I don’t what is in the air, but a few mornings ago, I woke up in
a positive frame of mind for the first time in a long time. Almost every
morning during 2019 I woke up with a stomachache, plagued by a dozen unresolvable
worries. The other day, I felt none of that. It certainly wasn’t because of the
good news on television. I came home from my “Lyrical Workers” show last Thursday
night to the news that Rump had just ordered a targeted bombing attack in
Baghdad which killed a high-ranking Iranian military leader. I know nothing
about foreign policy, but it sure seems like that attack with stir up a hornet’s
nest in a rogue nation so widely deemed to be sponsoring terrorism around the
world. It also seems to me that this might have been a horribly irresponsible
public relations move to distract the attention of the American public from the
impeachment hearings soon to begin in Washington. Wildfires are burning out of
control all over the continent of Australia with no relief in sight, and there
were horrendous floods in Indonesia. Politicians continue to ignore the
ravaging effects of climate change, and if I take the time to think about it,
my conclusion is that the sky is falling.
I had the most unusual dream on that morning I woke up peaceful and unworried. I rarely remember my dreams, but I wrote that one down immediately upon awakening, because it was so obviously hopeful. In my dream I was in one of those impersonal, big box appliance stores, and out of nowhere, someone began to sing a gospel song. I can’t remember the song, but suddenly the entire store full of people began to sing along. It wasn’t a dream about religion, and I am reminded of that Lennon song “Imagine” which is played so often around the holidays. In my dream everyone took turns singing and it was beautiful, and it bespoke unity and the promise of hope.
As a songwriter, I’ve been in a
dry spell for several years. I’ve written a few new songs but have been devoting
most of my songwriting energy to the resurrection and rewriting old,
half-finished songs. I rarely throw anything away. It’s strange to revisit
verse one wrote as a younger man. I used to think that those songs should have
a temporal stamp and are representative of the time in which they were written.
For this reason, I have not rewritten many of my older, more imperfect songs,
because they indicate the person I was at a given point in time. Everything is
changing.
It doesn’t take a history buff to
see the direction the world is heading. Leaders aren’t leading, societies are
fractured and tribal, role models, at least the ones who make the front page,
are anything but, and the preponderance of shoot-first-ask-questions-later
social media-fueled disinformation is rotting the very fabric of the human
tapestry. I can blame the news media, or religion, or video games, or wireless
communication, or cell phones, or anxiety over climate change, but it really
seems like we’re reaching the tipping point. When an angry schoolgirl from Sweden
is our best hope as the voice of reason, we’re really screwed. Seriously, no
wonder our children are pissed.
About a year ago I started a
series of songs written in an unusual drop G guitar tuning I rarely use. I
wrote the songs “Better” “New
Constitution”, and a love song about Shauna entitled “These Are The Things I
Crave”. After my recent, hopeful dream I sat down with the guitar and came up
with the music for another 4-5 songs along a similar theme. Perhaps I will have
enough songs for an album about love and peace.
I don’t know who if anyone will listen to the songs I write, but I
believe art reflects reality, and I have the opportunity to affect the reality
I see. Love is hard; I’m still figuring it out. From my experience, it does
have a trickle-down effect. The next time you have an opportunity to say
something negative to or about someone, imagine one hundred strangers in a Home
Depot, singing “Oh Happy Day.” Maybe instead you’ll find some positive or
constructive to say.
Jamie Oppenheimer, Songwriter, Author, Blogger, Radio Producer, & Host has been writing
THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT every MONDAY since 1992 and has published the articles
on his blog since 2006. We are including Jamie's weekly reports, as a feature
of #HuntersBayRadio, The Bay 88.7FM.
HuntersBayRadio.com #MusicYouNeedToHear #EveryOneHasAStory #GotLocal? #WeAreMuskoka #WeAreAlmaguin #TheOppenheimerReport #JamieOppenheimer
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