Blog
Lyrics, interesting stuff and general ramblings
Flying Visits
This was the first song I ever wrote. I only had the courage to try writing after I had turned 40, and this was a direct result of some Polarity healing and processing, facilitated by the amazing Marelna du Plessis.
It is addressed to Sophia, the female personification of wisdom. The “mean little man” is my own shadow or ego.
Hollow Men
A more recent song, I used the title of T S Elliot’s chilling poem “The Hollow Men,” because for me it encapsulates the prevailing condition of emptiness so many humans suffer from. The constant search to fill the emptiness inside is what has always led me into trouble of one sort or another!
Golden Vanity
One of the finest traditional folk sagas I know – I grew up with this song, and heard it performed and recorded by many artists. I love true folk songs – the ones which say trad instead of the Author’s name. That means no one knows who originally composed the song, so it has a lengthy oral tradition. It has crossed oceans, becoming refined in the process of passing from musician to musician over the centuries.
Maya
Another of my early songs, arising out of an image I painted of a woman flying through the sky with a mermaid’s tail! I thought I had invented her, and this song was an attempt to explain to myself what she might symbolize. Of course I have discovered since then that the flying mermaid is an image firmly entrenched in the human collective unconscious as a symbol of transformation or perhaps seduction or distraction! The word MAYA From Wikipedia …….” The Sanskrit word Maya, in Indian Religions has multiple meanings, usually quoted as “illusion”, centered on the fact that we do not experience the environment itself, but rather a projection of it, which we create within ourselves”
Surrender
I constantly wrestle with the moment. When I accept what is, and stop resisting, I stop suffering! So simple yet so difficult.
Perfect Day
A song about being in a place of great beauty but feeling very alone.
Temple of Delight
Barbara Trapido wrote a lovely book called Temple of Delight. My song has nothing to do with the content of her book – I just liked the title! It is about romantic love and the way we see someone else as being the source of our happiness. It is also about my journey to realizing that I am responsible for my own happiness!
Parade
Another early tune, written after my first visit to the UK. I was playing regularly in an Irish pub situated in Oxford, and it was a very happy and creative time for me. I like to think the tune has an Irish quality to it.
P Stands for Paddy
This is definitely Irish in origin! Also a traditional tune, and I love the quirky timing and the sly comments about love.
Weeping
Most South Africans know this incredible song, which was a hit for Bright Blue in the darkest years of Apartheid– it has almost become a second National Anthem. I learned to play it 25 years ago, and I never tire of it. It amused me at the time that it got so much air play – the SABC were too stupid to understand what it was about!