Music has always been important to me. And all my memories about music and anything else start about when I was six years old.
I remember standing in front of a jukebox mimicking Elvis on “Jailhouse Rock” and Jerry Lee Lewis on ” Great Balls O’ Fire”, to the amusement of the adults around me at the time.
My Mom taught my brother, sister and I to sing harmonies and we would sing in church for the congregation once in a while.
I sang in a band in High School for a couple of events at the school. Other than that, we didn’t become an official band.
I sang in the Mixed Chorus and I played in the Jazz Band in High School too.
After that, I didn’t do anything with it except sing out loud by myself, sing with the radio or a record, tape or CD, listen to music, go to an occasional concert, and once in a while I’d have the urge to write a song.
I would get my guitar, write the words, chords, and sing the melody and harmonies, and then use my multi-track recorder to get a “finished” version. They were rough around the edges but I was tickled that I could even do that much. I wanted to have the “finished version” so I wouldn’t forgot the songs. I thought to myself, “Someday I’ll polish them up!”
Then a few years passed and I found myself going to South Korea and when I got there I had the opportunity to sing Korean songs on Korean Radio and TV. So, the musical side of me emerged again and it was a happy time for me. I began writing songs more frequently too.
So I saved all the songs I wrote over the years, and I’m glad I did. No one is clamoring to my door, begging me to hear the songs, but I still want to share some of them.
(I’m the “CEO” of my site so I can do what I want, right?)
So, I’d like to share this one because I like the harmonies in it. It’s called, “I Found You”:
I was in Korea when I wrote “I Found You” and the next two songs.
This one is called, “Something About Her”:
I know you can find all kinds of things wrong with these songs: my voice, the musicianship, and the recordings, etc. but I guess the reason why I want to share them anyway is to make the point that whatever you love doing, pursue it fully, and don’t be afraid to show who you are and what you like.
Don’t undervalue anything that interests you or that you are obviously good at. Those are the things that you should be aware of and be doing. We all have our uniqueness. We need to give ourselves a chance to bloom.
Had I followed my intuition that told me music was important to me and just took one step at a time to see what unfolded for me, my life would have been different, at the very least.
I can’t speculate that it would have been better or worse. But it would have been different in some ways.
But I think we should listen carefully to our inner voice all the time, not just once in a while. And not just when it comes to things that interest us, but we should follow our intuition whenever we have any choice in life to make.
So I’m going to close out with one more song. It’s called, “She Called On Me”:
This song has a lot of blank space in it. That is because I wrote it thinking about what other instruments I want in it when I “polish it up”. One instrument I want in here is a steel guitar whining gracefully and beautifully in the background sometimes and taking center stage at other times. Can you dig it?
