Category: Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts

Black on Baby Blue

I had to record this song again today, because yesterday I don’t feel like I was really myself. In fact, I was under the influence of someone else, a large man who I don’t know very well, but he was talking in my ear as I was singing, criticizing me, causing me to sing lower than I wanted to…

I guess art means different things to different people… to some it is about skill and refinement, to some it is about creativity and self-expression… For me, I think art is about self-knowledge- learning who you are by discovering which sounds and notes and color and words and shapes and sizes feel good to you and really resonate with your soul. I think the only way to measure beauty is to know what resonates with your soul and truly makes you happy.

Somethings, when we train ourselves to appreciate art and other “fine things,” I think we can train ourselves into idolizing things that our soul doesn’t even like.

Download MP3: Black on Baby Blue

Tags art appreciation, beauty, criticism, pretentiousness, self-knowledge

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

Black on Baby Blue

A song I wrote in Nashville, about those horrible moments when you realize someone you love and depend on is a mass murderer. I was just reading an article about the wives of serial killers, and the author was saying “How could they not have known?” especially as the evidence started to pile up around them. But, as George Orwell said, “To see what is in front of one’s nose is a constant struggle.” For some reason, it is very hard to believe that someone you know well could be dangerous, or even that they could be deceiving you. Especially, when you feel powerless to change or escape the situation.

Download MP3: Black on Baby Blue

Tags betrayal, George Orwell, Nashville, serial killers, trust, wives

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Los Angeles Music & Songs

If You Ain’t Mine

What I remember about this song is that right after I wrote it I found out my grandfather had just hung himself.

In terms of the song’s meaning, I do think we have a certain number of “chairs” in our life that are meant to be filled by certain people, and if these chairs are filled by “imposters”- people who have nothing to offer us, but just a desire to take- then we won’t have the open spaces to attract the people we really need.

Download MP3: If You Ain’t Mine

Tags antelopes, false friends, predators, relationships

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs Nashville The Odyssey

Telemachus’ Prelude

Another song from the Odyssey… one thing I love about the Odyssey is the theme of hope, and how long it is reasonable to keep hope alive. This book might suggest that people tend to give up hope prematurely, and are sometimes even encouraged to do so by those who would benefit from their defeat.

Download MP3: Telemachus’ Prelude

Tags hope, keep hope alive, Odyssey

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs Nashville The Odyssey

Telemachus’ Oration

Another song from the Odyssey… this one about Telemachus giving his speech to the councilmen, asking that they protect him from the bullies and freeloaders that have overrun his house in his father’s absence.

But, rather than helping Telemachus, the councilmen choose to not intervene, and instead place the blame on Telemachus’s mother.

Which is, supposedly, how things tend to go in real life. When people are bullied at work, for example, and tell their boss about it, in the vast majority of cases the boss sides with the bully. Why?

Download MP3: Telemachus’ Oration

Tags bullies, councilmen, freeloaders, Odyssey, Telemachus

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

Live in this World

After I wrote this song, a couple of Baptists told me they had been singing the chorus over and over again as they drove from Kentucky to Tennessee, and for me, that shed a lot of light on the song’s meaning.

Although I do think many, if not most, religions are mind control cults, the biggest cult of all is probably our mainstream culture which hypnotizes people into chasing meaningless dreams, valuing things that have no value, and seeing beauty where there isn’t any. It lures us into believing in a flat but challenging world, and casually dismisses as unreal every point of view that doesn’t come directly from our movies and universities. Nobody is really “of this world,” because the world as we understand it is a creation of our own minds. But we, ourselves, were created by a mind other than our own, and are part of a larger world that may be impossible for us to grasp and define.

So, at least, we could recognize that our view of reality is subjective, and not tell people to “get real” when they don’t buy into our ideas. Telling them to “get with the program” might be more appropriate.

Download MP3: Live in This World

Tags get real, get with the program, meaningless dreams, mind control cults, religion

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts New Hampshire

New Year’s Resolutions for the Group Mind

Post author By julien
Post date January 1, 2014
No Comments on New Year’s Resolutions for the Group Mind

In addition to personal resolutions, I like to make New Year’s resolutions for the group minds that I am connected to. I find they generally come true.

My group mind resolution for 2014 is that we release the idea that positivity is good and negativity is bad. Both positivity and negativity have equal ability to heal and to harm, depending on how they are used. Both can be vehicles for love.

Too often, positivity is used as a screen to hide problems and misdeeds. People who insist on positivity generally have behaviors they want to hide from others, or else painful feelings they want to hide from themselves. Jeffrey Dahmer was by all accounts a very positive person. In the book “1984”, positivity is used as a weapon to keep people from being able to express their true thoughts and feelings. The dark side of positivity is that it conceals and holds unhealthy realities in place.

Goodness is about caring and enabling people to thrive. Frequently this involves the willingness- and even eagerness- to plunge into negativity and stick with it for as long as it takes for actual change to happen. Looking at negativity brings wisdom and empathy. Discussing negativity makes transformation possible. Negativity brings depth to our goodness and keeps it from being an inch deep and a mile wide.

So, in 2014, let’s welcome the dark side into our lives and especially into our relationships, giving us the ability to be there for each other in ways that actually matter.

Tags 1984, dark side, goodness, Jeffrey Dahmer, negativity, positivity

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs Nashville Red, Soldiers, & Fire

Candy from a Baby

I wrote this song while living in Nashville, where- just as in L.A.– it was a great struggle to go out and perform every night while living in the grips of extreme shyness and stage fright.

In my Nashville apartment I had two bathrooms, so one of my anti-shyness therapies involved filling one bathtub with scalding hot water and one bathtub with ice cold water and then running back and forth between the two to submerge myself. It was not fun, but as usual I was hoping that causing myself physical pain would make performing less painful by comparison.

The one “therapy” that actually worked- at least in the short term- was putting sage oil on a handkerchief and breathing through it while driving to the venue. By the time I had reached my destination, inhibitions seemed to have magically vanished, and I could walk onto the stage with only a healthy handful of butterflies..But then I read that sage oil is toxic, and that was the end of that.

Download MP3: Candy from a Baby

Tags butterflies, ice cold water, inhibitions, Nashville, sage oil, stage fright

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs New Hampshire

Starfishy

When I first moved to Portsmouth NH, it was summer, the season when Portsmouth is at its most dreamy and picturesque, and I was enthralled by the ocean, the seafood, and the whole nautical theme that takes over the town during peak tourist season. All I wanted to do was go to the beach, eat fried seafood, and most of all SHOP- for oceany trinkets and this and thats in every shade of blue.

I also read books- anything related to the ocean and this part of the country. I wrote this song, Starfishy, while reading “Among the Isles of Shoals” by Celia Thaxter, in which she describes the crazy hooligans who lived on the islands. She wrote about how they loved to sing long songs, with lots and lots of words, in high squeaky voices, and how one of them would always begin the song on a ridiculously high note until another one would say “Too high, too high, Jim… how about this?” and then suggest a note even higher… That is how it is with me, whenever I hear a song in my head and write it down, it is always ridiculously high, and then when it comes time to sing it I don’t know what I am supposed to do.

Download MP3: Starfishy

Tags Among the Isles of Shoals, Celia Thaxter, Isle of Shoals, nautical, New Hampshire, ocean, Portsmouth

Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs Nashville The Odyssey

Women in Cages

This is another song that was inspired by the Odyssey and also the color black. At the time, I thought rap music was especially inspiring, so I borrowed a few things from it: 1) Sampling phrases from famous songs. 2) Including references to how tough and awesome I am (although it isn’t a song about me), and 3) Including my name in the song (although it isn’t a song about me).

One of the worst things about writing songs is that people tend to assume all the songs are about you, which can sometimes be embarrassing. Although it is even worse when people assume you have written a song about them. That is truly a nightmare.

Download MP3: Women in Cages

Tags awesome, black, Odyssey, rap music, women in cages