I Leave Him in Revolt

I end the year with eager anticipation.

I know, right? It doesn't even make sense after all we've been through and with no real guarantee of what's to come.

The thing is, I didn't choose it! Just like I don't choose to wake up in a bad mood, or choose for a song to write itself today. It just feels that way. How could it possibly? I have no idea. Nor do I really care.

We started the year off with an album in the bag and shows and a PR campaign lined up, and then everything disappeared. My friends, my band mates, were all off limits and I was even sent home from my day job to work from home until further notice (8 months ago!). I couldn't get toilet roll. I couldnt figure out, should I be wearing a mask, or should I not be wearing a mask? I got worried about my parents; So far away, elderly and in the midst of a full scale lock down. I couldn’t be bothered to write, or play music. I couldn't figure out the next step. Even now, as I look at the Spotify 2020 wrap up that all of the other musicians are posting. I despair at the numbers my band has. I mean, if you take out the crazy guy in St Paul streaming Cozy On The Bathroom Floor nonstop for the last two weeks, we have nothing. But yet... for some reason... it feels like Christmas. It feels like it did when on Christmas Eve I simply couldnt sleep, and my sister would wind me up further, telling me in whispers so my mum wouldn’t hear, about all the toys she THOUGHT she saw under the tree.

Its an eager anticipation.

It’s like on the flight coming to the USA as a new immigrant in 2004. I cracked open my old worn, Penguin Books copy of the complete works of Walt Whitman and read joy on the pages in a whole new light.

"Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night

the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs."

I thought “Yes! I'm going to sing every flipping day at the top of my lungs!” I felt there were pathways opening that I couldn’t even imagine yet. I couldn’t take it all in, but I just knew it was going to be good.

So thats what I choose - singing open mouthed a strong, melodious song in eager anticipation for twenty twenty-one !