https://music.apple.com/ca/album/wasted/1739829059?i=1739829060

Song number two is ready to go on a cyber voyage to the one and only @davidandrewwiebe for mixing and mastering. I’m digging the hitch I got in my giddy-up but full disclosure … this isn’t going to be a happy silly song record. I’m so affected right now by the state of our little world and have been ruminating on the realities we all face. I’m gobsmacked at how a seemingly intelligent species can build a history such as what we’re all witnessing in the world right now.

I remember back in junior high when the volleyball team played the neighbouring town and how we all thought about the neighbouring town. They were dog meat and we were going to eat them for lunch; us or them. News flash people, we’re all still in junior high but the classroom is this rock we all live on. From our neighbours to our diversity, the city limits to our political aspirations, co-workers and family, lines between us are there to destroy, not build. We’re in trouble.

“Wasted” came about because of a conversation between myself and a coworker. I was driving us to a team meeting two and a half hours away and as usual we were debating a lot of things we all have opinions about, but can’t change. One of us said, “It’s so easy when you’re happy”. At that moment, I thought it was the most profound thought I’d ever heard because it’s so profoundly true.

Happy. Are we ever truly happy? I ponder this, often. What is “happy”?

When I was a kid, I remember being called “melancholy” – a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause. This is fundamentally, me. I am perpetually, unapologetically, sad. Sure, there have been moments of joy… many in fact. But still, I am “sad”, just as much as I am a white, aging, girl. I chase the things that bring me ribbons of joy. Joyful moments come and go, and when they’re gone, sadness envelops me like an old comfortable blanket. I’m not saying I am depressed, however, I’ve been depressed … just not now. Now, I understand myself better, and permit myself to be sad if I’m sad. Flow with the river and don’t question. There has got to be a reason. Somewhere.

I’ve been through “things” in life, like we all have. My things are no different than your things. Comparatively, one of these things is just like the other because the gauge that measures is relative.

Choices are driven by the tapestry of life. Behaviours… good, bad, ugly, right, wrong … the whole gambit comes about because of what’s in our soul bank, with outside influence impacting the nuances that orchestrate the moments that add up to now.

The chorus in “Wasted” is “I can’t find my happy, but it’s better when I’m drunk, and it doesn’t hurt when I’m wasted.” These lines came together for me, like Lego blocks. They belong together because all a person has to do is look at the state of humanity and the addiction epidemic that has a grip on so many souls to understand that basically, none of us want to hurt anymore. Being “wasted” is a paint by number solution to an age old problem. We want to escape from everything that isn’t blatantly happy. If we can’t find happy organically, then we manufacture it via addiction.

In 1997, I was drunk. I think I was drunk the entire year. That was the last year in my life where I was a slave to life on the road, smokey bars, and high credit card debt. It was the year I quit anything music.

A lot of life has happened between then and now. I believed for so many years that if the universe was telling me something, I needed to listen. If something is consistently too difficult or too hard .. then I needed to pay attention to that. Music was hard. Songwriting … easy …. Editing myself … hard. Paying for studio time …. easy … bringing a performance worthy of the studio time …. debilitating.

I want to recognize the struggle that so many face by laying the reasons out on the table. You don’t have to be “ON” all of the time. You have the right to be whatever it is you need, whenever you need it. Being sad, oddly enough, at least for me, has provided a window to happy, because I clearly, vividly understand what happy is not.

“Wasted” is song number two from this new journey I’m on. It’s written, arranged, performed, and recorded entirely by me and everything I have left in this world to give. And if I’m writing this blog only for the benefit of myself, I’m ok with that too, because I’m enough.

Update 26/March/2024 – Just heard the final mix on this one. It was an interesting process and definitely could feel my learning curve in action throughout the writing and recording process. I edited and re-recorded this one a couple of times. This process has continued with my third song, “Just Another Day”, eliminating words and changing melody lines along the way and it’s still getting massaged into shape. I know I’m as far away from perfect as a soul can get, but that isn’t going to stall my gumption. While “Wasted” was away getting a spa treatment, I’ve continued working on “Just Another Day”, but got side tracked after getting home late one Saturday night and giving birth to song number 4 in this journey … “Oh” was born. It’s somewhere in a different field than the previous three and that excites the bejesus out of me because even though I’m not a world class anything, I am creative and am excited to discover that I’m not a one trick pony. This is fun and for anyone along for the ride watching the journey, (F$&k Ya) #newmusic #newmusicalert #originalmusic #originalsingersongwriter #singersongwriter #learningasigo #journey #theroadhome #tonivere #soulminer61

#stateofmind #stateoftheworld #worlddisorder #realworldproblems #lovenotwar #peacenotwar #singersongwriter #originalmusic #yycmusic #yycmusicscene #yycmusicconnect #abmusic #tonivere #soulminer61