TO WHERE I AM NOW

The sky was so blue today, the sun was warm on my back, I came out with my coat on and walked a few yards then turned back and left it in the hallway. I saw a goldfinch in a garden, exploding with colour, red and yellow flashes. The world might have been perfect, but what are we to do even beyond the present situation, because when it’s all over all those other problems we were living with, angry about, disillusioned with, will return with a whole lot of new issues to navigate. There are many injustices to be fought for and there are many imminent situations that need our attention, but it all seems so hopeless. Do we take action or do we concentrate on our personal improvement? Not all of us are warriors despite our concern. There was a time when I was sending a small amount of money every month from my bank to Amnesty International. I guess a lot of us pick a cause we believe in and try to contribute something. At some point I was disturbed to find that they had just simply stopped taking the money and I thought if they can’t get it together to take free money, how good can they be at fairly distributing it?

Today I was wondering if my contribution to the world was enough. Making music is certainly a privilege, especially if you are getting paid to do it. Writing and having someone out there read your words or teaching which in my case is simply sharing ideas collected from experience. Others aren’t so lucky, I could say I’ve made sacrifices, but most people don’t even get the opportunity to make the sacrifices and then there’s the world outside our little world of affluence and freedom that we have here in the West. I was thinking that for us privileged Europeans that maybe travel should be compulsory. Three months in a country that speaks a different language, three months in America, three months in China, three months in a developing country somewhere in Africa, three months in a different political system to our own, three months in the desert, three months by the sea, three months in the mountains. Two years of worldly experience. It couldn’t hurt and Americans, Australians, the Japanese, all peoples could have their equivalent so that everyone in the world was aware of everyone else and how it was. But even this is elitist and privileged, because the developing countries could never see the West and then go home to an uncertain future with little opportunity. So when all this lockdown is over, all the other troubles, ignorance and prejudices will still be there. What happened to the news of Syria, Israel and Palestine, the Catalan separatists, the new Labour leader, Greta Thunberg’s rallying cry to save the planet, Iran, Iraq, peace in Afghanistan, terrorist threats, Putin and Russia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, all these things are still there, you’d never know it. Racism will continue, the nutty far right will be continuing their message of hate, gay people will be persecuted, women will still be fighting for equal pay – maybe now nurses might get that pay rise that austerity wouldn’t allow.

In my lucky life I played guitar and six string bass on another Space Summit song today and I will be continuing to do this tomorrow. Dare and I were commenting that the acoustic guitar we recorded today (my Fender El Rio) we can’t remember ever actually recording before. It’s been more of a ‘lying around’ guitar. It’s the guitar I wrote Spark on and today we thought its rather special sound was perfect for the song we were working on. I also used the Fender 6 string bass, I guess that was the bass instrument used on Priest=Aura. I can’t quite remember when that was first introduced and then retired. If you would like to look at the guitar collection or these guitars in particular you can check out the gear page here.

If you’re going to collect something you’d better be prepared to get it organized and tonight after the studio I decided to sort out all the records that needed filing away. So I put the records that were out of the shelves in alphabetical order so I could see how much space I needed for each letter. Then out of the main shelf I moved all the Hendrix, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, Genesis and Kate Bush albums into another place to free up space for bands I have fewer albums by. I have also done this with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, CAN, The Moody Blues, Miles Davis, The Who, The Beach Boys, Frank Zappa, Elton John, and Scott Walker. I need that warehouse.

Tonight’s music has been thrilling to say the least. Two far out CAN albums, Ege Bamyasi (1972) and Landed (1975), two amazing Dylan albums, Highway 61 and Bringing It All Back Home, both released in 1965, and then a record you might not know but have to hear, Talk To The People by the soulful jazzy pianist and singer Les McCann (1972). I think it was Barton Price from The Models that turned me on to this fantastic record. The last record of the night is the outstanding Struttin’ (1970) by those Funk kings, The Meters.

Today’s Song Of The Day is Questions Without Answers and it needs little explanation. There’s even a video:

 

Questions Without Answers

Is it true
I can’t believe this hatred
What do you do
The world is so ill fated
But when you’re sitting
On a quiet afternoon
With the sunlight
Pouring like gold into your room
You can’t believe that the world will end soon
The world will end soon

You sometimes feel
You’re not doing enough
But what is real
You never know who to trust
It seems that people
Sit in jail without a crime
And ruthless leaders
Seem to lead us all the time
There’s too much crying, people dying
Who can see the light
Who can see the light

Questions without answers
Questions without answers

So I sing
It doesn’t seem to make a difference
Should I give in
That’s not a point of reference
But the passive masses
Being eaten by TV
Ignoring cruelty
And saying it’s not me
When will they realize
Soon it’s going to be
Soon it’s going to be

Questions without answers
Questions without answers

Questions (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah) without answers (soon it’s going to be)
Questions (look out, look out) without answers (here it comes)

(Willson-Piper)
Rhyme (1989)