Blogs – Songs, Sonnets, and the Reveries of a Reject

#6 Why am I so Jealous?

Why am I so Jealous?

Cute things you do that I like you do with other guys
Why are my arms not the only ones you bite
Am I as special as you make me feel
Is this shit real the look in your eyes
Are you playing me girl tell no lies
Did I fall too hard did I romanticise
Will you tell me one day that we can’t be together, but you tried

(Chorus)
Why am I so jealous
I don’t want to live like this
Like one of your fellas
Do you love me
Please just tell us
Why am I so jealous?

Cut ties with other chicks no flirting
Felt like the man now I’m just hurting
Stopped playing the field closed the curtains
I was ready to give you my all, man I was so certain
Am I overreacting, did I go too far
Please tell me now before I get too scarred

(Chorus)

You said your heart belonged to me, gave life to mine, ascension
Now it seems your heart just belongs to whoever gives you the most attention

When my back’s turned, will you love me the same
When I’m not looking, is it just a game
Do you really want ME, or just a picture to frame
Tell me I’m crazy, tell me I’m foolish
Just need to know, because I don’t want to do this (like this)
Don’t want our love to fade
You drift away, leave me to reminisce 
All the memories made
Your touch, your lips
Rip my heart out my chest all’s left is hate

(Chorus)

Fool around with other guys to see if I’m the one
It’s okay just don’t be long
My heart is big but it’s not that strong

(Chorus)

Why am I so jealous
Why am I so jealous
Why am I, why am I, why am I so jealous

Jealousy. That big, green, ugly, festering turd of an emotion. I think we’ve all been there. We meet someone, we begin to fall in love. Maybe we’re exclusive, maybe we’re not. We see our newfound love having the audacity to enjoy another human?! Funny are they? Maybe you should go and marry them!!

In my younger years jealousy was a common theme. For me, I think this jealousy was rooted in a deep fear of abandonment. I won’t bore you with the finer details of said fear but you get the idea. It took me a few tries to really see the error in my ways. My mentality now and for a while has been simply to let things be. Naturally I’m an anxious over-thinker and when you add intense jealousy to the mix, that is one toxic solution that has no business in your brain, or in relationships.

That’s not to say that there is no place for any jealousy between two loved up little eggs, and I for one still dabble in green from time to time. A sprinkle of jealousy I think is normal and healthy to some degree, and in some cases can protect you from being taken advantage of. Trusting too much and too willingly is arguably just as bad as trusting very little. And yes perhaps this is still rooted in abandonment issues, but hey, nobody is perfect. All we can do is try and be better every day.

One thing that has helped me improve over the years is: communication. It’s not always the jealousy or insecurity itself that destroys a relationship, it’s the lack of communication and therefore the lack of understanding of each other’s behaviours and thoughts. Without it the ideas spiral in our minds and become grotesque characatures, moulding and rotting from the inside and eventually decaying our relationships on the outside. Communicate your insecurities and they will likely melt away over time.

“Why am I so Jealous?” was conceived whilst walking around a Tesco superstore in Northampton, in about 10-15 minutes. I would say most of my material, although I do go back sometimes to edit or change or add, is created in this way: a flurry of emotion whether it be rage and pain or love and joy. The lyrics pour out of me unashamedly. These torrential outpours I visualise as a tiny creature in my head furiously scribbling away with an elaborate quill on an infinite scroll, and I dutifully record these words as they appear. It’s almost as if it’s not me writing at all: I am but a mere passenger, a vessel being used by another dimension to communicate with this world. If that is the case I have a message for the inter-dimensional beings: give me one hit. One Vanilla Ice, is that too much to ask for?

I did use some artistic licence in this particular song: a burst of pure negative energy and I ran with it. The momentary pain was very real but after getting it out it didn’t last long. My partner and I had a good laugh about it at the time. The overall concept I would describe as a self-discovery and questioning of my own insecurities, and the transition into a more relaxed outlook. What was left following this waterfall of words was, probably for the first time ever, an admiration for the song itself. The chorus was catchy, and the direction my lyrics were going in verse-wise felt more rap/hip-hop orientated than pop, which was a welcome ingredient.

So guys, don’t get too jealous out there. And if you do, don’t let it fester: communicate. You’re not the only man on the planet that thinks your lady is the most beautiful angel they’ve ever seen. And ladies: try not to make him too jealous.

#5 My Favourite Person

Ryan Gosling as Noah and Rachel McAdams as Allie in: The Notebook (2004)

It may be obvious by now, that the majority of my songs, arguably like most musical creations, are centred around love, relationships and navigating through life in the wake or the midst of those people in your life that leave an impression on you, good or bad, and ultimately hopefully improve your understanding of yourself and what you want in life and in a partner.

You could spend hours, days, months even, arguing what’s the most important aspect of a romantic relationship, and the truth is probably closer to attaching importance to all aspects. Physical compatibility, personality compatibility, politics, interests and hobbies, life goals, career aspirations and the list could go on for things that can make or break a relationship.

…sung by the Beatles and likely many other artists over the years in some form or another, is a common theme in romantic media but unfortunately just isn’t true.

“All you need is love” written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and sung by the Beatles and likely many other artists over the years in some form or another, is a common theme in romantic media but unfortunately just isn’t true. It sounds lovely and romantic and conjures up fond imagery of famous love stories like Romeo and Juliet, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Notebook. These stories’ whilst seemingly very different, all have a focus on how the magic of “love conquers all”, no matter the hurdle be it economical, racial, or any other systemic shackle which may hinder a relationship from blossoming. In reality love isn’t a fairytale, and once that honeymoon period ends and the veil is either delicately removed or forcibly so, our Rose-tinted glasses are too and the true test of compatibility begins.

Wading through relationships and life has garnered me with one of a few non-negotiables, and that is the concept of having someone in your life who is truly your favourite person to be around, and just as vitally, you are their favourite person too. Sure, perfect relationships are nothing but a mirage, but in spite of anything that may happen in your life your significant other should remain in that category of one, and you in theirs.

And so this song “My Favourite Person” was born with the help of, funnily enough, my favourite person.

My Favourite Person

You’re my favourite person
My favourite person
My favourite person
You’re my favourite person in the world
Ain’t no other girl like you
Like you (chorus)

You’re a special entity
Sent down from divinity
For me
I truly believe
We can have more than a night or three
I want all of you
If you want all of me

Because...(chorus)

You’re my drug
You’re my muse
You’re my fire
You’re my fuse
Give me light
In the darkness
Of my room

Yeah...(chorus)

Not a liar
Speak the truth
Even when you’re crying 
You’re so cute
Let’s go kissing in a booth
Record spinning like it's '82
You’re the one
That I choose

(chorus x2)
You’re my favourite person

#4 Thanks To You

This is a thanks to you for existing
Terrified I’d never find such womankind
But someone was listening
Gratitude to whoever sent me you
My peace of mind
Diamond in the rough
Can’t help but stand and admire
Watch you glisten
Thanks to you

Happy Valentine’s Day baby

Lots of Love

xoxo

As we have reached Valentine’s Day I felt it was appropriate to share a poem I wrote, a year or two ago, for my partner on this “day of romance”. I attached the poem above to a bouquet of flowers I’ve since forgotten, nevertheless it went down rather well.

I’ve never been too keen on the concept of Valentine’s Day. Not that I am against going out of your way to show your love for your significant other, but I am a bit of a scrooge when it comes to the 14th of February. The tradition of buying flowers, chocolate and a card is certainly as pointed and particular as Cupid’s bow, and to me a little disingenuous and perhaps a little removed from it’s Greek beginnings. When you look around at the marketing which is shoved in your face at every opportunity it very much feels nothing more than a ploy to boost profits in supermarkets.

The tradition of buying flowers, chocolate and a card is certainly as pointed and particular as Cupid’s bow, and to me a little disingenuous…

Raphael, ‘The Voyage of Galatea,’ 1511 from “The History of Cupid in Art: How the God of Love Has Inspired Artists for Centuries” https://mymodernmet.com/art-history-of-cupid/2/

If you look at the history of Valentine’s Day, much like Christmas Day and other similar events (the religious origins aside), the rise of media, marketing, and large commercial corporations across the modern western landscape, are the true driving forces in instilling a sense of necessity when it comes to these periods of “giving”: the people at the top of these corporate hierarchies are the only real winners in my eyes. It has reached a point whereby you are seen as some mad scientist or grouchy hermit if you don’t buy into them. That assessment is probably accurate though.

Humans on a whole, I would say, much more readily remember, and value, experiences, over material goods. Sure, you could organise a romantic weekend getaway in some niche UK location for the price of a week all-inclusive holiday in Cancun, but you could do that on any other weekend of the year and likely save a few quid and avoid the inevitable Valentine’s price hike.

Bar humbug!

If you are one of those lovely chaps half-cut in a pub the night before, rambling on about the scam of Valentine’s Day, I would find it very hard to disagree with you, but I would recommend nipping to the corner shop on your way home anyway: it’s just a scam us men can’t avoid.

What definitely isn’t a scam however, is the love I feel for my partner, and like 99.9% of women out there, would be greatly aggrieved if I failed to engage in the frivolous festivities of this fateful fayre.

After all, the onous is all on the man in this department, but I say “where are our flowers and pampering?!”. Or if that’s not for him, maybe just let your fella hit the pub after your slap-up meal. My other half will have to wait for any such treats as I’m away working, but I’m confident she’ll enjoy this moan filled post: the memory of a gift from a bygone Valentine’s will have to satiate her appetite for now.

#3 I T I L Y

“Silhouetted Woman.” No longer are women silhouettes in society. Once considered no more than pretty passengers, now pushing forward as prominent pioneers. I truly believe that with the right woman by his side, a man can achieve anything.

I T I L Y

I think I love you
So much, I don’t know what to do
So much, I don’t know what to say
When you’re around
When we’re, occupying the same ground
It’s so hard to reach out
Hard to speak out
I think I love you

How can I tell if you’re the one for me?
I can barely move when you’re close, let alone speak
My heart beats fast, feel like a wreck
Never felt like this, this internal unrest
Is this just lust, or have I completed the quest?
If this is love, why is it so tough, why does it feel like a test?

I think I love you
So much, I don’t know what to do
So much, I don’t know what to say
When you’re around
When we’re, occupying the same ground
It’s so hard to reach out
Hard to speak out
I think I love you

What if I fall on my face when I open my mouth?
Instead of making you laugh, I make you retreat
Your smile fades and you furrow your brow
I ask you to dance, and I step on your feet
What if I jump in the water to save you, but it's me that drowns?

I think I love you
So much, I don’t know what to do
So much, I don’t know what to say
When you’re around
When we’re, occupying the same ground
It’s so hard to reach out
Hard to speak out
I think I love you

My anxious mind only starts to subside
When I catch another glimpse of you passing by
I guess I'll never know how we might be
If I can't find the courage to utter the words
So I'll swallow my fear and I'll dig deep
Tell you how I feel, even if it hurts
 
I think I love you
So much, I don’t know what to do
So much, I don’t know what to say
When you’re around
When we’re, occupying the same ground
It’s so hard to reach out
Hard to speak out
I think I love you

I T I L Y is one of the first songs I ever wrote. I’d tried to write when I was younger, but I think a mixture of negative external influences, crippling self-esteem and anxiety issues, and a distinct lack of belief in exploring my creativity, shackled me to the occasional spontaneous verbal outburst, walking home from school.

I also never really surrounded myself with like-minded people, having found making friends (especially those who I was expected to show my skills to) very challenging. When I was around such people, I shared very little of myself.

I would like to say I’ve cracked this aspect of life, but like many endeavours, it’s a work in progress.

After spending at least 5 years or so from around the age of 25, single and resigned to never finding love, I had to learn first how to be happy and content on my own. In solitude, our demons tend to rear their ugly heads with a piercingly concentrated vigour.

It wasn’t easy. Some battles rage on and will do so for as long as I live, however, searching for answers within eventually gave me the freedom to explore what I wanted out of life. Writing songs became a prominent facet of this exploration.

When I met my now partner, her presence unlocked the final door inside my mind. The door stood ajar, but the spoils inside still seemed so far.

She was the fuse to my fire: the muse I needed to push me over the edge of intention and into the infinite chasm of creation. Her continued love, support, and encouragement help to stoke the fire of passion within me.

I intend to keep that fire burning forevermore.

#2 Twins

I wrote these poems for my sister after she gave birth to twins.

Twins; what a marvellous gift of nature they truly are.

They have always fascinated me, and when I found out my big sister was adding to her collection with twins, I was super excited. When I found out that they weren’t identical, however, I was thoroughly disappointed. The disappointment, of course, was quickly replaced by adoration for such beautiful dainty beings: that woman is one good baby-maker. Her psychology doctorate will surely come in handy with all those offspring running amuck. And so, I threw these together in celebration of the arrival:

Little sweet bundle of joy

Be brave, be happy, not shy, nor coy

A warm welcome to the world

Be strong, be smart, be yourself, beautiful girl



A wonderful gift you'll surely be

To the world, to us, and any eyes that see

Don't be afraid, be loud, make noise

For the world is your oyster, beautiful boy

If I remember correctly, I was met with the incredulous response of “Did you write these?!”… I’ll take that as a compliment, sis.

A great many things come in pairs: left and right, knife and fork, matter and anti-matter (ignore the dark stuff), peanut butter and chocolate, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and peanut butter…and the list goes on… sausage and mash, salt and vinegar, Penn and Teller, Batman and Robin, Tom and Jerry, Mario and Luigi, Bill and Ben the flowerpot men, and apparently, babies too. You gotta love a set of twins. You may not point and exclaim “TWINS!” every single time you spot them in public like I do, but I do think there exists a collective fascination for the phenomenon.

If you’d like to see an example of how excited I get when I see twins, enjoy this almost identical video of the late Queen excited by cows.

My mind used to race with fantasies of having a twin brother and all the fun and mischief we could have achieved together. I think the idea of having a twin, a genetically identical best friend for life, was very appealing to me, having struggled to make meaningful connections as a child and have that brotherly best friend figure help me through. A good example of that twin-like bond comes in the form of the 1988 film “Twins”. Despite their rocky start, eventually, their bond shines through.

Featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito, whose style of acting, I feel, really helped to offset the wooden Schwarzenegger. Great little comedy this, certainly worth a look.

#1 Nothing Much to Do

I’ve been deliberating for some time about starting a blog altogether. Further rumination came regarding my first post, with a breakthrough arriving in the form of an oppurtunistic sifting session of old school books during a house move.

Finally, I settled on the idea of sharing one of my earliest pieces of writing. It seemed to amuse my teachers at the time, and I must say, was thoroughly amusing to write at the time, too.

The year is 1998; Monica Lewinsky had Bill Clinton in her mouth, with Tony Blair not too far behind her; Titanic won everything, including the dumbest death ever; Lauryn Hill completed music, whilst Robbie Williams ended it by leaving Take That; something pretty big happened in Ireland, with something else big brewing in the middle-east and the US not too far behind; Arsenal won the league by a point vs Beckham’s United, that same Number 7 not only lost the title but lost his head and got sent off at the World Cup in France, and all the while I was two days away from my 7th birthday in a classroom in Cheshunt crafting my literary legacy.

I must have been in good spirits, as a large portion of the content in this book, particularly the solely creative endeavours, often ended rather violently. This one, however, ended considerably lighter.

Early in the morning, dog and me
Looking out the window, nothing much to see
Day's getting older, sun's up high
Nothing much to do
But sit on the loo

Clearly a big dreamer as a kid. I just wanted to sit on the toilet with my doggo by my side. I can only assume I’ve returned to pen this poem in ink as I’d remembered it and wanted to increase it’s permanence due to anxiety, as if some Russian spy would infiltrate the attic and furiously rub out this masterpiece and it would be lost forever. And now I have gone a few steps further and increased its permanence to, well, forever.

Pencil, pen, eternity.

“Good work. You really have been trying so hard. Also, enjoy this sticker of a clown.”

I would say the cultural significance of a clown has changed a little since then. Once heralded as a pioneer in youthful entertainment, a joyous gift of laughter, now reduced to being the butt of a joke in a tragedy, or a comedy for that matter, or conversely the petrifying villain in a horror flick.

Hollywood still seems to enjoy sticking them in the background of Judd Apatow and Marvel films, despite clown being such a prevalent insult, light-hearted or otherwise, certainly here in the UK and indeed the US; I’m not confident the clown sticker would be well received in today’s climate. I think it’s too often preceded by the f word, for instance, when someone cuts in front of you.

I will often go off on tangents, such as the cultural significance of clowns. Don’t be alarmed, I’m just a bit mad… but it does beg the question…

…what do you think of when you see a clown?

For me it’s the scene in the 1989 film Uncle Buck when John Candy’s character, the aforementioned Buck, punches a party hire clown for turning up to his nephew’s birthday drunk (Uncle Buck – Clown). Iconic. That, and cheeseburgers.

I would like to say the following works are of a higher quality, but I may well have peaked in 1998.