in Paris, a young German guitarist writing music for a new album and a couple of people editing scripts for films and tv shows.   That mix is so inspiritng and makes for very interesting converstaion at dinner.

Rewriting a song for a new era

Recently I've come across a bunch of songs I wrote back in the mid 90s - around the time of the ceasefires here - it's hard to believe that's 20 years ago now.  We had a referendum back then to vote for power sharing I seem to remember - certainly it was a vote for peace.   The songs are angry and hopeful at the same time - demanding action from our politicians and commenting on their anger and single minded hatred.

Today our politicians are no better - we still vote for tribes here - yet we're governed by a bunch of idiots in Westminster that no more talk for us than they do for the people of England, Scotland or Wales with the one difference that we don't even get to vote for them.

Here we have no opposition.  It's power sharing of the worst kind - us and them together - one hand can't be moved without the other agreeing so there is constant stalemate to the point of ineffectiveness.  It is so frustrating.

Anyway, back to the songs.   I've moved on in the type of music I write or sing nowadays and it's hard to find a new fit for these songs but I don't want to lose them.

This one is called Talk About

Chorus
What you gonna talk about when there's nothing left to talk about?
What you gonna talk about when there's nothing left to say?
What you gonna shout about? What you gonna lie about?
What you gonna talk about when there's nothing left to say?

Your passion and your anger left me speechless
Nothing you would say could change my mind
Your paranoic outbursts on the TV
Show your generation must be left behind

Your energy re-channelled could move mountains
Your passion could be put to better use
The hatred and distortion on a face some think is handsome
Could be a blessing if you only called a truce. 

Chorus

The staying power you've shown is without question
Your single minded mission has been clear
Just think what great achievements you'd have brokered
Had you led by hope and never led by fear

So Mr Politician can you hear me
The people have all spoken with one voice
Together you can build a future worthy of what's lost
It's time to think about our present not our past.

This blog is Day 7 of Sarah Allen's 30 day blog challenge