Author: julien

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs

Hunger and Thirst


Blue Saint with cross and skullcapOne afternoon, this blue wave washed over me, and suddenly life felt like an endless sea of longing that could never be satisfied. Or as the Buddhists say (from Wikipedia):

A basic unsatisfactoriness pervades all forms of existence, due to the fact that all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance. There is, therefore, a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.

But the feeling passed, and I think Buddhists are pretty silly to claim that one emotion, one shade of blue, is the underlying nature of all reality.

Download MP3: Hunger and Thirst

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs

Masterful Blue

 

Lyndsey Buckingham in blue

 

Sometimes the only way of escaping an unbearable situation is through your own imagination. Or, as the magician in “Electric Company”(one of my favorite childhood tv shows), used to say: “Change your point of view. Look at things in a way that’s fresh and new. Strange, but yes it’s true… you can never be stopped if you change your point of view.”

Good advice? Maybe, but it can make you dizzy if you take it too far.

 

Download MP3: Blue Eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs

Silver Moon

 

I wrote this song while living in Nashville, where it always seemed so dark and cold, maybe because I only went out at night.  To make matters worse, I tried to wear only white and silver clothes  and eat only white foods… why??? I don’t know what I was thinking, but I do know it cast a cold and lonely feeling over my time there. Just thinking back on it gives me the shivers.

Julien singing Blue Sky Cafe, Nashville in white hat and white boots.
Me in Nashville, playing my silver guitar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Silver Moon

Categories
Kentucky Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs

Ice Man

 

Another recording  of Ice Man- this one recorded at home. A song about being so defeated by internal and external forces that a person no longer has it within them to struggle… a song about ice!!

Queen Egg Lace, lady curled up in snow, dripping, with ribbon and mysterious text

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Ice Man

Visit my previous post and recording of this song.

 

Categories
Los Angeles Music & Songs Yellow, Gold, Kings, Fathers, and the Sun

Gold Time


Bolstered by flowers, Goethe follows the shadow of an egg.
I wrote this song while I was living in L.A…. What is the gold time? I guess it is a time of fulfillment and completion, when all the trials a person has been through begin to pay off and their meaning is revealed. It is the idea that everything, given enough time, eventually becomes something of great value. Gold is also the color of permanence… a person searches and searches, but when they finally find what they have been looking for, that is the gold time.
 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Gold Time

Categories
Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

Fancy and Soldier

 

In high school we read Walt Whitman’s poem, “Good-bye my Fancy”, and it struck a deep chord with me. In a way, I think of this song as being a similar story, but told from the perspective of the Fancy, rather than the man.

Walt Whitman in his special hat.

 

Good-bye my Fancy  

Good-bye my Fancy!
Farewell dear mate, dear love!
I’m going away, I know not where,
Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,
So Good-bye my Fancy.
Now for my last–let me look back a moment;
The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,
Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.
Long have we lived, joy’d, caress’d together;
Delightful!–now separation–Good-bye my Fancy.
Yet let me not be too hasty,
Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter’d, become really blended
into one;
Then if we die we die together, (yes, we’ll remain one,)
If we go anywhere we’ll go together to meet what happens,
May-be we’ll be better off and blither, and learn something,
May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who
knows?)
May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning–so now finally,
Good-bye–and hail! my Fancy.

-Walt Whitman

Download MP3: Fancy and Soldier

Categories
Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs Sky Blue, Ether, Flags, and Fairies

Indian Friend

 

This song was inspired by Reinhold Messner’s  “The Crystal Horizon,” a book about the first solo ascent up Mount Everest, but also, metaphorically, about the challenges a person can faces while trying to follow their own path and be true to themselves. The loneliness, guilt, and doubt, but also the exhilaration.

To me, crystals, mountains, and ice all represent that place of individuality and isolation… whereas valleys represent the warmth and comfort that comes from merging with others and following a more well-trodden path. But hopefully, when a person does come down into the valley, it will be to nourish and renew themselves, not to donate blood to a wandering mercenary.

Friend we will meet again. Smiley face pulls mountain climber onwards, as she glances at skeleton and fallen cowbird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Indian Friend

Categories
Music & Songs New Hampshire Uncategorized

So Small

 

A song about small things, because no matter how much effort is put into deception, the tiniest and most insignificant details will eventually reveal the truth. As will stones.

Confederate pauses to examine a pebble as the sun rises.
“Confederate pauses to examine a pebble.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: So Small

Categories
Kentucky Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs

Nobody Lies

 

Another song about somebody all alone in a world of ice struggling to keep their will to live alive…

 

Dead woman floats in the river, her eyes open.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Nobody Lies

Categories
Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Music & Songs New Hampshire

Home

Back in the day, there was one Greek philosopher who believed everything is made of fire, one who believed everything is made of air, one who believed everything is made of water, and one who believed everything is made of earth. The one who believed everything is made of fire also believed that change and impermanence are the true nature of life (a common belief today as well). The one who believed everything is made of earth believed that nothing ever changes and that permanence is the true nature of life.

Perhaps there is one layer of life which is constantly in flux, and perhaps this layer tends to grab our attention because of its unpredictable, dramatic, and anxiety-producing nature.   But beneath that, isn’t there also something so constant and steady, so soft and reassuring,  that it is easy for us to forget it is even there?

This song is about that realm of  comfort that lies beneath the more teetering aspects of our lives- the element of Earth!!

The Letter: To Black Hole's surprise, a mysterious letter arrives in the mail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Home