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It sure is one of the strangest processes …. writing a song. I’ve been feeling the ‘brewing’ of it for some time, and sometimes I find myself putting my life into various categories and themes…in order to fit the ingredients…brewing in that mental pot.  .  . So I rearrange a few things and try to somehow tap into that …scent…like when you make soup, and  you have to continue tasting, until it’s just right…however it begins, is the base for what will become of it.                 .   So I finally get it. The song that stays in my head.  Seems to always be a sign of ‘what will stick’ with listeners, if it sticks with me, and it won’t leave my mind. This lyrical loop starts to happen and it can go on for days.

I like to think of what inspires a song. It’s one of those things I don’t often realize, until I hear the playback. Every time a song starts, from the first note on, I’m recording. I like to come back to it a number of times and see what direction it wants to go, what progression works best for the lyrics or perhaps even inspire some lyrics.  My new song started out as finger picking…I love the melodic flow of finger picking, soothing to me. Lyrics just came with every note, little words here and there until finally several loosely written verses were out. I walked away, came back a few hours later, and something had changed, and the verses re arranged themselves according to shape..sound. (This is where my synesthesia often becomes very crazy strong) Once the ‘shapes and sounds’ mark themselves visually, the rest of the words just start to fill in.  Then…I walk away again  (it’s a process of sorts haa) and come back….Now the finger picking style has gone away and turned into a crazy slap rhythm and the entire vocal pattern changes, gets rounder and warmer…after that it’s a matter of seeing which style best fits the content it inspires.  Once again Dirt, Earth and those types of themes seem to carry the strongest lyrical pull, and it’s puzzling to me how themes become so prominent in songwriters.  It takes some listening to hear a songwriters theme, and it can often change, but more like branches off the same tree, or at least from a similar garden!

I’m anxious to see where it takes me, and then give it it’s first ‘appearance’ in the array of the pages…see what happens.  There have been a few songs I’ve written in the past few months, but once I write them, they’re done, they leave, I often forget them, tuck them somewhere….not for any reason that I know of…Until Songs that Stick happen…and I’m NOT tucking it away and I become obsessed with it, it keeps banging on the door of my mind, spilling in new lyrical ingredients, changing the tone, the scent while I just let it become, what it will become.

…

Life has been an unforgettable ride as of late. 2010 was just spectacular in so many ways, as mentioned earlier, Social Media played a big part in connecting all kinds of era’s of my life, into one page, called Facebook.  I find this TOTALLY DISTURBING on one level and incredibly mind blowing at the same time.  As a child…we called each other, or just went over to each others houses to play, to listen to music…we formed our groups in life, found our forever friends, lost what we thought was the only thing we had, and gained better in the long run. We connected, we looked at each other when we spoke, we wrote letters by hand, pressing our names deep into the paper. We drove from one side of the state to the other and across borders and into other countries, we traveled to hear music…..and well, so much has changed. SO MUCH!  I’ve always had my life in compartments, era’s, times, events and experiences mark the time line, not necessarily ‘dates’….there is the Sue ‘era’ the Suzi ‘era’……the Suzen….there is life before marriage and life since being married, there is geographical marks all over….the Public, the Private etc…..It all has a ‘slot’ in my memory….the theme often carrying strong words and memories with it. The early 90s all my songs were about shoes and angels…this is when I knew this person and this person had a HUGE IMPACT and life went on and we forget and forget and fade….Until Facebook…and Someone you haven’t Forgotten, however you’ve somehow gone your own ways in life, there they are, after 10 years, or 20 and in a few cases even More!  Some of the meetups and phone calls with the ‘ghosts and angels’ of my past were disappointing…realizing time certainly did some serious numbers on us…or them or me.  Other times it’s like stars fall from the sky and love fills the shallow spot all over again, sometimes soulmates, the best of the best, well they just don’t go away. Mine are back….2011 sure is going to be a SPOTLIGHT….I’m constantly coming to terms with various realities and it just gets easier and easier to do. The lessons are page turning fascinating for me and I’m looking forward to sharing some of those with you, my readers…friends etc…..

On that note. I’m done, until my next mental leak…..Peace

I’ve thought about updates…they’re not much, really. 140 characters or less, is pretty standard. I’ve even heard people say “Well, no need to call him or her, I just check their facebook status.” And I think, “HUH?” wow…but it’s true, isn’t it? But what does a status really say? “I’m making dinner and it sucks,”…or “Will that person in front of me stop driving like an IDIOT!”…Granted, there are many that I find of interest. Like when a musician friend of mine might be  performing and where. Is it in the Virtual world, or local? Maybe I can catch the performance. Or perhaps a social networking guru wrote an article or released their lastest ipod thoughts and it might be of interest. Oh, and Humorous youtube videos ALWAYS ROCK!’

So what’s my REAL Status update? The one with more than 140 characters. That’s difficult for me, because I’m quite vague online. I feel no need to get into personal things, my marriage, my kids, my family…I don’t share on social networks…it’s personal to me, and out of respect for them, I don’t go on and on about their personal lives either. My friends…they’re personal to me, sacred. Posting fun things, is one thing, but posting personal things about personal issues, is never going to happen on my facebook or any other social network out there.  What i CAN talk about is life…the lessons in it, things I discover, explore, show’s that I have coming up, performances I want to share, photo’s I like to experiment with, what made me smile…etc… But when I really think about it…that IS what a Blog is for, isn’t it? Just to write. It’s more like society has started Journaling online. Things we would normally write in our diary, we tend to publish online, maybe for no other reason other than…we can.  Maybe someday I’ll write about all those personal things, but meanwhile it just seems appropriate that what I write, pertain to what I’m known for…that only makes sense. I write…lyrics mostly…with this BIG GOAL of writing a book. I don’t know what it’ll be about really, there are so many directions it COULD go in, so what would be the focus? I don’t know…my life is only beginning…perhaps I’ll write ‘the book’ when I’m much much older and ready to pass on…

As far as songwriting goes, I’m in this shattered glass world. I keep finding pieces of songs in me, and writing them down, sometimes the music, sometimes the lyrics…then it just fades, like a dream. The more I try to remember it, the more it fades. Then it comes back later. I guess they could be full songs, 3 verses is kind of SMALL, but it’s not unheard of. I then forget about them, they didn’t ‘STICK’ .. they’ve got to STICK in order for me to want to do them more, some do, some don’t. I’ve learned, not to try so hard, just let it happen. Various influences in life can interrupt the cycle of writing, seasons change it…this is the time of the year my creative energy runs quite high…so even though I’m at a block with songwriting, to some degree, the creativity is coming out in all sorts of other way, ways I can fine tune, with time…just as I have with other things .. as we all do in life, some things we can fine tune, other things, need fine tuning. Ink drawings, painting, percussion, harmonica, slide guitar, and sooo many new recipes have taken up much of my time. I find it hard to just create NOTHING…time seems wasted to me, but this is simply how I operate, sitting still, isn’t an option with me, something has to be moving in a direction … a new idea, an idea that’s been nurtured and watered and is growing into something tangible…new ideas dropping around that one. And of course, SPRING CLEANING has driven me into madness with colors and directions, textures and smells….visual stimuli all around!

Yesterday my husband bought me two goldfish. They are fascinating to me. They don’t do much, nothing too interesting at this point, but neither do most ‘pets’…it takes them time to show their true personalities…sometimes it’s right away, and sometimes it’s something we’re just not accustomed to seeing…a Goldfish with personality?  Mostly they float…and eat, and then spit their food back out and then eat it and then spit it out and then chase it around a bit. I gave them a piece of broccoli and they went wild on it!!! THIS is amusing to me now.  I read all kinds of things about goldfish ( you just don’t KNOW how cool they are til you start reading about them ) and they can have peas (out of the shells) Broccoli, spinach, and a friend of mine said he gave his little tiny pieces of licorice … ? Hmmmm  .  I haven’t come up with names for them, my husband calls one “Dennis Rodman” because of the bright red cap on it….but I think ‘denise rodman’ is a denise…..if ya know what I mean.

Now add these fish to my Super Jungle I live in…with all these crazy birds outside my window…and it’s spring which  means I can start my color trend of Massive amounts of sunflowers ANYWHERE I can plant them. I am looking forward to posting the photos of the BLOOMS when they happen, which takes about 60 days. So in June…the first week’s worth of sunflowers will start to show. In a few weeks or so, I’ll start a new week or planting them ANYWHERE! haaa, and I mean anywhere! If i see a spot that I can drop a seed, I do. I just keep doing that for about a week straight….I’ve planted these new kinds of sunflowers…Lime Green, and White…as well as Crimson, red, orange, gold, yellow. Some have HUGE centers, some have small centers, some get 8 feet some get 5 feet, some get 3…so it’s going to be stunning (in my opinion) to see where they grow and how they look…(and if I actually got them in a straight line..HA!)  ALL this, for my eyes to be in constant view of Pretty Things…and because the birds go WILD on sunflowers…and the birds are such an incredible little species to me, with all their diff songs.

I’ve been distracted. That could be my status update, in 3 words.

Spring has distracted me so much, that I have fallen into different places in life, for awhile. The outcome, will be a song, or an amazing piece of color, or a new recipe….however it comes out, it’s always better to see it in front of me, taste it in my mouth, have it in my hands, or have it coming out in something audible, tangible….then to have it stuck inside.

After writing a bit yesterday, in the breaks of a long dry spell….lyrically, not much is happening, but I’m certainly not at a loss for words.  It kinda hit me out of nowhere. ‘Roadmap’.  RoadMap, is actually an old song, I wrote at a Crossroads in my life, one of those inevitable times of change, many years ago.  The song is about Acceptance, it’s about Inner Peace, it’s about letting the distractions of the world, out…so they no longer inhibit you, so you can do, what it is you are supposed to do, in this world, with your life.  I’ve been holding onto this song a lot lately, and it seems to have presented itself over and over in my life, either by the requests of another, who has heard it once (it’s not a song I did very often) or by a new listener, who asks “Will that be on a Cd?”…ok, yep…In fact, that’s what I’ve decided to Call the CD, or should I say, it’s what it seems to have SCREAMED at me…’SUZEN THIS IS YOUR TITLE!’, poof. Done.   The rest should fall right into place now.

I’ve decided that this is going to be quite a ‘history’ of a Cd, with a scale of about 15-20 years worth of songs, that have been dug out of my old song books, old memories, histories, stories, photographs, remembering, forgetting…  I’m not quite where I want to be, in the ‘book phase’ of my life, meaning….I want to write, and I will and I do, but it comes out in song, that’s how it presents itself most of the time, a few verses and there is the whole story, right there….WELL COME ON! So, I guess you can say, this CD is like a book, but with lyrics and poetry, not 400 pages or more of print. Each song is a place, each song has a face, a personality, a history, a memory, a need, a want, a picture, a voice. Each song has a story of a memory, a dream, an experience…and on occasion, the inspiration of another persons story, someone’s inspiration, someones persepctive, or a combination of thought, carried out thru the spirits that cross our paths, in life, our kindred spirits, brothers, sisters…family without the trace of family.

If that makes any sense to you, you are just as NUTS as I am…thankfully!  Back to the grind now….Roadmap, is closer to being finished than ever before.  I look forward to hearing your feedback on it, once it’s released. Much love to you all, much peace, and either I”ll see you in the Virtual, or the Real, either way…say hi

-Suzen JueL (Resistance)

Etched upon my Living Soul

Concept Image

It’s been a long couple months, from traveling to California for the SLCC 09, where I had the opportunity (which I Took FULL advantage of) to meet many of the musicians and people that have supported my music, over the years. One of the highlights was hearing Philip Lindens Keynote  on Virtual Worlds….Second Life.  Cylindrian, Beth Odets, Mash Rhode, Lyndon Heart, EvaMoon, Katydidsomething, Apple and Nusas…and SO many more, were great highlights! Jammin in the lobby with Dan, (RosedropRust) and Pato Milo were Highlights as well.

So now things simmer a bit…but not much, and I’m pushing myself 1. to find a job……. but also, in my spare time, I’m pushing the New CD. I don’t have a title yet, but it has a slight ‘string theme’ of redemption, forgiveness, mercy, sin with heavy flavors of distorted religion and sex. Great combo? Not sure, but that’s how I write and DAMN if I can help how I write. That is something I have little control over. When the song wants to come out, just like giving birth, you’re sometimes not sure WHAT it’s going to be or HOW it’s going to arrange itself…..Words are like puzzle pieces in my mind and it’s up to me to put them in an order, the feels right, to what I want to present you listeners with. Sometimes this is my greatest struggle, but I am always satisfied, the day…that I can present it….when it ‘feels’ finished.

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