https://music.apple.com/ca/album/im-ok-f%24-k-ya/1735080873?i=1735080874

Sparked by a moment, a meltdown … a realization and an understanding.
The conversation starts out with “hey, are you OK?”, and ends with words on a page, two days straight during my days off in my bare bones studio, and enveloping myself in healing mode to attempt to get from point “A” – words and ideas on a page, to an end result … a completed work that I can have mixed and mastered for release, which will be available any day now.

Not a big deal for millions of people, but the world to me. I choke in a studio. The clock ticks, pressure, patience … more pressure, self doubt, crippling anxiety pushing myself to silence. Pushing myself to quit again. No time. Expensive time. Then no talent. How come the only time I’ve ever sung harmony to my own songs was during my last record? Because not only did I know I wasn’t good enough to sing parts, everyone else knew too. And time is money.

i think I’ve heard the analogy said behind my back but loud enough for me to hear, “putting lipstick on a pig”. Then there’s the time when an accidental thought escaped the lips of someone I respected … “I don’t know why I love taking on projects with shitty singer songwriters … “ … check.

I wanted to learn to navigate recording software on my own so bad. I barely know how to do it today after chipping away over the past couple of years. But I know enough, and the time now, is mine. No pressure. No one watching the clock. For the first time in my life I can sing a line so bad it makes me laugh at myself. Singing those lines opens the door to moments when I sing something that isn’t cutting room floor quality … and actually saying out loud, to myself … good job Vere, good job.

Flashback to 1985 (ish), when the crippling self doubt exploded in my ears like a freaking A bomb …A Lethbridge recording studio, a dream come true. The song … “A Million Tears”. The moment … in the booth listening back. My voice …or rather … one syllable. The worst sound I had ever heard in my entire life, played on repeat by the “engineer” over, and over, and over, and over. As if it wasn’t horrid the first time I heard it. Jesus. I mean, what the actual eff? Why would someone do that to someone? But they did, and I learned that I’m really not good enough at all to do this thing I loved so bad, and it hurt. Everyone has always been very accommodating when it comes to paying the invoice, but there’s always been this … thing.

So now .. today ..my mission is to do this record … which at my tender age of 62, I envision being my last record, because trying is so unbelievably fucking hard.

The releases, and as they occur are a journey. My journey, from song conception to creation to release, and in order of actual songs in order to help me to look back along the way to see if I’m getting anything through my thick skull.

I invite you to come on this journey with me. Make an old lady happy.

peace out, and don’t worry I’m Ok (F$&k Ya)

t