Stories and songs; or in my case, both.

After living under a rock for half the year and doing practically nothing musically (studying something completely different hasn't helped!), I feel I'm finally jumping back on the musical bandwagon. I've got plans in the pipeline to make my own Soundcloud after urging from friends and finally stick some music out there. Goodness knows I've got enough of it sitting around on my computer! I think it might be time for the world to hear...
Plus there's two brand-spanking new tracks I've got going at the moment. One's my third song of the year, a yearning number simply entitled Wanting (check out the lyrics here). The other is an instrumental piece that is still a work in progress, called It Only Rains In Winter. Bit of a melodramatic title, but hey. I'm a musician and we love our melodrama!

Oh, and I've come to the conclusion that 2013 has been an interesting year for my songwriting.

In some ways it's like a whole new direction where I write songs which come in surges and really bite at the core of my beliefs. These songs are raw, both emotionally and musically. And it seems I've finally got to a point where I can fully embrace my love of acoustic and ambient music and kinda incorporate them in to my own sound. As for lyrically, the words seem to be dancing around the edges, touching on deep nerves and weaving together stories that just move my soul. Why? Because they're mine. And to a certain extent, they're all true. I think every songwriter gets like that. Even if you are just going straight for the pop hits about love and dancing and all those cliched subject, you still are seeing it from your perspective. It's still got YOU in there.
I reckon the best songs are the most honest. But at the same time, this year I've strove to get away from that. Because I always write about myself, it gets a little bit daunting. Almost as if the songs are getting to personal. And I find it hard to show them to people because they're like pieces of me, and I have this fear that if people reject them they're rejecting me. I guess its a constant battle of wearing your heart on your sleeve but trying to take it off. I want to write songs which move people. That inspire them, that make them hope, that bring them joy. That point them to something (and Someone!) a lot bigger than them. If through my words and my playing I can do that, then in my eyes that will be the peak of any musical endeavour.
I wrote this a while ago, rebelling against the formal structures of my essays and assignments and university work just to get back to a place where I belong. This, ultimately, is why I do what I do:

"I write to create. Create, not just echo something, whether it be a mood, a feeling, a series of events or a place. Through my writings I wish to communicate a small part of my story, a small part of my song and do so in a way that will take the reader, the listener elsewhere and make them think about their story and how it relates to mine. That they will join me in a world far from here, one a little bit warmer, perhaps more unlikely and mysterious. One that is both less real and in an indescribable way more real than the world we come from. That for a moment this work of writing will tie both author and reader to a similar storyline, both utterly enthralled in the world they are creating or consuming. That is why I write."

So that's where I am at the moment. Hopefully going to start writing some music soon for my band Preeti and the Gentlemen (check us out at https://www.facebook.com/PreetiAndTheGentlemen?ref=ts&fref=ts if you haven't already!), and start getting out there and playing gigs. But until then I'll keep doing my thing, keep writing, keep practicing and playing. Music is a journey, and in the end, you never know where it will take you.
I'm just so immensely grateful I'm on the journey. And I hope you'll join me....

Blessings,

Jordan

Keep my heart from breaking up...

1.30 am is a time when most people are asleep. Yet inspiration lives in the moment, and two days ago I knew I couldn't let it pass me by. Luckily the flat was pretty much deserted, but I knew my flatmate would be trying to sleep. Grabbing my acoustic and softly humming the tune to myself I tiptoed to the kitchen and began to play quietly. Within moments, I had the hook, chorus and an idea of the intro. The verses and outro would come later, scrawled out on a sheet of lined A4 to the light of my single lamp.

That night, I didn't sleep much, but I got one of my favourite songs ever. And I'm grateful I stayed awake, even if I still feel the effects days later. Worth it.

WANTING

You say I'm like the moon,
Maybe space was all I needed.
And I stay awake for hours,
Think of hearts and how they're bleeding

Over distance, long term blisters
These points of difference
That make you change your mind.
Drowned devotion, the distant ocean
A lack of motion
That make it hard to find

That all I ever wanted
Was sitting here right next to me
I was watching it leave like oceans
Drifting out to sea
And it won't take much of what little's left
For me to be all I wanted to be

I say you're like the sun
And maybe light was all I needed
I stay outside for hours
Think of you and how your breathing

Gets to me, in ways unseen
Kill me quietly
Or watch me change my mind.
While drowned devotion, the distant ocean
A lack of motion
All make it hard to find.

All I wanted, all I needed was love
That's enough, oh that's enough
To keep me satisfied, to rest my troubled eyes
Keep my heart from breaking up
Oh keep me up, I'm sinking keep me up
Love keep me up

(c) Copyright Jordan Gowan 2013
 All rights reserved to The Falling Movement music.


Hopefully you get to hear it soon, in one form or the other. This one's too good to not share I reckon. Leave a comment and let me know what you think, I'd be so stoked to hear from you!

Semester One: Finished. BAM!

Ok, so it's been no-post land at The Falling Movement lately (kind of like no-mans land but instead of the absence of people there's absence of quality blogging haha). Its been a crazy last couple of weeks here in the big city. I'd been trying to hammer out a whole pile of study, something I fail at doing at the best of times, while battling the effects of a minor cold brought on by the near-freezing temperatures of our flat.

The start of exam week was the worst. I spent a good portion of Sunday night last week almost having a mini breakdown about the upcoming week and all these things in life which had been just getting to me. I ended up going for a massive skate around Palmy which was good to let off steam but not entirely effective. Then I just sat on the street outside the flat for ages on my board just talking to God. Really talking. And it was pretty raw, but it was good to get it off my chest. I could've sat there out beside the trees with the glow of dim streetlights and nothing but the cold air to keep me awake for ages pretending I had time to sort things out. But then it started to rain, and I went inside.

Yet somehow I made it. I sure had to crank out a fair bit of work (especially for my back to back exams on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning!) and put everything else out of my mind, or at least to the side. But I got there in the end. And when I walked out of my final exam on Friday, which miraculously went better than I expected, I was feeling on top of the world.

<Cue Music>

It suddenly seemed all worth it.
Those four months of learning about five forces models, ideology, and value chains (don't ask). Of adjusting to a new environment and a place where once again I knew absolutely no one. Long days spent trying to figure out how to write again to much higher standards.

And four months spent constantly backtracking my decision.
If you hadn't got the memo yet, I've been having a hard time switching from studying music to studying journalism. Firstly there was the constant annoyance of having to explain to like a GAZILLION people that yes I was studying last year and no I didn't pull out and yes changing from music to journalism is a little bit different. Secondly was when my friend pulled out on Day 1 for much of the reasons I was secretly thinking about: this is different/hard/weird/not as cool as last year. Then on top of that was my incredible ability to doubt myself. I wondered if I'd even made the right decision. I quite like writing (as you can probably tell from my well-worded paragraphs) but I just wasn't sure if this was the right direction, where I wanted to be heading.

Basically studying journalism is nowhere near as FUN as music.

However last Friday after my final exam, I had this incredible feeling of achievement. That I'd tripped and stumbled my way through a semester of massive ups and downs, upheavals and disappointments, but somehow got there in the end. I was actually glad that I'd stuck to my guns and kept at it, despite the fact that reality never made it anywhere near my expectations. Its been a rough semester both personally and with study, but thanks to the incredible grace of God I made it. And for once I can sit here writing this with complete honesty and say I'm that I'm proud of myself.

Semester 1: Consider yourself beaten.