Writing Our Own Song with Singer/Songwriter Bill Abernathy

Have you ever found yourself spellbound by a song that seemed to narrate your life story? Bill Abernathy, our troubadour for the soul, joins us to reveal how his melodies weave the fabric of our lives into song. An enlightening discussion ensues on the enduring influence of singer-songwriters who have used their platforms to make social statements. Icons like Jackson Browne and Neil Young are mentioned, prompting a reflection on the role of music in both reflecting and shaping societal values. The conversation touches upon the shift in music consumption with the advent of digital downloads and streaming platforms, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities this presents for artists today.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:20

Good morning and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is story. As always, I'd like to encourage our listeners. Whether you're listening for the first time or a regular listener, please do subscribe or follow us on Buzzsprout. Wherever you listen to your podcasts and on YouTube, do not shy away from YouTube. As a lot of you know, this is a labor of love and that just really helps us get the word out. So, that said, I would like to introduce our producer extraordinaire, and I have. She gets a new nickname every two weeks, so I had one ready to roll and then she told me she got her nails done, so we'll have to save that for next week. But I'm calling you the anniversary lady. Is that appropriate?

Speaker 2 1:06

yes, yes, I just hit, oh my gosh and it's funny that you mentioned that, because I just hit 21 years of marriage and I was like are you sure it's not 22? Are you sure we got married in 2002?

Speaker 2 1:17

and I'm like no, because his mom made a quilt for us for our 10th anniversary right she put down that it was 10 years and that the quilt was made in 2012, and I'm like she was off by a year and we laughed about it. But here we are, you know, a decade later, and he forgot about that whole conversation yeah, I think my grandparents for the duration of their marriage.

Speaker 1 1:40

And they met, they married after two weeks in, uh, the early 50s I think, and then, literally until the day he died, they argued about the actual day of their marriage. And they met, they married after two weeks in, uh, the early 50s I think, and then, literally until the day he died, they argued about the actual day of their, their wedding.

Speaker 2 1:50

So, yeah, no, yeah, the day's good. Just the year has been, has been the our conversation since friday, which was the anniversary. Right, it's kind of funny because I'm like, do you want me to get out the marriage certificate which, by the way, I just have to mention just because we're talking about anniversaries On our marriage certificate, we had to get it, my gosh, revised.

Speaker 2 2:14

I'm trying to think of the word Because he was so nervous. So I'm not surprised he can't remember what year it was. He was so nervous he put down, instead of his mother's maiden name, her married name, so his parents looked like they were brother and sister.

Speaker 1 2:26

Well, I guess depending on the state that could fly. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 2:32

yeah, well, we were in california at the time, so I don't know if I would have yeah, probably not back then. That was a good, good move but yeah, so I thought that was kind of funny. So I was like I could always bring out that lovely marriage certificate.

Speaker 1 2:45

I was going to say try to make it to 22. This could end the marriage. You know what I mean, yeah, Pick your battles we have been together for 20.

Speaker 2 2:54

And I told my summationist because we've been together for 25 years total.

Speaker 1 2:57

Right right.

Speaker 2 2:58

From when we met to dating, to engagement, to marriage.

Speaker 1 3:08

So you know, it just feels like forever with me in a good way, right? I hope I don't, okay, by the way, our producer extraordinaire, the anniversary lady, is named Virginia and I was calling you Grenier forever.

Speaker 2 3:20

Do you prefer Grenier or Grenier? Okay, so I know, cause we have a mini episode that dropped and I said Grenier. So Grenier is what I use because of my husband he goes by Grenier because he says we're now American, so therefore his family uses Grenier, but it is French, it is Grenier. In my writing and podcast world I use Grenier, so that was actually my misslip on you.

Speaker 1 3:46

Voilà, je t'appelle Grenier, virginia Grenier. Voilà, okay, without. I don't want to keep our guests waiting any any further. Thank you for your patience, bill. I will now read our guests bio and, as you know, bill, this is your opportunity to fix anything that I might botch, but I'm going to do my best. Okay, bill Abernathy excuse me, bill Abernathy has embarked on an exceptional journey, courageously navigating through the ebbs and flows of his musical and corporate life.

Speaker 1 4:17

Rising from humble beginnings, he has persistently pushed beyond the ordinary, challenging the status quo and dismantling longstanding stereotypes. You're speaking our language. In 2017, abernathy's musical passion ignited with the release of his album Find A Way, indelibly inscribing his unique signature on the vast tapestry of music. His pivotal track, goodbye Will Never Come Again, descended to the zenith of the Roots music chart, signaling the inception of a truly extraordinary musical journey. Venturing further, his acclaimed album Crossing Willow Creek unveiled the hit Cry Wolf, among other tracks that captivated international audiences, increasing his global reach. His deeply stirring track who Are you, who Am I, from his 2021 EP earned him a place as a finalist for ISSA Song of the Year, an accolade that attests to his ever-evolving artistry. Abernathy's music has permeated the globe, amassing streams from countless devoted listeners. His authentic voice, genuine songwriting and masterful storytelling have nurtured a long-lasting bond with his audience, carving a niche for him in the hearts of music lovers across the world. Welcome Bill Abernathy.

Speaker 3 5:35

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here. I think that we attempted this connection a few times and I messed it up, so I'm going to own that right out of the chute, but I am excited to be here.

Speaker 1 5:52

Well, we're excited to have you. So did that bio sound like you at all?

Speaker 3 5:57

Yeah, pretty fancy Probably a little bit more fancy than I am. But yeah, that's pretty descriptive of kind of how it all started and where it's evolved to to this point. So yeah, all good.

Speaker 1 6:09

Right on. Well, we're all in the right place. Then I guess I want to ask you a real general question. I do have a lot I want to follow up on from the bio, but to keep you know, on brand, as they say, we're going to start asking every guest a kind of rote question, and I guess the beauty of general questions is you can take it in, you know, whatever direction you're inspired to take it, Assuming you identify as a storyteller, which I believe you do in your songwriting. What makes you a storyteller?

Speaker 3 6:41

Sharing knowledge, right Sharing information. Hmm, sharing knowledge, right Sharing information? I've been fascinated by storytellers my whole life, particularly in the music world, so I've actually read your bio, so let me reference that a little bit. I'm a big science fiction guy, all right, and love reading science fiction particularly.

Speaker 1 7:09

Uh and uh. Are you more brad?

Speaker 3 7:10

bradbury, or as a bradbury orwell, you know that kind of that. Oh yeah, yeah, uh. I even enjoy reading anne rand, which is always, oh my god, yeah.

Speaker 1 7:17

Yeah, it's a little bit controversial, but yeah she's, she's tricky, yeah, yeah, but he loses some folks a little bit, yeah, a little bit, but I just want to say Asimov I never. I never quite got it. There's just more humanity in Bradbury's work. I just feel like it's grounded in humanity a little more.

Speaker 3 7:38

Yeah, I agree, but Asimov in my opinion, had a very interesting look at the future of where society and humanity could go, and I always find that interesting to draw correlations between some of those writings and some of the lovely things that we see in our society today. So to me that's fun.

Speaker 1 8:00

Well, that is great science fiction, right, it doesn't just caricature what's going on now, but it actually predicts the future. So, aldous Huxley, right, brave New World is kind of. They call them futurists. You know, right, those are often futurists. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you, so you were. You've read my bio.

Speaker 3 8:18

Oh, no, no, no, and did you just carry on with your your uh thought there, you know I actually have a shirt that says can let's just make orwell fiction again, right, so you know that's kind of right all right.

Speaker 1 8:31

Well, we are three quarters of the way there in terms of big brother, right it's three quarters, really, I'd like to check your math on that.

Speaker 3 8:38

Uh, yeah, though, but uh, I love it and and it started off, really from the storytelling standpoint, from a really unique concert that I went to.

Speaker 3 8:52

So I was, I was like I think I'm about 10 years ish older than you, and I was taken to a concert by my brother who was nine years older than me concert by my brother who was nine years older than me, and we went to see Loggins and Messina, right nice, who had just come out, you know, with with their albums and stuff and their first album. And we got there and, lo and behold, there had been a breakdown of the bus that carried the band and all and all the instruments and they just couldn't get there. So, rather than cancel the concert, uh, kitty loggins, jimmy messina did a uh, a solo acoustic concert, one guitar, because kitty loggins actually had a broken arm at the time he couldn't play they did one, a full three-hour concert with just them and one guitar, and not only did they play the songs beautifully, but they told the backstories. Wow, that's like a gift. Yeah, exactly, you know, and I think I'd rather hear it acoustic.

Speaker 1 10:01

You know, I think I'd rather hear a lot of those earlier tunes acoustic yeah, it's kind of like how they were written.

Speaker 3 10:07

You know it's uh. You know, I do a little bit of that in my music, on my, on my uh, current album. I have two songs, uh, that I just uh. They have the fully produced versions.

Speaker 1 10:19

Yeah, but they also did my homework on youtube. By the way, I listened to the acoustic version and the fully produced version of Call. Is it Call their Name or Calling their Name?

Speaker 3 10:29

Yeah, it depends on who you talk to.

Speaker 1 10:31

Yeah, I saw both.

Speaker 3 10:33

I wrote Call their.

Speaker 1 10:34

Name right. Yeah, I tend to prefer the acoustic version, but anyway, I am a huge Kenny Loggins well, mostly Loggins and Messina fan, but I saw Kenny live at the Greek here in LA, which is pretty intimate. I mean we didn't get the backstory on all the songs, but yeah, huge fan, yeah.

Speaker 3 10:54

But that evening I just got mesmerized by not only the musicality right and the skills I mean, jimmy Messina is a fantastic guitar player and obviously both of them are really high-quality vocalists but what mesmerized me was the stories. And I think I was about 13 at that time and from then on out it's been man. I love storytelling, I love listening to artists that actually tell a story, but, much like our friends in the science fiction world, there's always some message in there and sometimes you have to do a little bit of digging to figure it out. But I've been fascinated with that my whole life and so when I started writing I thought, okay, I'm going to be a storyteller guy. And so, and you know, I took off and you know it's evolved from there. So beautiful.

Speaker 1 11:53

Yeah, I mean, I think Kenny Loggins is a great example A lot of people are nostalgic about. Oh, the music from the 70s and the 80s is superior, and you usually hear because of the storytelling, right. So especially Kenny Loggins, there's not only a narrative aspect but it's so incredibly personal that it just resonates. So, yeah, I think you've achieved that. I see a message in your work, but it's not preachy or didactic, it's just very inspired because it feels very personal. So I think you've accomplished your goal.

Speaker 1 12:22

But that it does lead to a question I wanted to ask to several times and I didn't cobble that bio together, by the way. That's word for word what I got from you. So several times the idea of musical and corporate life came up, and in the same sentence. So to me it's like Ooh, that seems like a very different mindset or sensibility. Do you see it that way? Or when did you actually embrace, you know, the calling of being a songwriter? Did you leave the corporate world altogether? What is the relationship in your, you know, in your worldview, between your experience in the musical world and the corporate world?

Journey of a Midwest Storyteller

Speaker 3 13:03

Well, I'm glad we have a bit of time, because this takes a little bit of time, right. So when I was a kid, young right, I played a lot of music, toured all over the Midwest, did a lot of things, got to meet really cool people and play some really cool venues. And then I had a bit of an issue, a medical issue, with my voice, and so I laid it down as the doctors told me, and I went and just got a job, you know. You got to pay the bills right, and so that job evolved right over time and I ended up getting married. I had kids. You know the whole Midwest dream. You know the big house on the hill and the fence backyard and the 2.3 kids and the two dogs, you know, and all that. I lived that dream and the corporate world made that possible for me. And over time and a few surgeries, I kind of got my voice back a little bit, and though I have nodes, or what exactly was the surgery?

Speaker 1 14:01

Yeah, I had nodes. I was going to say what I love about your voice. It don't take this the wrong way, but you know, michael mcdonald and kenny rogers, it's not even a rasp, it's just texture. You have a really great texture yeah, I think that's.

Speaker 3 14:14

That's 66 years old man. You get a little texture at that juncture, right?

Speaker 1 14:18

yeah, I can tell the difference between a smoker, somebody with nodes. My sister's a vocal instructor and she had nodules as well, but she uh escaped the knife somehow. Um, but yeah, no, I, I envy texture. I just don't have it with my singing voice anyway. I'll have to smoke more and then give me 10 years and we'll talk.

Speaker 3 14:37

Yeah, there you go, Well mostly it's legal now, so it's all good, uh, but anyway, I did the whole corporate gig and raised my kids, and my kids were both big time athletes. They were both Division one, full ride ballplayers and and that lifestyle is not conducive to spending a lot of time in music, right, and we traveled literally all over the world. My son was on Team USA and he played in China and did all kinds of good stuff. So I wanted to support them and give them everything that I could from a parenting perspective, and so I never really stopped writing, I quit playing, and I always had a little studio in my house. And you know, I've got, as I'm sure you're right, right, I've got notebook after notebook after notebook of ideas and you know this and that.

Speaker 3 15:35

And actually, when they were just about done with college, I was at, randomly, I was at a party, and at this party was somebody that I hadn't seen in years that remembered that I used to play, and they asked you know, are you still playing? And I said no, not really, man. You know I write, you know I've got some songs and all that, but I haven't done anything with them. And he said well, you know, I've got a studio. Why don't you come in and let's record a couple of them and see what they sound like?

Speaker 3 16:07

And so just you know, kind of on a whim really, I went in and recorded a few songs and produced an album out of it. A couple of those songs got really popular, you know, won some stuff, got some awards and all that and that kind of kicked it into gear, right. But that album was pretty much acoustic and cause, you know, it was first time I'd been in a studio forever and so you know I didn't want to really produce it up. And so you know, we had a song on that, one called pillow Creek, which was the first song of mine I ever heard on the radio, which was cool.

Speaker 1 16:44

I was going to ever heard on the radio, which was really cool. Yeah, I was going to say what is that moment? Like, yeah, that's far.

Speaker 3 16:49

Yeah, it was actually. I was driving across Utah on a business trip and going from the airport to where I was going to work and you know, I didn't know what the radio stations were. I just kind of flipped one on and it happened to be kind of a folky, rocky thing. And I'm driving along and all of a sudden I go well, that sounds pretty good and I turned it up and it was me. That's one of those moments where I had to pull over.

Speaker 2 17:15

Take a minute, yeah, just take a minute.

Speaker 3 17:27

But you know that that record kind of got me thinking. Well, you know, maybe there are old hippies out there that like this style of music and you know. So we just kind of evolved into, you know, the Findaway album which kind of ignited me a little bit, you know, across the globe, and we followed that up with an album called Crossing Willow Creek and it had several hits and all that. It had a number one on it and then you know, it evolves right over time. So, but at the end of the day I'm just a storyteller that happens to do it with a guitar and a microphone.

Speaker 1 17:56

Beautiful. Yeah, that's kind of our contention is, a story takes many forms, right, and I am glad that you identify as a storyteller because that does lead. I mean the musicality is a whole nother conversation, right, and I am glad that you identify as a storyteller because that does lead. I mean, the musicality is a whole nother conversation, right. Your musicianship is just stunning and that is a lot of you know. Largely the appeal is the guitar and the instrumentation and the arrangement. It's a full on experience.

Speaker 1 18:20

But you know, and I do think, different things. You know image touches people very different than language does, as we've discussed endlessly, right, virginia, an image can speak more. You know pictures worth a thousand words. So in my book I kind of go into the difference. They say we're in an image saturated society. So I think you know everything reaches us differently, whether it's viscerally or cerebrally or, you know, in the gut, the head, the heart or the gut is the way I put it. So anyway, but it's a vast topic obviously. So I love that you said music. Do you have other modes of expression as well? Do you identify as just a storyteller with sort of different vehicles of expression, or did it come with the musicianship first, then you sort of connected it with something to say, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 19:07

Well, we kind of have to go back down to the corporate gig, right?

Speaker 3 19:11

So the last 20 years or so of my corporate life, I sat on the leadership team of North America for a huge global organization, and I spent quite a bit of time speaking at conferences all over the United States and some in Brazil and a couple of them in Australia, and speaking, public speaking, is a different kind of storytelling, effectively, right, you know, tell a joke three points, wrap the end, joke back around to the first joke, which is, essentially, you know essentially another way to think about songwriting.

The Power of Storytelling and Music

Speaker 3 19:52

They're very similar, but I used that platform if you would to tell stories, and it's one of the reasons that you know, I got asked to go to all these conferences, and over and, over and over again, and, and because you know, realistically, you know you can stand up and you know, tell your three points and you know, drive it home and you know all the things that you're taught to do, uh, but people will lose. You'll lose people, Right, but if you tell a story, uh, that has those points in it, and especially if it's something that they can giggle about, then they'll remember that, and so I found that to be a very effective way for me to get my even my corporate points across by telling stories Love it.

Speaker 1 20:39

Yeah, that is something that comes up every week, right, virginia? Persuasion only goes so far, right? So, uh, if you're didactic, didactic about it, you're not really engaging the chemical level on which story operates. So you, you know what I'm saying. We're saying the same thing here. There's a formula for a reason, because you got to get that oxytocin flowing and not only is a tribal bonding, but it actually that's how you transform people through storytelling is engaging them right on a chemical level. So that all sounds very contrived, though right and manipulative, and, I think, a true artist. You've obviously found your voice and stepped into it and owned it. So hopefully that's all second nature and intuitive, one would think. But I want to kind of sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 21:29

I was just going to say. You know one of the things that fascinate. I am fascinated with Native American culture that really didn't do the written history thing. You know, they told stories and I have a huge collection of Native American kachinas, which are the dolls that went along with the stories, right, and uh, you, you look at that and you go, man, if I could just do that, that would be so cool. And uh, I'm impressed around the campfire exactly, exactly well, that's what you're doing in essence, right.

Speaker 1 21:57

It's just, oh, sadly, brick and mortar stores are going by the wayside and that is the marketplace, right, and so we're more and more isolated. So it's kind of beautiful that you can reach people through storytelling on the internet as opposed to around the campfire, because, uh, that's how it's happening now, right yeah, that's where music lives.

Speaker 1 22:19

Now, right, yeah I mean, I do think I mean you probably know better than I, but my understanding is because digital download we it was the wild wild west initially right, and then we started regulating it. I understand that actually, the only money to be made by the record companies is in ticket sales these days. Right, if you can download a single for $1.99, I understand it's actually still so. That's why, you know, taylor Swift concerts are out of control is because people really do want that experience of sinking their brainwaves with, you know, strangers and bonding and feeling their humanity. So how do you feel about that? Is it alive and well? Even though most people are getting their music on the internet, is, uh, the live performance still a big part of it?

Speaker 3 23:05

Well, I think you have to classify live performance, right. So I do not and never have and never will consider myself to be an entertainer, right, I'm a storyteller and if people you know play the guitar and sing a bit, right, and if people are entertained by that, great Right. But if you come to one of my shows, you're not going to see dancing girls, there's not going to be flash bombs going off. You know there's not going to be. And thank God, at 66, I'm probably going to be fully clothed to what I was going to say.

Speaker 1 23:36

There's no dignity. And there's no dignity in any of that. I actually I run the other way. If, if it's not just the tits and ass factor, but if a singer needs choreography and dancers, I'm out. I'm just out. Or twerking Right. Have you ever had somebody twerking while you're?

Speaker 3 23:54

I actually had an interview with. I can't recall the name of the magazine, but the last line in that interview was the world needs more Bill and less twerking, just saying yeah, I tapped into that, apparently that's funny.

Speaker 2 24:09

Well, I was gonna say, because for me music, at least when I listen to it, I know it's the, it's. It's not just the fact that I'm, you know, watching a music video or going to a concert, it's the, the music, the actual chords. And I mean this has been, you know, obviously studied over and over again in mental health that different chords do release certain types of chemicals in your brain.

Speaker 1 24:38

I mean and I can't remember the name, I know it's called- is it like harmony versus dissonance, that sort of thing, or the Chord Structure Resolving?

Speaker 2 24:46

Yeah, the Chord Structure Resolving so like, and I can't remember the name of the song. I know it was back during the 19, early 1900s, I think between 1910, 1920s. I could be wrong, it could have been the 30s, but I know it wasn't past that. There was a song and I think it was out in Poland. It was a Poland artist that did more of the instead of like more of a melody. It was the harmony notes and did very deep harmony notes, and it was nicknamed the suicide song because people who listened to it over and over again.

Speaker 2 25:24

It invoked actual Clinical, clinically depressed Wow, you know responses in people. So if I can, Sorry, go ahead, no go ahead.

Speaker 1 25:35

Well, I want to jump in and, bill, if this is not your cup of tea, we can move on. But I just, you know, I've taught art for over 20 years and you know light logic, color theory, perspective, composition and all that. And I compare notes with my sister, who again is a vocal instructor, and the parallels are just fascinating. So when you look at a major chord one, three, five, right that correlates with the primary colors blue, red and yellow and then you shift on the color wheel to the tertiaries right, which is orange, violet and green, and it's just somehow a little more melancholy right and deeper somehow. So to me that correlates right with the harmony rather than the melody. I just think that parallels are fascinating. But that's how we're reaching people, right, we're wired for it.

Speaker 3 26:26

Yeah, and I think that as a musician, I'm not going to go off into theory which we could go way off into that but as a musician I feel that each set of chords has a feel. Each set of chords, right, has a feel. There's a reason. There's a reason why large percentages of rock and roll songs are all in the key of A right Number one. It's because you can shred there easily.

Speaker 1 26:58

but they're all you know Well, isn't rock and roll also largely C, a, f, g?

Speaker 3 27:02

Exactly right. Four chords and then flash fingers, right, that's what I call rock and roll. But you know, country music is usually in the key of C, sometimes in the key of G, right, and so each one of those keys to me has a different feel. And so when I'm writing, for example, I always write the lyrics first, always before I even think about anything else. You know, I may have a melody line stuck in my head, but, and then I have to figure out tunings, because I think that an alternate tuning to a D minor, say an open D minor chord, has a completely different feel to it Is it the frequency?

Speaker 1 27:58

Is it literally resonating and reaching people on a different frequency, an emotional?

Speaker 3 28:03

frequency. Yeah, exactly, you referenced the Call their Name song, right, that is one of the weirdest tunings that I use, just because when I tune my guitar that way, it said yes, Bill, this fits. This is what's going to carry the message you know that we need to send. Well, I?

Speaker 1 28:25

want to talk about that one actually in great depth, so I want to save it for just a moment. But I want to throw this out there and see if this, if you've heard of this concept there was a little article about how again that nostalgia about the 70s and 80s Usually it's oh, they told stories and of course I have opinions about the young kids today being raised on devices and their nose stuck glued to a phone and just so little life experience that they actually may not have much to say because of the lack of life experience. But that's a whole nother soapbox that I could stand on. Many reasons people are nostalgic about. Even young people are kind of blown away and and impressed by do you know what I mean how they're touched or enlightened or moved by older music.

Speaker 1 29:13

The thing that, the thing that kind of said it all to me was this study and basically it proved that and it could be that sampling ushered this in but nowadays pop songs anyway tend to vacillate between very limited chords. It's not dynamic, there's no volatility in it, and limited chords, if that makes sense, whereas melodies kind of evolved back in the day right and arrived in new territory and you vacillated between a wider range of chords. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 29:45

yeah, yeah, and they're very rep.

Speaker 1 29:47

It's very repetitious, right, and uh, yeah, I'm not a fan of that, but uh, there are a lot of people that are and, uh, there can be something mesmerizing there's a cowboy junkies in the 90s and the repetition really puts you in a hypnotic state. So blah, blah, blah. There's room for that too.

Speaker 3 30:10

Yeah, you get comfortable because you know what's coming. Right, you're not sitting, you know it's. You know, if you turn the page on one of those songs, chances are you're not going to have an alien invasion that you didn't see coming. Right, you're going to turn the page and it's going to look a hell of a lot like the last page, right, so it's a comfort thing, you know. And people can. You know, people can tap their toes and shake their butt and twerk and do all the things that they like to do and enjoy that, and I'm happy for them, right, I support them. Well, they do whatever they want, right, they're having a good time. But I'm just not that guy. I try to.

Speaker 3 30:49

I have a lot of musician friends that work with me when I'm recording this stuff and to make a living, right, they play in a lot of cover bands, right, and so they're going out and you know cover bands are pretty much, you know, 70s rock and 80s rock. That's probably. You know, that's mostly what they are, at least in the Kansas City area. And and this year I was watching the Super Bowl, of all things, love sports and I'm watching the Super Bowl and I watch the halftime, right, and was it this year? It was Usher Usher. You know good musician, you know, and all that. But I'm watching the whole show right, the whole big. You know dancers and you know and all this stuff, and I'm sitting there going. That is going to be an interesting cover band in 20 years. How are you going to pull that off?

Speaker 1 31:37

Without the dancers and the fireworks.

Speaker 3 31:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know people enjoy it. My kids love it. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know people enjoy, my kids love it. You know, and, uh, you know, fortunately enough, they also love real what I call. You know the old school music, you know the storytelling and well, you raised them right, you raised them and all that. But uh, you know they love that stuff and so more power to them, yeah there was a.

Speaker 1 31:57

I was in a uh, subway sandwich place. Yeah, it happens. Um, in North Hollywood, which, if you know LA, like you know, people straight off the bus from Iowa want to be actors, think they're in Hollywood. But North Hollywood is pretty much the furthest thing from Hollywood. It's, it's a, it's an armpit, or it used to be, anyway, it's getting better anyway. See, here you run into beautiful models and actors who actually think they're in hollywood. Um, but I was at that subway working for disney interactive and just on my lunch break and some literally 13 year old kid comes up to me. He's like who is that on the piped in music, who is that? He didn't have a shazam, apparently, and it was pat benatar. And he really recognized not only the guitar solos, which which you just don't hear anymore, right, but her amazingly operatically trained voice. He was blown away and I just it was the happiest day of my life being able to introduce a 13 year old to Pat Benatar Mm, hmm, mm hmm, I sense something about it.

Speaker 3 33:00

Yeah, I had a proud moment. My son played baseball at University of Alabama and you know they have walk-up songs right, and you know most guys are you know some Ozzy Osbourne thing or whatever. My son had a walk-up song that was from Kansas and I thought, okay, my son is all good, he understands really good music, right.

Speaker 1 33:23

Oh, he chose it or it just. Oh, yeah, no, he chose it. Oh, right on, yeah, that's. Yeah, you raised him, right? I mean, uh, my dog's name is bowie and so in my neighborhood because he has two different color eyes, right, okay, cool, yeah, but I mean it had to be done, right, I have no choice.

Speaker 3 33:40

But exactly like my dog. My dog's name is wharf w-o-r-f.

Speaker 1 33:45

I noticed that and what is the origin of that? I feel like that's um, maybe, uh, nordic or something. What is? Where does that?

Speaker 3 33:55

derive. Lieutenant commander wharf of the starship enterprise. He is not a trekkie, I'm sorry. No, he is a klingon warrior.

Speaker 2 34:05

I I, I got that. I I knew exactly what it was my dad was a trekkie.

Speaker 1 34:10

I kind of rebelled against everything my dad stood for, so I didn't go that route, sorry, yeah, I'm a truck. Should I leave you guys alone?

Music Trends and Interconnectivity in Society

Speaker 2 34:19

then I wanted to as you guys have been talking about music and you know, uh, 70s and 80s and just kind of the narrative, you know more of a longer, you know, range of chords and stuff in the music that we all grew up on. I know, like my kids, definitely every so often they'll get tired of the 80s, like, okay, mom, turn off your 80s music, you know, and they'll like resort back to you know, their 2010, whatever nonsense that they want to listen to, which some of the songs don't totally bother me. But then I realized, oh, that's because it's a remake slightly. And then I realized that's kind of why it doesn't bother me as bad. But I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember that song. It just wasn't a hit when I was younger and that actually doesn't sound as bad now.

Speaker 2 35:02

Um, but I find a lot of the music, like even when I think of, like my parents, you know, and they're definitely from like the later 50s to the 60s into the 70s is where their you know, music category tends to fall, I find that when I hear those songs too, it takes me very much on a reflective journey. When I listen to music, I mean especially like when I listened to your music, bill. Um, I was listening to your song, you know who are you, who am I, and I was like it does. It just makes you kind of go into more of that reflective and you can relate it into your own life and I think that's probably one of the reasons why music like this really transcends um, a lot of more of the hip cool. We'll always call them the one-hit wonders that just kind of come and go and die off because they don't latch on into society. I think on that deeper level.

Speaker 3 35:58

Thank you for the compliment on. Who are you, who am I, and I'm all here to give you a flashback. That's my job, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but, yeah, relatable, it's good. Yeah, who are you, who am I, and I'm all here to give you a flashback. That's my job, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah relatable, it's good.

Speaker 3 36:08

Yeah, you have to keep in mind that music is is, uh, it's so different. The industry, industry itself, right, is so different. I mean, uh, you know not, here we go, man, when I was a kid, right, bands would, would make an album, maybe once every two or three years, right. Then it would come out and it was a big deal. And then there was tours and all this stuff and the radio played it, you know, nonstop, you know in your ears, and you just didn't have a lot of volume of music, right. But today, spotify gets 200,000 new songs every day, wow, every day, wow, every day. Imagine that, right. And so, to find your thing, you know what you want to look for, what you want to hear and what kind of you know tickles your fancy. It's a bit harder to do, you know Well the way I put.

Speaker 1 37:02

Tell me if this is what you're referring to. A little bit like in publishing you had the big five, right, they had a monopoly on it. If they didn't like you, you slit your wrists or just change your career path, right, if you couldn't get in, you know. And now indie writers as we know we've had a lot of them on this show Indie writers and indie publishers actually stand to chance because you have print on demand right, and indie publishers actually stand to chance because you have print on demand right. And so in filmmaking, yeah, a kid can make a film in his garage and it actually stands the chance of getting distribution. So it's even the playing field right, whether it's distributors or, you know, distributors of films or publishers. So same in the music industry everybody is waiting for a lightning strike or waiting to be discovered. So in a way the oversaturation means there's more opportunity because the playing field is leveled, if that makes sense, but it's also oversaturated. So you're waiting for a lightning strike. But I guess my observation too is you know, my people, my age, we lament the fact that there really isn't as much of a interconnectivity or a bonding or a community anymore, because when we were young, we, we knew we would watch the same MTV, right, we had the networks from two to 13 and maybe on, you know, on, remember on or Z channel. You had a cable networks, but so we were all having the same experience in the same virtual space. Oh yeah, table networks, but so we were all having the same experience in the same virtual space. Now there's all these rabbit holes. So I guess I want to throw to see what you think of this.

Speaker 1 38:30

I actually think there's good stuff out there. I have 22 nieces and nephews and they'll occasionally show me what they call it Hardcore. It's not hardcore rock, it's not hardcore punk, it's apparently a new genre called hardcore, and they'll play and I'll go holy crap, that's as good as Nine Inch Nails from the 90s. But I'm not finding it because I don't go down those rabbit holes. So to me, it's not that the music industry is in a slump. In my opinion, it's that the proportion of bubblegum pop and no offense to anyone, but 30 years of hip hop is enough. Let's evolve, let's evolve Right. So the proportion of bubble gum pop and pop that's hip hop influenced overshadows the really cool cutting edge stuff. You have to go deep down rabbit holes to find that stuff.

Speaker 3 39:20

You have to have your network right and you mentioned it, you've got all your nieces and nephews and stuff. You know they hook me up. Yeah, yeah, I got musical friends that will hear something that you know maybe I haven't found and they'll send it to me and they say, hey, listen to this, listen to this listen. I've found all kinds of really good music that's out there today, but it's just. You know, there's so much that you have to hunt and pack through. And the music industry God bless them. You know they try to put things in boxes right and say, well, this is country and this is rock and this is hip hop and this is this. I've been called all of them at some point or another in my career. They seem to have actually settled in on folk rock. I was about to say, what about folk? Yeah, but I've been called country, I've run album of the year, rock awards, that kind of stuff. So it's hard to say, okay, I need to go find folk rock, because the best tunes may not be called folk rock.

Speaker 1 40:23

Well, you need your hashtags right, at least for the hashtag. But I what I notice is they jump on. Even you know, if something goes viral, they're going to jump all over it and grab that guy up, you know. So I think they mark it on an as needed basis. They're like, whichever way the wind blows, wherever the money's at, well, exactly exactly, yeah, exactly, and it's a business.

Speaker 3 40:44

So you know they're all about making money, so it's all good.

Speaker 1 40:47

Well, virginia very nicely tried to direct us back on track a moment ago. I believe we have chased the rabbit.

Call Their Name

Speaker 1 40:55

Oh no, this is definitely in the spirit of our podcast, everything we've talked about, but I do think that we were talking a little bit about message. Right and so didactic, preachy, moralistic. There's all these negatives. When you talk about message, even the word propaganda comes up, but clearly you have a message that's largely just humanistic, in my opinion, and I think the song that you mentioned was a good one. In my opinion, uh, and I think the song that you mentioned was a good one, but call their name, or call calling their name, uh seems to really encapsulate. You're kind of making a difference in the world. If that makes sense, can you tell us the backstory? What inspired call their name? And then, uh, kind of how it's uh played out yeah, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this.

Speaker 3 41:46

Uh, this is the call. Their name is a special song for me. Beautiful, beautiful video, thank you, um, so I live in what's called the city market area of kansas city. I live in this great, big old building built in 1880 on the national historicoric Register. I have this really cool loft that I live in that I call the Wonderland of Wood, and I live here with Worf, right, my dog, and I got him when he was eight weeks old in the middle of COVID, right, and so you know we're locked in.

Speaker 3 42:22

But we got to where, once things loosened a bit, you know Worf and I would go, and just a half a block, half a block from my house, is what's called the City Market Park. It's been there forever and Worf and I would go up there and walk around and of course he's this little, you know 12-pound ball of really cute brown fur, you know, as opposed to the 64 pounds oh my God that he is now. But you know we would go up there and walk around, right. Well, city Market Park is adjacent to the city market, which is, you know, farmer's market, that kind of thing, and there's always seems to be a population of people that are hanging out in the park that currently don't happen to have a permanent home, and Worf and I would go up there you know, we went up there every day multiple times and he would, you know, they'd see this cute little dog, you know, and they would want to play with him. And so, you know, he met them. They became friends, you know, and they would play with him. They'd bring him little treats and he was always really excited to go see them and, you know, they were excited to see him.

Speaker 3 43:29

And so we went up there just before Christmas one year and we were headed down to the park and I saw an interesting thing actually, there was a guy in a suit, clearly business guy, right, and he had a shopping cart, you know, like from the grocery store, and in this shopping cart he had put a whole bunch of backpacks, right, and so the morphine understander, we're watching him and he goes up to a group of our homeless friends and he hands them out, right, he's handing them, these backpacks, and he's saying, hey, merry Christmas, you know, and it was so cute man, it's so touching, because they would open them up, you know, and what the guy had done is he'd stocked them full of things that they would need for the harsher winters that we have here in Kansas City.

Speaker 3 44:22

You know, I saw gloves and hats and coats and that kind of thing, and it was such a statement, a societal statement about this, because they took them all out and obviously the guy had went to like Costco, right, and at Costco you can't buy a pair of socks, you buy three pairs of socks, right. And so they were all divvying these out and they were making little separate piles for their friends that weren't there, right. So they were kind of sharing the wealth, if you would. And I looked at that and I thought, yeah, we could learn something from this.

Speaker 1 44:54

Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 3 44:55

But then the cool thing happened, right, the coolest thing. So there's one guy his name is Sam and I've known him forever for years, right, and Sam doesn't hang with the group, right, he sits kind of off by himself on a bench and typically just stares at the ground. And this gentleman approached him and had the backpack and held it out to him and he said hey, sam, merry Christmas. And this is where the song comes from, right here. The guy looked at him, sam stood up and he looked him right in the eye and he said thank you, I believe that you just gave me the greatest Christmas present ever. Thank you.

Impactful Conversations on Homelessness and Advocacy

Speaker 3 45:41

And the guy said hey, but he said come on, sam, you know, you know what's in here. We do this every year. It's gloves and hats and stuff. And Sam says no, I don't want you to misunderstand, right, I appreciate the gloves and the hats, right, but what you did was you recognized me as a person. You recognized me as more than just the dude hanging out on the bench in the city market. You recognize that I have value and you called me by my name. It's, from that, beautiful. Yeah, it's a beautiful story?

Speaker 1 46:19

Yeah, it is. It's a great story and it comes across in the video, not just through the lyrics but the imagery. It's really poetic and really beautiful, but that says it all. I have to agree with you. You know, being silenced and erased and feeling invisible right, there's a lot of mental illness among the homeless, especially in LA. Right, but it's isolation is mental illness, right, lack of interconnectivity. And community is, right, insanity. So I think it's so important that you don't feel invisible in the world and, yeah, one. Even looking them in the eye and saying hello, like they're actually human, right, goes a long way. But I love you know, call me. I mean the name thing yeah, they're not nameless faceless individuals.

Speaker 1 47:05

They're actually people with a story, right and a history, and families and everything.

Speaker 3 47:10

I'll give you a little back story with Sam. Sam has an MBA right and this is the lifestyle he chose. He just kind of blew off the corporate world. He's more of what they call the guys that used to jump trains back in the day.

Speaker 1 47:25

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh well, we're not allowed to say that anymore no, I don't know what that word is, but vagabond.

Speaker 3 47:30

How about a train hoppin gypsy there you go, there you go, uh, but uh, the the coolest thing really about the song uh is I mean, the song you know won a bunch of awards and you know number ones and you know all this stuff. But that's cool, but it's not the coolest part. The coolest part is, as the song got out and got you know all its thousand, hundreds of thousands of streams and all that stuff and the video got out, I started getting notes, man, back on onto my website and through social media and you know all the places that we have to communicate about. They were coming from people that said bill, your song really touched me. And today I went out and saw a guy sitting by the side of the road you know we all see him right and I gave him a water bottle and I introduced myself and I called him by his name and I've got hundreds of those right that have come in since that song.

Speaker 1 48:26

So, uh, it it's a theme you know it's, it's beautiful, it's a movement, it's a movement yeah, that's some sort of a movement, but the beauty is it was not advertised.

Speaker 3 48:36

You know, I didn't put it on you. You know, go do this right people. Just well, that's it. Touched them enough, right, touch them enough that they just went and did it. And that's cool. Cool to me, it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 48:46

Well, it's why we make art. It is, and again in my book. I hate to keep tracing it back to the spirit of the podcast in the book, but the ripple effect. That's what's meant by the ripple effect, right? So if you make your difference with your immediate grassroots circle of friends and family, you hope that, by extension, policy right actually evolves, or even social reform on a on the macro scale, and that's what that looks like.

Speaker 1 49:13

So there's a whole chapter where I talk about, like, actually, how do ideas spread, how do movements spread to shift paradigms? And I kind of use this metaphor of either picture bees spreading pollen or, when it comes to negative messaging, you can picture locusts spreading disease. So right, it starts at the water cooler. At work, I say, when your bed, your head hits the pillow at night and you recount your day to your spouse. Then more recognizable things, right, like dogma in church or education, or even business practices. Right, best practices in business, like all these ideas were internalizing them all day, every day. But they do spread. And I joke like, well, a really charismatic individual can create a whole movement Christ, martin, king, and so that is everything. That's why we tell stories and it's so much more, and now I'm preaching, it's just so much more I think important in quotes Right Than anything Propaganda, political campaigning, all of it point is is that it's the story, right, which you and I fully agree on.

Speaker 3 50:30

But what does the story actually do, right? What's the impact? Who was touched by that? You know who, uh, uh, and. And when I started getting you know all these notes and stuff back, I thought you know, man, there's hope, right, exactly, you're restoring hope for people.

Speaker 1 50:44

You're putting them in touch with your humanity is one way I would put it. Don't you think we all get blinded by the ins and outs of everyday life? But you're putting them in touch with their humanity and, right there, recognizing our interconnectivity you know so many great songs right that that have talked about this.

Speaker 3 51:04

I even reference a couple of them in the, in the lyrics uh, of this. You know I'm not a huge beatles fan, uh, but there's, there's a few songs that I think, uh, really, really you can.

Speaker 1 51:20

Oh, john lennon's belief. No, what is it?

Speaker 3 51:23

yeah, so let me read. Let me just read this to you, please, please. In the last verse, imagine, I was thinking of. Imagine, sorry, yeah, in the last verse of this song, right, it says how could it be that we've lost our compassion, how could it be we no longer imagine that's the reference, right While sitting in buildings of granite and stone and locking our doors when it's time to go home. Right To me, that's a statement to say you know, we always want the next big thing, we always want the next big project. You know, but since COVID and this is a little bit political, so excuse me but since COVID, our government buildings that we currently rent and lease are about 45% occupied. I'm kind of wondering, maybe, if we can't just, you know, reutilize some space here.

Speaker 1 52:15

You know, just saying Well, I have often had the thought there's homes that are being foreclosed upon and then they kick out the squatters right, and yet we have this influx. We have little, what they call tiny homes here on the LA Wash. It just ain't working. It's for a variety of reasons. I have friends that would actually work on that project. And the flooding right, the entire community got flooded. So there's a connection between climate change and our ability to solve the homeless crisis.

Speaker 3 52:46

Actually, no question no question, it's all interconnected. Yeah, yeah, it's not easy.

Speaker 2 52:53

If it was easy it probably would be fixed right, right, I always say, if it's, if it was easy, then we're not being reflective and introspective enough. If it's, if it's causing us discomfort, there's a reason that we need to dig deeper and figure out what it is. Um, talking about the whole building thing. Um, not that we're supposed to get on a whole political tangent, but I did because advocacy is a big part of what I do um, my, from my in my undergrad at the time.

Speaker 2 53:23

It was back when they were starting to bus people out of California to different States to kind of help move along the border problems that we're having. And our college put out to the student body hey, we've got a bunch of dorms that aren't being used Cause a lot of people right now, because this was after COVID had, you know, opened up a lot of people are remote, you know, remoting in, so there's not a lot of people from out of state living on campus anymore. So you've got these open dorm rooms. What do people think? And I was a big proponent of, yes, let people live in those dorms, so they don't go empty.

Speaker 1 54:00

I think we have well again to me, as you know, virginia. Every week we say well, I think we have well again to me, as you know, virginia. Every week we say well, it's not that we shouldn't shy away from politics, because if you don't care about politics, you don't care about human rights or individual, you know personal liberty or blah, blah, blah. So, art like it or not, right, we're talking about policy in a lot of cases. So, but yes, it's tricky when you get into all the knee jerk right rhetoric, and so I think we have such a knee jerk reaction to anything that smacks of socialism, obviously, that the idea of solving the homeless crisis, instead of just saying, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, this is, you know this is a capitalist society.

Speaker 1 54:44

Like, right it just we lose the nuance and then it's just not even a logical conversation at some point.

Speaker 3 54:51

Yes, I'll be honest with you. You know, I came up in the 60s and the 70s and everyone, every one of my favorite artists, always had something to say. You know Jackson Brown oh man, I love him. Fantastic about. You know Stephen Stills, right, stephen Stills has some great songs. Billy Joel has some great songs that make reference to a lot of the issues and things that are going on in this world today.

Speaker 3 55:18

And I think that I'm going to say this, it's not going to be probably correct. I think that we've got enough baby, baby, baby. You know I love you, love you, love you songs floating around out there, and maybe there ought to be some artists that have enough wherewithal and gumption to actually throw something out there to ignite a little bit. I mean, I've got a couple of them on this record. I've got a song. Actually, people, it won't be released as a single, but we've released a video of it. It's just called Save your Drama for your Mama, right, and it's got this whole country feel to it, you know, but that's what that song did. But essentially what it's saying is you know, I'll reference back to the corporate world.

Speaker 3 56:05

You know I went to work saying is you know, I'll reference back to the corporate world. You know I went to work every day. You know 43 and a half years, and my goal was to show up and add value right To whatever I was working on. You know is making the company more money, or reducing spend, or saving people's jobs, or, you know, optimizing business process whatever right. Optimizing business process, whatever right. But one thing that I never, never, never really got into was the whole. You know corporate politics and drama stuff. You know that goes on in big companies. I'm sure you have a lot of the folks that are paid to do what they do in Washington would just shut the hell up and just do their damn job, right? Well, go to go to work and do your job and save your drama for your. I don't need another freaking mic drop moment. I just don't.

Speaker 1 57:01

Well, I want to. I'm not quite sure if this relates, you can tell me, but you know, meryl Streep, did you know how at the Oscars they're like get off your soapbox, we're. We're not here to hear your politics. And sometimes I do feel like. But that's what makes us artists is we have, you know, something to say. And sometimes it's not, it's just diagnosing a problem. Really, and if you don't beat the drama of the problem but you look toward the solution, there's some value in speaking about that publicly. So people stay in your lane. You're an actor, it's like well, but wait a minute, what makes her an actor? She gives a shit.

Singer-Songwriters and Their Stories

Speaker 1 57:37

So yeah I don't parse between. I don't buy some of that rhetoric, you know, and I don't know.

Speaker 3 57:42

I think uh, you know, if that was this, if that was the case, right, there would be a lot of artists that would have never made it right, and jackson brown being one of them. You know, you're hard-pressed to find a jackson brown song that doesn't have some sort of social statement in it, right?

Speaker 1 57:59

and so all of them, everybody you mentioned, I mean neil young. I would add to that yeah, yeah, you could go, but I think maybe that's making a comeback. Uh, again, we're talking about those rabbit holes.

Speaker 3 58:09

It's still happening, right, but it's not the majority of what's getting airplayed and maybe that will make a comeback one of the things, one of the things that, uh, that always fascinates me, particularly about music, in particular about popular music. You know, the music that we, that we grew up on, uh, is how many people, um, you know, I'm a lyrics guy, right, I love trying to figure out what they're talking about. Why did he write that line? It wasn't, I'm pretty sure he didn't write it. Just because it rhymes, right, right, why is that there? You know, the one of the greatest ones ever is still, uh, in love the one you're with. There's a, there's a, a rose and a fisted glove, and the eagle flies with the dove. And if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with what? What is that?

Speaker 1 58:57

that's so funny. I've had that referenced to me many times. I did not even know that's where it was from. Love the one you're with. Yeah, yeah, no if you can't be with. It was from Love the one you're with, yeah, yeah, no. If you can't be with the one, you want, love the one you're with something.

Speaker 3 59:09

Yeah, but how he sets it up there's a rose and a fisted glove and it flies with the dove. You know I wrote a thesis about this, Right, and uh, you know it's that's a statement, you know. But the song itself, right is all. You know. People think, oh, it's a guy and he's lonely and he can't find a girlfriend and he got left and he's just hanging out in a bar. And if you can't find the one you love, love the one you're with. So Stephen found a way to say what he wanted to say in a manner in which people would kind of not pay attention. But those of us that do do do right I think.

Speaker 1 59:47

I think that's fantastic, yeah yeah, and maybe, uh, I'm, I'm the worst, I'll be honest, I I'm not great at I love to analyze. I'll analyze films. You know, I was trained on conceptual art and so I love to analyze the symbology or the allegory or whatever it is. With music, I was just such a sucker for you know the melody and like and kind of I might I move, but I am not good at paying attention to the lyrics unless it's clearly. You know it grabs my attention. Put it that way, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:00:20

Yeah, another one that fascinates me is Billy Joel, who people don't think so much about as being a singer-songwriter. Right, but he is, of course he is. He's an entertainer, he's the piano man. That's what people think about Billy Joel, right, but he had, and every musician ever has lived this dream. If you're a songwriter. He's got a song called the Entertainer still plays it on tour today, right, and one of the verses says I am the entertainer and I bring to you my show. You heard my latest record. It's been on the radio. It took me years to write it. They were the best years of my life. It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long and if you're going to have a hit, you got to make it fit. So they cut it down to 305, which is where our attention spans have been programmed through music forever. Three minutes and five seconds, man, that's all we got.

Speaker 1 1:01:18

Well, remember, the Deep wasn't a Jesus Christ Superstar, was originally an album by Deep Purple. Right, yeah, I missed that. I actually missed the whole. This came up with Glenda, didn't it? Virginia Benvenides that whole experience of like listening to an album as an experience, from start to finish, looking at the artwork, reading the lyrics right, we don't have the attention span for any of that nowadays. Right, we don't have the attention span for any of that nowadays, making an album is not really what?

Speaker 3 1:01:53

Well, I'll say this a large percentage Right. Usually an album in today's world is a series of hits, right. But there are still artists and God bless them. I'm one of them. I try to have a theme Right For an album, and I try to have a theme right for an album and each song kind of reflects that theme.

Speaker 1 1:02:09

But is it a body of work that emerges at a within a finite period of time? Right, yeah, it's going to reflect your, it's like a snapshot of your psyche at that moment. It's the body of work is going to be cohesive, because that's your worldview. Sarah McLachlan once said I mean, you can speak to that, I'm giving you my opinion on it. But Sarah McLaughlin once said you spend your whole, literally your life, writing your first album and then, with a gun to your head from the record label, you spend a year writing your second album and sometimes you need angst or you need some life experience to have anything to write about for your third album or your fourth album.

Speaker 3 1:02:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I've got a few songs that I was just pissed off when I wrote them, you know, so usually related to watching the news, but yeah.

Speaker 1 1:02:57

Well, kenny Loggins, when I saw him at the Greek, I think I mean he should have paid us for the therapy, to be honest, because when he did interject between songs, the dude was bitter. I think he had just been through a divorce, right? So every song was passive, aggressively indicting his wife. Do you remember that period? Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, I still love him. But the poor lady. I did think, wow, she's calling her out for sure.

Speaker 3 1:03:24

If you could imagine, though, I know exactly the album you're talking about and I love some of the songs off the album, oh yeah, because they're just full of emotion, right, but I always like to go back to Stevie Nicks right of Fleetwood Mac. Right, she's Wiccan right Virginia.

Speaker 2 1:03:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:03:44

Sorry, go ahead. She's Virginia Wiccan. Yeah, you know, not only right, virginia. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 1:03:46

She's Virginia Wicken. Yeah, I know she is. Yeah, and that's cool, uh, but imagine, imagine this, right, since we're talking about Kenny Long is getting, you know, pissed off, right? Imagine writing hit songs about how you broke up with your boyfriend and he was such a butthead and you know, everything went bad, right, and then playing them on stage with him in front of thousands and thousands of people. I mean, that was that, was you just?

Songwriting and Relationship Challenges

Speaker 1 1:04:18

described Taylor. Well, you just, oh, that's right, yeah, they didn't murder each other throughout that, I don't know. But you did just describe taylor swift's entire career. And then, uh, no doubt remember they were, they were all in bed together and then, yeah, when stefani continued writing about, right, the drummer wasn't it? Yes, yeah, musicians are to write.

Speaker 3 1:04:41

It's cute to write a song about a breakup. But it's way cool to write a song about a breakup. But it's way cool to write a song about a breakup and make them play it with you in a stadium.

Speaker 2 1:04:49

That's cool well, I say abba, abba did the same thing. They were another group that had that same dynamic. They stayed together as a band. But, yeah, a lot of those songs, um, the give me a no, yeah, no, is it give me a man, is it?

Speaker 3 1:05:07

that one, I think that's.

Speaker 2 1:05:10

There's a couple of them that was written by one of the women about the whole infidelity of her husband in that band.

Speaker 3 1:05:17

Yeah, I was god love them no, but it's like you said, ben you write what you're living, yeah, right, what you're living at the time, right, so, so go ahead I was just saying I think that's.

Speaker 2 1:05:30

I think when, when artists do that, you know, be it books, music, you know, actually in their, you know art work, you know where it's visual, um, you know. Or even those who do plays and movies, I think that's what draws us in, is because you can, through all of the stuff that, of course, markets it to the general public at the same time, the ones that see beyond, that we connect to that rawness that we can see that the artist had.

Speaker 1 1:06:00

I think it always transcends if it's inspired Right, and so the emotional charge is the inspiration. So, yeah, I agree with you. I mean a lot of. I think a lot of things are.

Speaker 1 1:06:14

I was at a coffee shop and there was a bunch of 22 year old A&R people from a record label brainstorming over coffee and they were like let's get. It was like a christmas album con, like a concept album, and you know that idea that creative executives are the furthest thing from it. Creative execs stole the word creative from the actual creatives. Sorry, I mean we have a few opinions about this, but these were kids and they kind of put the cart before the horse, like, okay, this will sell, let's do a Christmas album. And it was literally like let's get Tina Turner and Billy Idol, like the weirdest combination of talent.

Speaker 1 1:06:54

And I feel the same way about like a singer, songwriter that speaks from inspiration instead of even a garage band that has a singular vision is better than sort of cobbling together, you know, like the Beach Boys or some of these boy bands in the 90s, right, where it comes from the creative execs at a record label. That's what we're talking about, the difference. But on this I kind of want to head toward a close and to tie it all together, like the idea of writing from your pain right, and that's what's going to transcend. We were hinting at, you know, pathomassively aggressively indicting people for relationships that have fallen apart. Can you tell us and now I didn't really analyze the lyrics of more, but I know it's about relationships and wanting more in a relationship. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 3 1:07:47

Yeah, I think that, uh, so, first of all, I'm a guy. Guys are not good at emotion, right, and uh, I know that's a blanket statement and there are guys that aren't all that, but in generally speaking, we're not socialized to be forced Exactly, right, we did so. I've been single now for about 10 years or some number like that. And when you enter into relationships, right, it's challenging, you know, at my age. Right, it's challenging because you know everybody's got their history right, everybody's got their baggage, everybody's got all the things that they're bringing with them from previous relationships or whatever.

Speaker 3 1:08:35

And what's really really hard, excuse me, what's really really hard but yet really really easy, is to get complacent, right, and it, you know where good enough is. Good enough, right, if you're, if you're being I was married for 35 years and if, if, if you're not you know this is my old corporate side coming out to speak here If you're not getting better, right, you're getting worse, right, I don't think you just hold what you got ever right. And so, when, when you think about that in a relationship, right, there's this constant, there should be this constant striving to improve, this constant, striving to form more in a simple right. And and when, when you're doing that, you have to do a lot of self evaluation. So more is one of those songs you know people talk about singer, songwriter songs. Where you can, you can see that they've reached into their chest and they pulled out their heart and they've hung it out here for the whole world to see. Right, well, that's more.

Speaker 1 1:09:46

Right, I call it opening your veins. A lot of artists open their veins.

Speaker 3 1:09:50

Yeah, well, this is one of those songs, right, and it's, you know, it reflects about, you know, different things that that that I am challenged to do, and actually more was a quest. It was a year long quest for me. I like to, uh, have structure in my life, and so this is one of those things that I read tons of books and lots of empathy, and you know all that, uh, but it's it's me saying, um, how do you find someone that has that, that connection? You know the, you know the disney connection, you know the hallmark cards collection, that kind of relationship you know where.

Speaker 3 1:10:32

You know it's just all sunshine and moon memes, right, and how do you do that? And how do you make that connection so deep that you could actually flirt with the idea of a soulmate, right, which is a word that I don't really know what it means, but a lot of people use it, right? And so how do you do that? Well, the only way you could do that, in my opinion, is you got to start inside, you got to start with you, right, and so more is kind of that To attract that mate.

Speaker 1 1:11:02

in other words, you got to figure out yourself first Right to attract it from the universe.

Speaker 3 1:11:08

in other words, yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got to. You know, they say it's an old adage, right, that you can't really love somebody until you learn to love yourself, right, right. And so when I was writing this song, I was looking way deep inside, ok, so is there something about me that's keeping me from? Because you know, I have a lot of friends and you know a lot of stuff, you know I have good relationships with people, right, but is there something inside me that's keeping me from going where I think it could go? Right, and nobody knows, right? It's confusing to me a bit.

Speaker 3 1:11:54

But where is that place right, that this nirvana right in a relationship, right? Where can we be, to quote, where can I find somebody where I can just be more than just friends and more than just lovers, more than just the moments we share with each other, more than just a smile, more than a touch, more than the illusion? Think, that's a thing, you know. I think we get comfortable, we can find somebody to get along with and you know you have great fun and you have good times, and you know we tend to want to call that love. I'm not so sure that it is. So it's me challenging myself to say, really what is this thing? You know how can we take what we know, right, and what we experience to another place, to another level, right, and you know how do you do that. So that's really what more is, it's an internalization of my inability to open up enough to have that kind of connection.

Speaker 1 1:13:10

I also and I know Virginia you're going to from a mental health perspective. You might have something to say about the song, you know. But hearing the backstory of it, I heard a little bit in there too about you know the complacency within a relationship, right, how you kind of settle. It's not even that the more is evasive or elusive or right. You don't even know what the more you're searching for is. But it is true, if you're compatible that can become a bright, just kind of being resigned or settling or being complacent within a relationship. And I've told this story before.

Speaker 1 1:13:45

My sister and her partner have been together 35 years I think, and you know my parents were a great example to many people married until the day she died a few months ago, and same with my grandparents I mentioned. They married after two weeks and were married over 65 years until his dying day. So I am lucky. I have very good models for great relationships that a lot of people admire and look to for hope or inspiration. But I don't have any answers. But I do know my sister and her partner have said, you know we do live in a channel, changing society, and the grass is always greener and we tend to throw in the towel on relationships and move on because we've grown apart. They'll say we grow apart all the time. Our commitment, our only commitment, was to get to know the new person, right. So if you constantly make those adjustments and choose to be there right and choose to get to know your partner as they evolve I mean the trick is really so that everyone grows and strives for more to use your word right and if you let your partner strive for more and then you reconvene, you're good. And so they actually.

Speaker 1 1:14:54

I'm not saying it's the answer for everybody, but they do recommit, not like a ceremony, but they write a letter to each other each anniversary and say here's what I still love about you, here's what I love about the new you this year. And I think that that goes a long way. Does that make sense? Because then you get the more and because it can be a fantasy, right? I think a lot of people mistake, as I think you were hinting at, mistake the Disney version or the Hallmark version for the real thing. But actually try changing diapers together, right? Yeah, virginia, I know you can speak to this.

Embracing Differences in Relationships

Speaker 2 1:15:30

I think I think you said it beautifully and and I I got a big smile on my face, but I made the comment about soulmates because I actually in Dalmatianosis, I actually consider my husband my soulmate and but why, though, tell us what a soulmate is, and that's what I was gonna go to. So we're basically, we have commonality obviously, otherwise we wouldn't have met. We wouldn't have actually met online too, which was back, back would, before the dating right, oh really, yes, this was early internet um was it aol like?

Speaker 1 1:16:00

were you using a chat rooms?

Speaker 2 1:16:01

Chat rooms. This is early 2000. This is pre-2005. So yeah, early, early. So like barely, dating websites were even a thing at the time. But yeah, we met in a chat room of a dating website. That's how we met.

Speaker 1 1:16:17

I love it. Not Hallmark, really Not Disney per se.

Speaker 2 1:16:21

No, I actually almost didn't talk to him. He had to come up with 101 ways to ask for my phone number because I was very hard to um to engage, but it was more of a joke why I even signed up on the website anyways, um, but him, even though we have commonality, we're very much a yin and yang um, so you can put. He wanted to put in the light and the dark spot. You know, it's fine with you, fine with me, but the reality is is it's it's our huge differences, cause, even though we have a lot of common ground, our differences are huge. They are. We could have a chasm easily between us, but we have found it's because which I know, we've talked about that that whole duality, um, um, it's those differences that we rely on, because where I'm strong, sorry, like you compliment each other in other words exactly where I'm, in areas where I'm stronger and he's weak, and vice versa.

Speaker 2 1:17:16

And be we, and we recognize that, and so, instead of it becoming a chasm and an area of resentment, that's where we learn.

Speaker 2 1:17:22

Embrace that you compliment exactly and that's where we learn you embrace that, you complement each other Exactly, and that's where we learn to embrace each other and to learn, which is really hard to do because we're very much. I mean, my husband definitely has. This is his saying, and he will tell you what's my saying of the rule of help Don't help unless I ask. So it gives you a very big idea of like how independent individuals we are.

Speaker 1 1:17:43

They do say that unsolicited advice is always criticism.

Speaker 2 1:17:48

Exactly, and so it took us learning and growing to learn to lean on each other during the dating process. In those areas where we're in, one of us is weakest, to lean on the strength of the other, and so it's because of that that I know that he's my soulmate. Because it goes back to, like you know what you're saying about your sister and her partner. I mean the same thing. I mean we don't write a letter to each other, but we're constantly doing little things to remind each other, like we're in a new season and we're growing and we're changing and we are still soulmate.

Speaker 1 1:18:18

It sounds a little bit like you attract your soul. There might be an agreement or a contract, right, if you believe in that, but you are brought together because you do complete each other right, and that's the agreement yeah, so it's like you're two individuals, but the same time, you enhance the best in each other, which is what enhances that, that relationship as a whole love it.

Speaker 1 1:18:39

Yeah, I want to reassure all of our listeners. This is very much in the keeping of our podcast, because we talk about writing a new story all day, every day, right, and um, I don't want to bill, you can jump in anytime, but I just want to steer it for our clothes. Back to story a little bit, because we are talking about reinventing yourself. I mean, we start and close every episode with. You can get your hands in the clay, write your own story.

Speaker 1 1:19:07

So within a relationship, it's the same animal, right, and I agree with you you hinted, bill, that if the way I've put it over the years is in my writing anyway is if you don't, if you're not growing, you're beginning to die. That's true of a houseplant, a human being, a relationship. So if you're not growing and evolve, we are wired to evolve, actually to be our best selves for epigenetics, right, so we can pass those better qualities on to our offspring. But I kind of agree, literally and figuratively, if you're not reinventing, or let's say, if you're not growing, you're beginning to die. And the parallel of that is if you're not transforming on the regular, you're languishing. So that's, I think, a spiritual thing, and then it's a societal thing right. If we don't actively forge, call it a social evolution, whatever, then we will regress, we'll. The pendulum will swing backwards. And we talked, I on our last podcast, virginia, about just doing the maintenance right. The the elements get to you entropy, gravity, uh, inertia, right. So you got to actively self-create is the way that sounded.

Speaker 3 1:20:20

Sounded right no, I agree, I agree, you know. So I think that to roll back into the song right, and there's a line that's repeated in there that says I can't help but wonder if there could be more. And I think that's the key is to always say you know, this isn't all it could be. Is there more?

Speaker 1 1:20:46

Maybe there's not right, well, but to tie it, you used the word hope, I think, a moment ago. That's what hope is is actually seeing the field of pure potential and all the possibilities, and that includes human potential, but also our own potential. If you can't see a future or realizing your potential, you, you have no hope. You've got to have that vision in order to, uh, create it.

Speaker 3 1:21:11

Yeah and sometimes trying to figure out what that vision is, is a big internal search, right? So, yeah, does it evolve as well? Yeah, sure, sure it's going to evolve, right? Because you're going to change, you're going to have different life experiences, you're going to have different knowledge, different information, different input, right? So it's it's a constant evolution and in the midst of all that, you're trying to figure out what's more.

Speaker 1 1:21:38

I love it. Yeah, pretty deep.

Speaker 3 1:21:40

You're pretty deep for a folk singer man, I'm just an old hippie living in a loft down by the river with a dog named wharf.

Speaker 1 1:21:48

That's exactly what I am, and yet, and yet, profound yes yes now, I love this life of like, like.

Speaker 1 1:21:55

Do you like don mclean at, don mclean, don mclean at all, sure, well, and then, uh, you were hinting at, uh, I'm sorry, who's our musical intro? It's the eagles. Oh, don, uh, don henley, like I love. His lyrics are very slice of lifey right, seemingly uh, but so loaded and so profound. Loaded, that's the key, but set in a very simple, poetic way. There's a French singer called Francis Cabral. I don't expect anyone, anyone, anyone, not I listeners, hello. Anyways, you might want to check him out. I think he cause there's a lot of really cool acoustic guitar, spanish guitar, it's minimal production, but Francis Cabral, but I call him the French Don Henley. Again, in my limited to French, it's like, oh, it seems equally poetic and simple and yet profound and loaded at the same time. I'm writing, I like imposing my tastes on listeners. Now, I don't get to very often In my teaching.

Speaker 1 1:22:58

I really resisted that.

Speaker 3 1:23:01

So sometimes I, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that when you look at you know songwriters, like you know there's so many layers right you could go, you know so deep and you know so quickly. Right, you could go, you know so deep and you know so quickly, but yet they have this ability to to. I don't. I don't dumb it down Right To make it where everybody will hear pieces of it. It's like a really good piece of literature Right when you could read it and you could say, ok, this is what it's about, like, oh, look, it's a cute book about a hobbit. But but the more that you get into it, the more you realize just how deep it is right.

Speaker 1 1:23:41

I call it leaving room for projection. Right, if it's universal enough, it doesn't matter what somebody's takeaway is, it's going to be in line with your intention. If it's universal enough, right. The patron gets to project on it their own life experience.

Speaker 3 1:23:57

Yeah, that to me is the gist and the impetus, and the goal for every songwriter or storyteller is to be able to have those layers that everybody could experience at their own pace and their own space, right? So it's not just a book about a hobbit, right?

Speaker 1 1:24:19

right. Well, what I resisted? Because I am a big. I think you probably learned that in your research of me. But I grew up on Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. I'm not like Stephen Colbert, trust me. One of my nieces kicked my ass and I guess there's a trivial pursuit for just Lord of the Rings Like I couldn't keep up so. But I did reread Lord of the Rings over and over again for silent reading time. In junior high we had 15 minutes every day of silent reading and I've forgotten all of it.

Speaker 1 1:24:51

But I do think academically, too many people focus on that. It's an allegory for world war ii. I'm sure you've heard that right, sure, yeah, but to me it's like, yeah, there's no emotional resonance in that. Let's. Let's take a step back and look at what it's saying about the human condition. I don't like the allegorical level of things because it's pretty shallow in my book. But anyway, what I was hitting out with don henley, you do seem to say things with poetic simplicity and I'm calling that slice of life. I don't know if that is something you identify with or not, but that is what I loved about Bradbury is you don't need all the laser guns and all the fancy language he puts. I've regularly said he's an influence in my writing because he taught me economy. He taught me poetic simplicity.

Speaker 3 1:25:38

Yeah, without question. So it would be fun, right, if I could show you guys the process that I go through when I write one of these songs, because it will be literally half a notebook, right, of just ideas, post-it notes, you know all that kind of thing. And then you just look at it and you go, okay, well, there's the deeper thought, but that ain't going to work, or how are we going to say that differently? And then all of a sudden you scratch things out. Yeah, you scratch it out and rewrite it, you know. And then at some point you got to go oh well, crap, this should probably rhyme, you know. And so it's taken that huge amount of work, right, and just simplified it to a point where you could actually sing it in well, I don't do three-minute and five-second songs, but sing it in a reasonable amount of time, right, and get the point across.

Speaker 1 1:26:36

And so somebody like Henley it would be interesting for me to see his notes Right, and it's almost like whittling away to the essential Right, whittling away all the marble or whatever. Yeah, I mixed metaphors there. Did you like that? I do that's pretty impressive. You don't whittle marble, what do you? I guess you carve away.

Speaker 2 1:26:53

You carve marble little wood.

Speaker 1 1:26:57

OK, thank you. I love a mixed metaphor. Sorry guys, to the david, right to the center of the marble okay, well, I think we we should bring this to a close. This has been awesome. Uh, maybe we'll have you on for a part two. I've said that many times, but I always mean it.

Speaker 3 1:27:21

Well, I would love to do it. I've truly enjoyed this afternoon with you guys. You know I do a lot of these, right? And you know Michael at NTS Management and all that, you know, they know I like to talk and so you know he books me on all kinds of these things and I was a little, I wasn't apprehensive, I was a little maybe in anticipation of doing this one, after listening to your work, right, and what you've done with your other podcasts.

Speaker 3 1:27:52

Well, because academic, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We could go academic if you'd like, but you know, I didn't know how do I say this. I didn't know what notes to have out in front of me, right? So usually when I do one of these, I'm going to get the same 10 questions, right? You know, I got a really good one the other day, the guy, the good, good dude, you know, younger guy, and he says well, where do you see yourself in 20 years? And I said, dead, I'll be dead in 20 years. Man, you know, it's the fact that we didn't, we didn't throw out the canned questions. God bless your heart, oh thanks for saying that.

Speaker 1 1:28:28

Oh, that's well, that's what we hope. Look we've. We've been lucky, right, Virginia, we've been very lucky. No duds, Sorry.

Speaker 2 1:28:34

Yeah, no, duds, honestly, it's not that we don't cause we do prepare, we always prepare and and we do actually like, have our bullet ideas that we want to hit on. But then sometimes, but you know, and as you can tell, like especially with Dominic, he's so good at it. I mean, he, we really listen to what you say and we're like, hey, well, let well, let's go back to that. I really like that. So we, we love the fact that we, we do have a little bit of that candid.

Speaker 1 1:28:57

I think the magic happens when you are organic about it. So I mean, I've said we don't do everything right. We're learning every week, right, virginia? And that's why I said this week I do want to ask some road questions Hopefully they're thoughtful, you know and questions that I. I mean I remember the first time I went on a podcast, they said, so, tell us about yourself. And I go, um, I literally said, well, I guess I'll just open my mouth, let's see what comes out. And it was fine. But I didn't never want to do that to people. But I will steer it back to the spirit of the podcast, which is where I Virginia, you're really good at that too so I think it's a good balance, personally, where we do go off on tangents. But isn't the magic there, virginia?

Speaker 3 1:29:41

every time thanks for saying that. I'll give you a little analogy here, right? So I have a sister god bless her heart 13 years older than I. She's the phd shrink. Okay, virginia's becoming one of those. I, I, I, I got that reference right. So, uh, she listens to all of my songs, right? And then sends me written analysis of just how messed up I am in my head. She diagnosed you, without question. I mean, I am a subject of her PhD thesis. So I, I, I've been tested, man, I have been tested, and so when I was listening to Virginia talk and you, I thought this is not different than so much of talking to my sister, because she will take everything that I say and analyze the crap out of it, right and so.

Speaker 1 1:30:34

I have to tell a story, though I'm sorry we were, we were so headed for the final yard here. But I have to respond to that really quickly because I think we are touching on the difference between expressing oneself, no holds barred, through art, right, which is catharsis, self-expression and we're taking an academic view of of it, of the creative process, sometimes, right, and then Virginia is beautifully, uh, I think, putting a mental health perspective on things from time to time. But here's my story and maybe it'll speak for itself. I know what arts are. I just wrote a 375 page book on how art serves the individual and then one hopes, right, by extension, through the ripple effect you know, contributes to our evolution. It's my premise, but I absolutely think arts for art, for art's sake, the catharsis of it, there should be no rules. Uh, when it comes to self-expression point is I wrote a screenplay once and it was, yeah, I was opening my veins.

Speaker 1 1:31:31

It was, yeah, I was opening my veins. It was very raw. The few actors. I had a little reading with some actors, actually some well-known actors. One of them was from Chad Allen. He was from that Dr Quinn medicine woman, and anyway, we just did a casual reading at my house and but everyone that read it said, oh my, my god, this is the most raw thing I've read in a while, and actors get screenplays pretty regularly. So, for good or bad, they said it's pretty raw and uh, it was. It was about a breakup and uh, it served me for sure.

Speaker 1 1:32:08

But anyway, uh, at the end of it all also, a friend of mine who's a scientologist patiently sat through about half of it and then got up and left. Later he, exactly like you're hinting at, diagnosed me. He sent me a letter diagnosing me. The problem is speaking of science fiction writers. He referenced what's his name behind Scientology? Yeah, l Ron, yeah, hubbard. So the problem is he's a horrible writer. I tried to read Dianetics and it's like I, I'm into any and all cults, like I'll be. I said this in one of our episodes I will sign up for your cult for a week. I'm, I'm interested in you, you know. But he's a horrible writer. So I didn't get past the first page, but anyway, my friend's letter to me said um, death is the accumulation of pain. I like I couldn't get past that because I don't know if I agree with that. But the point is he diagnosed me and, uh, I, I was thinking and you can call me prideful or defensive or whatever but I thought he doesn't understand the function of art.

Speaker 1 1:33:16

If he had sat through the whole thing he would have seen the redemptive part of it, right where the thematic content actually lands. But you don't get to have an opinion or critique something if you don't hang in there for the resolution of the conflict. And therefore it wasn't a message, it wasn't a didactic message, it was all sides of the coin. But if you don't hang in there for the thematic content, you don't get to have an opinion on the pain. So I really did think I mean, we remained friends and it was fine. But I thought he doesn't get to diagnose me because he doesn't even understand the function of art. Does that make sense to me, to you?

Speaker 3 1:33:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, does that make sense to me, to you, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that I don't have a story nearly that interesting, but I did a concert Benefits. I don't play a lot live and so I usually just do benefit concerts, right? So, because I don't play live very often, people will come Right and it's usually people that have something in their back pocket to donate and help out, right and so. But I was playing a show and I'd just written this song and it was a pissed-off song.

Speaker 3 1:34:24

Okay, it was a pissed-off song about a situation that occurred with my family not my family, my extended family, you know, like you know sisters and brothers and all that and, uh, they had really irritated me and pissed me off and and, uh, I find that that sitting down and writing helps me kind of vent, you know, and get my mind around it. You know, and I wrote this song called walk away and it was kind of cute, you know, it was kind of cute and fun and the band liked playing it, you know, and so we played it and we got done. Of course, my sister's there, right who, by the way, I have to supply supply lyric sheets to before she comes to the shows so that she could make sure and catch every little nuance of everything right and she came up to me.

Speaker 1 1:35:14

You really are a case study.

Speaker 3 1:35:16

She's discussing it with her colleagues, you know there's no question I'm a mess but I own it. You know I'm happy with my mess, right. But she came up to me afterwards and she says we need to talk. You're a mess. And I said what do you? What do you mean? She said this walkaway song, we need to talk. I'm going. Ah, whatever, right, but. And then we did talk, and much like friend, right. If you take things at a surface level or you forget to hang around to the end, right, right, you're not going to get the story.

Speaker 1 1:35:52

Or how about this? Like Kenny Loggins? Yeah, I caught him at the greek theater at a really bad moment, but that's a snapshot of that moment in his growth.

Speaker 3 1:36:03

It's okay, it's all okay, out of out of that pain, right out of that pain of his divorce and his kids and losing all, he came up with a song that other people can receive catharsis from and go.

Speaker 1 1:36:17

oh, I'm not alone, Right.

Speaker 3 1:36:20

The song is he's talking to his daughter, his young daughter. That's the one. That's the one. I did it for you and the boys, because love should show you joy and not the imitation that your mama and daddy showed you. I mean, let me write that line Holy crap.

Speaker 1 1:36:35

you have a great memory, you, that you just came up with that off the cuff uh, I remember lyrics, but I don't remember names.

Speaker 3 1:36:43

I have you guys's names written on a notebook in front of me.

Speaker 1 1:36:47

You know that is the exact song that I was referring to when I brought up. Kenny was a little pissed off and that poor lady yeah.

Speaker 3 1:36:55

But but because love should bring you joy and not the imitation that your mama and daddy showed you.

Speaker 1 1:37:03

I mean it's a beautiful message. I just thought, yeah, but that poor lady didn't want to hear that.

Speaker 3 1:37:09

But out of that pain came something that beautiful and that clear and that concise, right, and he's talking to his daughter and he says honey, let me explain this to you. It's not. You know, I did it for you. You don't get that yet Exactly. Yeah, yeah, and you know it's for him to use that moment as a teaching moment to show his daughter that the reason that he did something that was hurtful right at the moment was because that hurt is going to go away and you're going to learn this lesson.

Speaker 1 1:37:49

Well, virginia, again to hand it off to you, we've talked a lot about art therapy and narrative therapy, right? So even those that don't self-identify as artists per se, or those that don't have a craft, still benefit from that, right? Do you want to talk a little bit about that narrative therapy?

Rewriting Narratives Through Creative Expression

Speaker 2 1:38:05

Yeah. So the whole, the main basic premise, is re-changing your perspective, your narrative, so realigning it in a positive so I'll just use a depressive example here. So someone who has chronic clinical-type depression, of course getting out of bed every day is really hard, very painful, and the thought is every time your alarm goes off. Generally I'm just this is general, just so people know I don't want to make anybody might host depression, but you know is they hear their alarm go off and they're like I don't want to go to work, like that's the instant thought that goes, which obviously I'd probably say 99.98% of us probably feel that way anyways, but they feel it on a very deep level, to not make it sound superficial. So, anyways, the alarm goes off and you're like I don't want to go to work, but it's deeper than that, obviously.

Speaker 2 1:39:06

I'm just using a very general term and so what most people do in the 99.98% of us that feel this, every day we get up and we're like, well, I have to go to work because I have these things to do, or I have to go to work because I have to pay these bills. I mean like we. Another thought comes into our mind, naturally but somebody who has depression. That's just not a natural reaction. It's I don't want to go to work, and then it's all the reasons why they can't. They can't do it, and so you have to reframe right that narrative into the law of attraction.

Speaker 1 1:39:38

It'll attract like thoughts, and then it just snowballs exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2 1:39:42

And so with narrative therapy, as you learn to do that thought process, but with the typical creative, I'm just going to put us all in the creative category. Um, no matter what your artistic field is, the creative mindset is, when we share our stories, we already know that somebody is going to eventually hear it. So you have the person who drafts the story, the narrative, and then you have the recipient of it. And it's those two things combined where, when we release whatever is going on in our lives out to the world, we know someone in the world, even if it's just one person, it's going to touch them and by touching them it releases that oxytocin. For us, the dopamine effect kicks in, all of those good chemical hormones kick in and of course, the person who is the recipient of it they reflect, do their introspection, connect to it, however has that same reaction. So that's-.

Speaker 1 1:40:40

I call it a complete circuit. The circuit is completed, right.

Speaker 2 1:40:43

Exactly, and that's but it actually rewire.

Speaker 1 1:40:45

You can rewire neural circuits right.

Speaker 2 1:40:47

Yes, yes, and it does, and over time, by us sharing our stories and reframing our narratives. And sharing, because the key is you have to share it with someone else, be it a therapist, a friend. By us sharing our stories and reframing our narratives and, sure Cause, the key is you have to share it with someone else, be it a therapist, a friend, a loved one, whatever the whole world you know, through song, books, music, dance, whatever. Um, the point is is, yeah, it starts to rewire you. It's the whole concept of you're feeling crappy.

Speaker 2 1:41:11

So you put on the nice. I'm just going to sorry, I'm going to do the girl analogy. But you know, your girl, your boyfriend just broke up with your girlfriend and you're, you know, pissed off at the world and you could go to work looking like you know dumpster fire. Or you put on your best heels, your best outfit, you do your makeup really good, you know. So you, you take like the two hours in the bathroom to do your hair, makeup, everything to where you look like you're going to walk down the runway and you go to work and everybody's like, oh, wow, you look great and you feel like crap. But because you put that persona on and then and you put the smile on and then slowly you start seeing that trickle out. Hopefully the goal is is by the end of the day you start to feel better as well.

Speaker 1 1:41:51

If you say it enough, it becomes true, right? That's what mantras and you know mantras are all about and affirmations and all of that. Yeah, I feel like sometimes creatives are lucky because they have a craft, they do it on the regular, right. They don't have to assign themselves, in some cases, uh, exercises because we're we've made um a life out of it. Anyway, is this the clinical thing that you were apprehensive about, bill?

Speaker 3 1:42:20

No, but I will have to. I'll just a little comment. Yeah, so we talked about the more song, right, and this was me kind of, you know, exploring, you know being more emotional and allowing my emotions to affect me a little bit more than ever. And so, in the full analysis mode that Regina just took us through, right, my sister who I love dearly, by the way read and listened to that song, and this was her analysis oh my God, bill, I believe that you are moving past being emotionally unavailable. Wow, ok, and I thought I have no idea what that means. But there's always Google, right?

Speaker 1 1:43:11

Yeah, I think she sees the light at the end of the tunnel for you. Well, I think that she wants to see the light at the end of the tunnel for you.

Speaker 3 1:43:16

Well, I think that she wants to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Evolution of Personal Growth and Wisdom

Speaker 1 1:43:19

So yeah, Well, keep writing, keep retelling those. We never arrived. You just keep reframing the narratives and we are wired to grow and evolve, right, and it never ends. So that's my book. It's a good thing. If you're not getting better, you're getting worse, man, that's how, that's a good thing in my book it's a good thing.

Speaker 3 1:43:35

Yeah, if you're not getting better, you're getting worse. Man, that's how. That's how it rolls in this life. So, words of wisdom, I am continually trying to improve. So, uh, it may be slow and I may be unavailable, but I'm continually taking a run at it.

Speaker 1 1:43:51

So life is good yeah, all right, we support you in that. And uh, to bring it to a close, any final words of wisdom you want to share with our listeners?

Speaker 3 1:44:01

I would just say thank you for a great opportunity to have a chat and enjoyed this tremendously and all I can say is, in the theme of the song, you got to help think. You got to think that there should be, could be and will be more.

Speaker 1 1:44:25

Beautiful, all right, well, thank you so much. And Virginia, thank you. And to our listeners, remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay, individually and collectively. We can write our own story. No-transcript.