“A glimpse of silver...”
Spring is in the air - or is it?
I know what song I'd like to release later this month. But it's not yet finished, and the clock is ticking. After my studio session next week there will be a choice point - I will have to either say, 'Yes, it's in good enough shape for me to press the button and send it out to the world at the end of the month,' or, 'Actually, it's just not ready to go this time; I'll have to keep it under wraps for another year.'
The song in question is 'Snowstorm In Spring'.
If I am to release it at all this year, it has to be soon. No-one will be in the mind to hark back to snow once we're mid-spring. The song has a special place in my heart as it's the first song that ever came to me as a songwriter. I can date it to exactly this time five years ago, when The Beast From the East struck us.
I had been feeling some relief, I remember, about the passing of winter, the lengthening of days, and the signs of new life sprouting in the warmth. But then one day the sky in the east turned an eerie, apocalyptic grey. It's hard to forget the relentless snowstorm that blew in from the sea. It was a shock to the system as all the new life got covered in a thick blanket of snow. 'Rising life sinks back down to sleep,' was one lyric that came to me as I hunkered down in the cold. I remember a dull sadness coming over me.
A kiss from the sky
But thinking again now, there must have been a certain brightness to my sadness as well - enough, at least, to mobilise me to express my felt experience in a brand new way... through song!
In hindsight I can say thank you, beastly weather, for catalysing an important new chapter in my life, 'Tom as Songwriter'. Here was growth within me, even as the green shoots around me were buried under snow.
It is a full five years since I wrote that first song on my acoustic guitar. A recorded version wasn't even a glint in my eye back then. It took another life-dampening situation some time later, namely 'lockdown', for the idea of arranging and recording songs to come to my mind. So it has taken five whole years (or perhaps six if it's not ready this month) for a mysterious process to unfold - starting with the seed of an idea popping into my head, germinating, gradually putting down roots below the ground and structure above, then in the fullness of time growing into a studio-recording that will hopefully be heard, a little at least, in several countries around the world.
Nature's way of growing things can seem slow - a long sequence of barely perceptible changes, a few steps forward, a few steps backward, with the ever-present possibility of being knocked sideways by an unforeseen Siberian blizzard or some such.
I see nature's slow and sometimes jaggedy ways as an invitation to patience. I also feel a comfort in witnessing the gradual, steady growth within and without, whatever the setbacks.
Fragility and decay are all around for sure, but life always goes on. Nothing gets in the way of Mother Nature's enchanting resilience.
New ways
I still find it amazing to think that a home-spun song with acoustic guitar and solitary voice can, as if by magic, be transformed into a fully-arranged, sonic wonderland of a studio recording.
I count my blessings that I live in the time I do, with all that extraordinary, now ordinary, technology at my fingertips. It's as if all of human ingenuity over the eons has ripened to produce the myriad facets of music recording technology, now as a harvest available to everyone.
I haven't the faintest idea of how to make a microphone, a sound cable, a mixing desk, or any of the countless technological components that go into making and recording the type of pop music that I love. Yet here I am, with access to all the necessary tech, standing on the shoulders of my clever forebears. A few years ago, the technology had developed the capacity to serve only a handful of recording artists. But now it's there for anyone who wants to put their mind to it. I enjoy talking shop with loads of musician friends who live just a stone's throw away and who are on their own musical recording adventures.
Another voice
I very much hope that 'Snowstorm in Spring' will be ready to share with you later in the month. I've been enjoying all the work I've been putting into it so far, and I've also got the hope that my wife MM will sing the harmonies on this one. We'll see if we can make that work out. Hope so!
Have a good month...
Comments