Lipstick In Yellow

Finished this up the past weekend. I found myself spending a lot of time doing the mixes, almost too much time that I had to let it sit for a while before wrapping it up. There is a peculiar story with this song that brought it to surface, like I said my dream experiences lately have been raging and they tend to influence me subconsciously, or consciously I don’t know. Probably both.

Anyhow I had this very vivid dream about a woman wearing a yellow shirt that had red lipstick painted on it. And it was a familiar woman, but not so much a woman who I am familiar with. One of those weird instances where someone makes an appearance in your dream, and from then on they just kind of stand out more than they used to. We’ll it’s like that.

I just was just kinda rattled by the dream for a while, and because of that I allowed some guarded thoughts of mine about a past relationship slip away. Things that really needed to have washed away from me years ago. The song really has nothing to do with the woman in yellow, but the song does exist because of an impression that the dream left on me. I know it sounds weird – it’s really not, it’s just how things unfold. Sometimes an experience comes on its own terms, and a lot of it is how you process that. Whether you go on and file it away, or you study and try to figure out what your subconscious would possibly be telling you.

In this case, the thoughts needed to go. And as in the song lyric I wrote above “I walked out that door, on my own”, it’s really saying that it has to be done that way. No one wants to be forced to leave a feeling they love. Whether it be good or bad, familiarly with love and those experiences are sometimes all we have to relate to that connection and what it was, or how it made us feel. Waking and leaving that, because of now it being ‘what you want’ – is a leap into an unknown room. A room that we never understand to always bring to us the next best thing.

So whatever reason I experienced the woman in yellow momentarily in the dream – as odd as it sounds, because of that impression, some of my other impressions of people I have continually known longer, have changed. Maybe we look or see something differently, or maybe we see it from ourselves from another’s perspective. How or why that happens I don’t know. But they do, hopefully in the end, for the better. No matter how short our experiences happen, in dreams or in actual encounters, many can and will lead things into what they are meant to finally be.

And I guess we should welcome that, however small or seemingly insignificant that change should be.

The Last Slice (Dream Study)

The last six weeks I have been experiencing very lucid dreams. Like dreams about things that wake you up, and you find yourself somewhat confused about where you are, or “what was that all about”. I keep notes next to where I sleep so that if something rattles me enough – I can jot it down and try to make use of it later.

Just recently I had a dream about the geometric shape of a box, or cube. And the odd thing was how this shape was relating itself to certain levels depression. It began with lines on a piece of paper, starting with just the sketching of a square. And me standing in the middle of the square. Just flat, on the ground. Very simple, like you know where the boundaries and lines are. You can outstretch your arms to feel them pass the barriers of the square . Familiar, and comfortable. Like knowing the reaches and capabilities of yourself. Staying grounded, not feeling to far or out of touch with whats going on, just enough to fall some and then remember how to get back where you were standing. But still remaining on the flattened box…

Before I go on I’d like to state that certain controllable levels of depression are to me, an extremely useful creative tool. Being able to relive tragedies allows me to write and visually create in a very passionate way. And although retaining a very vivid memory does allow me to remember the good things just as well, the other side of the coin presents itself too. And it’s with this side that I channel into writing music and so forth. All of this is to say, in fact in my opinion ‘can’ be harnessed in a very healthy way because what this does is (as in the dream), when you begin to fall from away the square – you in turn project outwards with these outlets (as writing) and again use them and try to find and bring yourself back to the comfortable edges (and safe areas) of the square that you stand upon. It’s like using the sides of the invisible square as a safety net, you can let yourself fall some – but remembering to not let yourself fall too far that you can’t find your way back.

Now, with all that in your head lets add another side to the shape. Well let’s add the ‘z’ axis or the third dimension. So now instead of standing or spiraling on a flat plane, lets take your center inside a complete cube. With six walls to shape around you instead of four flat lines. Lets also make the area the shape covers about fifty times as large. So now your existence is quite smaller, and if you were to slip away from the walls you would have a considerably larger area to drift out and away from your “safety zone”.

I like to think of the three-dimensional cube representing a ‘deep or deeper’ depression. Where it is a place that you can get deeply lost. Although you can still find the sides when you are close to them (with enough creativity you can possibly find your way out of anything) it would be relatively easy to slip so far away from safety that in time, you could forget the way it feels to have come back. You would begin to forget what the ‘norm’ feels like, and perhaps forget how to make way to the safe edges again. This points to me the dangerous part of walking the lines of “creative output through managing your levels of depressive moods”. I think that this is the point where you actually ‘lose yourself’, and you simply slip into ‘a feeling of socially exiled status quo’. It’s at this level that creativity actually is harder to keep a grasp on, the resistance between you and the walls is greater, and your thorough output is way less than your norm.

How do you fight this or manage it on your own? How do you keep your grasp on the safety areas of your box – where they are, how far to get to them, and knowing that you could be close to getting to far out of reach and landing in a draught of sitting in dark rooms and living on less than lively thoughts?

Anchor yourself the best way you can. Keep in proximity your daily routine. Stay on your schedules, wake at the same times everyday. Plan new things to see, places to go and do. Even if you have to go alone. It’s important to not drift too far into the square. To me, it’s extremely helpful in what I do – but all in all you have to keep touch with tangible simple things. Sharing is by far to me the best way to remember your way home, even if it is things that are hard to talk about. Connecting with someone is just that, a connection that lights your path home, back to what you know.

Forget if you can, or get on with what you may. I use what I have to use, to get on with things. Sometimes it’s the less than desirable route, sometimes it passes over a night fold. Wipe it away the best you can, and if you can’t handle it push it somewhere fast and far. Or make it into something useful, and leave something for someone to read, look at, or listen to.

It really is the only way…

…go blame the dreams for feeling the way you do. I can’t explain it any other way.

Bend to bleed.

Spending time doing the mixing of the last song I recorded called “Lipstick in Yellow“. I hope to have that song up and on the site here within the week. Some songs don’t finish out as I planned them too and I have to end up tweaking the effects and so forth. And then if you try to put everything together too fast your ears and interpretation of the mix gets muddled down, so I have found that it’s best to wait a few days when you hit hurdles in the mixes that are just not coming out right. Add on the top that I do all the post production and edits myself, because it’s just easier for me that way…and well, that just drags things out longer. I still have at least 2 more songs to go before I pack the record up and print covers etcetera, and then I plan on getting it out to you personally, face to face.

Which brings me to say I may, in August be doing some shows around Texas on tour with The Loveletter. This is still early in the planning stages, but I really have nothing holding me back. I have plenty of time, and plenty to say. I have done a ton of road shows with my previous bands over the years. I’ve slept in less than desirable places, awoken on hard floors, gotten paid in change and booze, spent nights in vacant apartments, slept in vans and trucks on the side of the road, it really could not be anything I haven’t already done. Except that I’ll be doing it alone as a band. No shield, no armor, no sea of alcohol to hide behind – just me.

I think that this experience is something that I have to do, and really is something I need to see. Even if it is playing crappy coffee bars, and house parties I don’t even mind that so much. You’d be surprised at the people you can meet and share with on intimate gigs, yes I emphasize – you’d be quite surprised.

Split and Shiver

Spent the majority of the evening working on music. It’s good to find a wave and ride on it, ride through it and dig into it as much as you can. It’s unusual where the words come from, where even the chords even come from. But sometimes one thought, one look, or one picture in your head can avalanche into something worth telling a story about.

I mean story telling is all I’m doing. Most of the time it’s bad stories, or worse than lively thoughts. But always understand how real it is. How in my time, right now is what counts. I have no idea what I’ll see tomorrow so how could I possibly plan for it. How will I know if what I do today is what’s right for tomorrow. I don’t. You don’t. No one does.

This is why an expression on your face is worth writing about. Or an expression in your eyes is worth singing to. And it’s why you have to do it now. Someones lively hood dies everyday. And we just never know.

i’ll walk until i break
i’ll crawl until i make it there
i know it’s true

i fight for what i take
i’ll dream until i wake up there
and i find you

Squeeze