lyric | The Direction of Intention

Delay and Seem! [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on April 2, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’m one of those people who doesn’t hear lyrics. When I sing in the car or the shower it is generally gibberish or a rude approximation. Except, when I’m singing along with Kerri. I’ve learned that, with a nanosecond delay, I can sing what she sings and seem like I know the lyrics.

I know there’s trouble when she asks me – me, the man who has the ears of a goat, the man who knows no lyrics, “What does that lyric mean, anyway?” I quickly tap my inner Philistine and respond, “What does any lyric mean?” Artists! Puh! They can’t be trusted. They just make stuff up! What’s the use of asking about meaning when an artist is involved! I am one! I should know!

“Google it.” she says. I married a consummate researcher. Were she not a musician, she’d have been a crack private eye. A world-class investigator. It’s impossible for me to get away with anything! No lyrics cover-up for me!

And then, sweet-Google-relief. We’re both singing gibberish. Something made-up. “Wait!” she exclaims, “You mean I’ve been singing that wrong all my life? Didn’t you think you were singing the right lyric, too?”

I smile. “Yes.” I nod emphatically. “I’ve been singing it wrong my whole life, too!” A strange path to an obvious truth.

The next song begins. I lean in, sounding good with a nanosecond delay.

read Kerri’s blog post about LYRICS

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Ready The Wings [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 11, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Yes, I’m being followed by a moonshadow/Moonshadow, moonshadow/Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow/Moonshadow, moonshadow” ~ Cat Stevens, Moonshadow

An appreciation of life, no matter what comes. It is the meaning of this lyric, this song – or so I’ve read. It seems obvious. I’m having many, many conversations about loss these days. This has been an era of loss and, so the cliche’ goes, with loss new opportunity arrives. It’s true though one must move through the loss in order to arrive at the new. On the way, there is weeping and fear and anger and disorientation. Chrysalis. The trick, we are told, is about focus placement. One day we shift our eyes and see what we have instead of what we no longer possess. We move toward rather than look back.

Kerri has, for years, surrounded herself with symbols of peace. They are on our walls, on rings that she wears, on chains draped on the corner of our bathroom mirror. She draws them in the sand on the trail. A prayer for the world she desires to create. Inside and out. Since she fell, my solo-piano-playing wife has lost more than mobility in her wrists. Strange stuff is happening. Fingers that sometimes refuse to respond. Pain that shoots, seemingly from nowhere. After a photograph – a wish for the world, a peace sign in shadow – she said, “Come look at this. Look how much my finger is bending!” Strange stuff.

What is most remarkable about this shadow is, a year ago, it would have been cause for frustration. A reminder of loss. Full of fear. Today, it was a curiosity. She looks back, she looks forward. Each day she writes lyrics and poetry and wisdoms. She hums the music running through her mind and heart and, sometimes, she dances. Standing at the crossroads of what was and what is to become. Peace replaces pain. All in good time. Good time. Wings readying to unfurl.

[peace. this is one of my favorite pieces of Kerri’s]