Mystery – Song and a Chat

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:35 — 22.4MB)

Episode #151: Mystery (Song starts at 3:24 )

This song (#499) was originally titled ‘The Medium’ I wrote it about the time I went to visit a clairvoyant person for the 1st time.

I decided to change it to ‘Mystery’ at a later date. I guess I thought the new title might get the song listened to more.

Crash Test Dummies had a song about this subject, on a great album of theirs God Shuffled His Feet. I suppose that sort of gave me permission to write something similar.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what I would talk about when this song popped this week. It’s a very personal thing to experience and I think it pays to be discerning in terms of what you choose to share at times.

As it turns out, it was easy to talk about the experience I had.

The crux of this song is in the chorus where I sing ‘ I want to say thank you’ – because that’s precisely what I wanted to say to this person who helped at a time when I really needed a hand.

It was a nice feeling, singing and playing this gentle song as part of this episode. It flowed easily.

That’s my memory of how the song came through, to. The words came easily, first. The last couple of verses came to me as a reflection of this time later in my life. It was such an interesting experience.

We tend to view ourselves a certain way for part of our life, then something happens and we unfold a little more and our perspective changes.

This song is about a time of some personal transformation in my twenties. I was searching, really – finding my own path.

The music came very quickly, as easily as the words.

The two parts sound very natural, then. Not forced. Which I think is a big part of what could be deemed to be a successful bit of songwriting.

I’m pleased I shared this song. It’s been tucked away for years, although, I did sell about 30 copies of an album I called ‘12 Quiet Songs’ in 2005. Back then, I’d recently found a great Jimmy Webb album, ‘10 Easy Pieces’. I can really relate to Jimmy Webb’s song writing style. He sang his songs on this album himself ( his songs have been recorded and released by all sorts of wonderful artists such as Glen Campbell).

Maybe I’ll re-record this album again, one day. That’d be fun.

This is one of the things about recording the episodes for this podcast. It’s all a work in progress. I’m enjoying the complete unknown aspect about each episode, as I’m talking and playing without a script or more than a general plan of having a chat and sharing a song.

It is indeed a mystery how the episodes come together, much like songwriting.

I’m looking to bring some light to the songwriting process. I’m not looking to take away the mystery, though – as if I could.

It does surprise me how complicated the process is. For me, it’s something that’s been self taught, really. After singing lots of Elton John and Paul Simon, etc, I felt like I’d like to give this songwriting thing a go back in my teens.

Which is just what I did …and here I am years down the track, having composed about 800 songs.

It’s nice to be sharing and taking about the songs here.

I hope you enjoy hearing about the song Mystery as much as I enjoyed recording the episode.

Here we go….