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!

Qualified!

It's official now!

I actually have a Certificate qualification to my name, proof of my completed studies in music.

This is a good day....

Not going to lie, I'm pretty stoked with my achievement. Even though it was only a year, it was a year filled with blood, sweat and tears. Nights where I'd lock myself in my room, and practice and practice my chops. Day after day where I'd cart my not-so-light guitar down the road for the twenty-odd minutes it took to walk to UCOL. Hours spent trawling Youtube and the internet, listening to music that I'd never heard before and googling random facts about bands.

That was the year where I discovered the heaviness of As I Lay Dying, Animals As Leaders and Depths. Where I listened to reggae for the first time and found magic hidden in the simplistic chords and chilled-out beats of The Black Seeds and Bob Marley. The year where my ears, and my fingers finally adjusted to blues and the incredible solos of greats such as BB King, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn. More importantly, it was when I discovered the power and depth to ambient indie music such as Sigur Ros, Bon Iver and (to some extent) Radiohead - all 3 of which would go on to becoming some of my favorite bands.

All of these in their own ways went to helping me really develop in songwriting in huge steps and bounds. From the backwards structure of my rock & roll riff we based our 50's style "Take My Baby Home" to the bluesy twang of a slide which I utilized for my "slow solo" in "Lonely Baby Blues".  Then there was the backbeat strum and entire bridge section I added to our punk rock kiwi original "Running To The Sun" (probably one of my favourite songs to write/play EVER), as well as the little instrumental flourishes I added to give depth and texture to "The Hospital" and "Nothing Stays The Same". Finally there was two of my proudest moments with "We Are Still One" and "Prodigal". Despite never having written (or played for that matter!) reggae or country I somehow managed to write full songs in both genres which actually played off pretty well. In terms of music and songwriting, it was a year well spent.

But perhaps almost equally in terms with musical achievement was the fact that it was one of the best years of my life. I was hanging out with a bunch of super cool people, doing what I loved best (playing music, duh!) and just generally having a good time! It really was awesome in hindsight being surrounded by people who were equally as passionate about music as me - we all got on really well (most of the time) and had quite a few laughs along the way. I made a couple of really, really good friends from my time there, and it was super awesome to catch up & graduate with a few of them today.

In a weird kind of way, I guess I slightly miss it. Playing music every second or third week was actually AWESOME! Not only did I get more comfortable with playing & performing, found out I could branch out a bit more (first year playing anything other than a guitar!), and made a lot of musical friends/contacts but I realised something really important. That this is what I loved doing more than anything in the world. And that no matter the circumstances, it is really important to follow your dreams and do what you love - not what you're good at, not what others tell you to do, not what seems the safest option. No - DO what you LOVE! Even if it's something as obscure and hard to succeed in as music! JUST DO IT! You'll find it drives you in a way that few other things can.

And I think one of the saddest things in the world is when people never get to do this. Some people never get the opportunity - and that's heartbreaking enough. Yet even worse is when you have the chance, but never take it. Or by the time you decide to it's almost too late and you're left wishing you'd gone for it years ago.

So on the eve of my graduation, I offer you this advice. I'm no world-weary musician - in many ways, I still feel like I'm beginning. I don't know it all, but I've been a few places and seen a few things, so don't completely disregard what I say just cos of my upbringing, beliefs, age or writing. This is legit good advice which I believe if applied can change your life in ways you won't believe.

Quite simply put, it falls into that cliched statement: Follow your dreams. Even if they're big. Even if people laugh at you for having them. Even if secretly you think you suck. I've been there, I've felt all these things. But screw what people tell you. If you have a dream, it's worth chasing, it's worth fighting for. And don't ever forget it!!





One (now qualified!) musician, out.

Jords

The Second!

This post is entitled "The Second" in reference to the second song I've written this year!
(This is of course, discounting the ones I have to write for my certificate, which I've contributed to two so far. They were pretty cool really but I would have liked them more if there'd been less use of the word "baby" in the lyrics. I dislike that word - it seems to be one the most cliched and misused word in all music!)
Anyway, I'm pretty stoked with this song! 

The story behind it is it came out of a bit of a hard songwriting period for me. We got given "song topics" for the current genre we're studying (Kiwi Music). And although some of the themes were pretty good to write about, like anger or dancing, it didn't seem to be working for me. Every lyric I was churning out was pretty uninspiring, and the tunes were even worse. But I felt like I really had to get something out. Eventually I just got frustrated with it as well as a bunch of other things. I felt disenchanted with the knowledge how small the New Zealand music industry is, how hard it is to succeed, and frustrated with my inability to find another band to join. So I was thinking about inspiration and stuff, and scrawled some lyrics down just before tea, and finished off the rest of the verses and the structure at 1.01 am in the morning.
Classes finished early today, and I wasn't doing anything productive hanging around UCOL, so I walked back to the hostel in the pouring rain after having a few mishaps trying to buy an umbrella. I was pretty bored so I just picked up my acoustic and started jamming round with a few chord bases. I got something which sounded really cool, and was thinking "I need to write down some lyrics for this". But when I reached to grab some paper, this song was just sitting there, and I ended up giving that a try. It was kind of strange to begin with, because when I wrote it, I never imagined it sounding like that. It was totally different, but in a awesome way. And though it feels like a couple of songs mashed together, it somehow works. 

Anyway, enough rambling. Here's the lyrics:

BREATHE 

I pause, when held back from nothing

I pause cause I'm trapped in this motionless bay

I reach to grasp these illusions 

I reach, only to have these dreams swept away

Give me a breath of fresh air

Cause I need some oxygen

All I need is a breath of fresh air

To put the wind in my sails

Then I'll leave this bland cove

And blaze a new trail

It moves faster than a heartbeat

It moves slower than a stationary car

It speaks and it's words sound like silver

It speaks and people feel like they could touch the stars

I'm dying; without it 

Why is it so hard to breathe?

And I won't look back 

No I won't look back

I'm leaving now

And I won't turn back

(c) copyright Jordan Gowan 2012

To me it speaks volumes...