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Lesson #1; Your In-Laws Suck...
I reach the door of No.4 station terrace, breathing hard. It had been a three and a half mile run on a bitter winter’s night. I was soaked through with the heavy freezing rain that had fallen for what seemed like weeks, but that night I hardly felt it at all. In fact, I felt nothing but anger and heartbreak...
I run straight past the living room where my parents were watching the evening news and on into my bedroom, I slammed the door, threw myself prostrate on the bed and sobbed into my pillow till I could cry no more tears and my head burst with the effort of containing my emotions.
Hours Later, with my face still buried in my pillow, I felt across to the bedside table, fumbled with the ON switch of my record player and turned up the volume.
Stevie Nicks. Dreams. I was 14, I hadn’t heard the song before, it wasn’t my record, or record player. I was staying in my brothers room, he had moved out a few months earlier but had left everything in situ, but in that moment, that didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the raw honesty and emotion in Stevie’s impassioned vocal. I was mesmerized, transfixed and didn’t know why. I didn’t know what she was singing about, but I honestly believed it. In that moment where my heart had been broken by the parents of my first and only love, Ava, I found solace in the honesty of Stevie’s voice. I felt understood, It felt like home.
Whatever colour, race, political or religious persuasion, whether girl boy young or old, we all have one thing in common; At one time or another we have all been spoken to by some music at some time. That night and many since, music has saved my life.
Many years later, when I picked up a guitar and started to write songs of my own, I often think back to that night. Fleetwood Mac wrote the Rumors album with absolute and brutal honesty and it shows. I know, I felt it. When I write a song now, it must pass the ‘Stevie test’ Do I actually feel this way? Is this authentic to me? Do I get goosebumps? Do I get choked up singing it?
The song below was written when Ava, my first love (and the girl from the story above) and I, hit 25 years of marriage. It was written with my whole heart, my whole soul and life-force because I hope that one day, a song that I write will help someone somewhere feel understood and that is the greatest gift you can give to the world.
Take a listen here...
Fleetwood Mac Lesson #1 : BE HONEST
Lesson #2 Coming Soon...