Maybe it is the changing season that has gotten me thinking about two things: how quickly time can sneak up on us and how easily our circumstances can change.
With that in mind, I have put together a Spotify playlist entitled "Hard Times, Troubled Mind" for your Halloween week!
Songwriters often write about difficult themes, probably because pretty much everyone can relate to songs like that. At some point, most everyone will have to face challenges and burdens that are too hard to bear alone.
The musicians who wrote, played, and sang the songs on "Hard Times, Troubled Mind" touch on some of life’s biggest challenges: lost love, divorce, homelessness, systemic poverty, addiction, family troubles. Their beautiful melodies, chord changes, and lyrics make even the most downtrodden message fill up our minds and hearts. Rather than leave us feeling overwhelmed and isolated, these songs somehow give room for empathy or insight or an encouraging reminder of not being alone.
The "Hard Times, Troubled Mind" playlist was also inspired by a troubled song I made up a few years ago, called, Bet on The Horses, which will be on my “New Road Home” record (release date early 2019). In the song, a desperate woman escapes a domestic dispute but ends up accidentally shooting her lover with the gun he was threatening her with. She knows it doesn’t look good. She knows that what she has done will not hold up well in a court of law but she did what she had to, to survive.
However small, along with the inevitable guilty verdict, this fictional murder ballad does offer the girl a glimmer of hope and for a short amount of remaining time, that glimmer of hope is her silver lining. That is where she can dwell; in the fast fleeting, present moment, where she can spend the afternoon at the racetrack with her dearest brother and bet on the gray. . .
I do hope you enjoy these songs. Please let me know what you think of the lineup.
Be safe out there!
Love,
xxx,