Photo Shuffle-I’m Gonna Fly Someday

I pressed play on my Ipod and this is what I heard…I’m Gonna Fly Someday By Bruce Cockburn

‘I’m Gonna Fly’

If you read my last post you know that I took a bit of a break from writing over the last month. I was touched, and somewhat surprised by the reaction I received. More than one person commended me for my honesty  explaining my absence.  I’m sure I have mentioned it on these pages before, but once I started writing this blog, a lot of those bottled up feelings came pouring out. Some of it was heavier on the emotional scale-loneliness, or the car accident I was in years ago for example. Some was about the creative side of me that had been screaming to be unleashed for years. Or some of it was figuring out how to express this new found creativity in a way that people would want to read, and listen to the songs I chose together with my photography (for which I still suffer with self-doubt about). It has been a process. At times emotional, at times difficult, while at other times  it has been a great deal of fun. I think about all of this quite often in fact but now that it is a firm part of my life, I don’t want to change a thing about it, or how or what I write about. 

That being said, I was a little thrown when this particular song came up today. After all, the lyrics are a total of four lines…three of which are repeated!  If you have read any of my posts, and especially these shorter Photo Shuffles, you know I can find a lot of things to write about based on any given song. This is a song more about the music, and the atmosphere of the song however, and at first I thought I would have to give this one a pass and let the Ipod choose another song to write about. But then I realized that the brevity of the lyrics accentuated the beautiful and exotic sounds of the music. So rather than me using the lyrics to investigate the depths of the song, I have here the music instead. The flutes deftly weaving their way around the melody, driven along by the percussion, coloring the song with texture. After I played the song a second time I knew exactly the photograph I wanted to use as my soundtrack. The contrasting grey/blue of the overall photo, the hint of light in the sky, the movement of the birds, the reflection in the sand. They all work to add contrast and texture to the song itself. In this case I did not need deep profound lyrics for this photo. I just needed a song that had as much going on in it musically as the photo does.

The fact that the song comes from Bruce Cockburn, another one of my most favorite performers was a bonus. Other than some of my Christmas series, I have not written about Bruce yet, so I am delighted that I found a way to write about him now. Simply put, no one writes songs like Bruce Cockburn does. From his first album in 1970 right on until today, he remains unflinching in his music. From the vitriolic ‘If I Had A Rocket Launcher’ and ‘Call It Democracy’ to the more wry observations of ‘Last Night Of The World’ and ‘Wondering Where The Lions Are’  he has made a career out of performing the songs he wants to sing, and has never played it safe. In my opinion, this has made him one of the greatest songwriters period. I hope you will check his music out on your own. I am convinced you will agree with me as well.

I’m Gonna Fly Someday-Written By Bruce Cockburn

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All Photographs By Robert P. Doyle

*Photo Shuffle is a new, very short slice of my regular blogs based on setting my Ipod on shuffle and matching up one of my photographs to whatever comes up.

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