Song Saturday #10: Atlas

I haven't been writing a lot of songs lately. To try and combat that, I've decided to write a new song each Saturday, and put the video for it up each Sunday. When I'm not away on camp. :P Which may be a few of them. But yeah, that's the idea.

I was away yesterday, so I'm doing song and video today. Lucky you guys :)

This first one is on, I suppose, how things have been seeming sometimes lately. Bit more of a downer, I guess. The name is from the figure in Greek mythology, who's punishment was to carry the sky on his shoulders. (Not the Earth, the sky. Common misconception.) Sorry to Helmut for using the same name as one of his, but it's a good name :P


Atlas

V1: Cm C#mMaj7(#4) [or C5/C#5]
He always thought he could carry everyone's burdens;
Now he's struggling with just his own.
And time and space are not on his side;
Slipping away, neither of them can ease this weight.
He finds no pleasure in the things he once did;
Not because he has changed his loves, but because they're gone.
Sometimes he wished that he had just gone and hid;
But hiding does not move the problem on.

Pre-Chorus: C5 C#5
He cannot see a way out;
At least, not without
Hurting himself all the more

Chorus: C5/F5 C5/Ab5 C5 C5/C#5
So he takes the pain as it comes;
The strain to the beat of the drum,
Back and forth he goes.
He knows that there is an end;
He just hopes that he can reach it,
But confidence isn't finding a home today.
He's just trying to get through another day.

V2: 
He set the challenge himself, so he can't really complain.
He's trying his best, but he's wondering
If for once, that won't stand the test again.
He's stretched himself so far, that he can't come back in;
It's seeming ever more impossible to win.

Pre-Chorus + Chorus 

Bridge: Fm C5/C#5
A burden shared is a burden halved, he knows
But he doesn't know if he wants anyone else
To go through what he has
To force his pain on them

Chorus x2

And here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m9UmrPrLUY
Enjoy! :)

Your Centre.

Just finished watching the movie Rise Of The Guardians for the second time. An absolutely fantastic movie; and I find myself drawing a lot of parallels between me and Jack Frost, the protagonist. But that's a post for another time, perhaps.

In one of the scenes of the movie, North (Santa) is asking Jack what his "centre" is. The way he explains the idea to Jack is through one of those Russian dolls - little one inside a bigger inside a bigger inside a bigger, etc. On the outside, he seems a little intimidating. Get to know him a bit - next doll - he's jolly. Then mysterious; then fearless; then I forget; but at his centre, is a little baby with massive eyes. Because his centre is wonder. Seeing the wonder in everything.

And each of the other Guardians had their centres as well - Bunny was hope, Tooth was memory, Sandy is dreams, and Jack turns out to be fun.

I think we can take a lot from this; we're each many different things (some more diverse and numerous than others), but we each have something at our centre. Something that drives us, which is most important above all.

And all of those things mentioned above - wonder, hope, memory, dreams, fun - each of those are so important to me.
The wonder of this world; of the people of this world - is everywhere. It's amazing, if you just look.
Hope is something that will always keep me going. Even if I don't have much actual hope that something will happen - as in, I don't expect something to actually come to fruition - I'll still always hope.
Memory is a bit of a trickier one. Sometimes it's amazing, sometimes it tends to bite you in the backside. But I'd much prefer having them than not.
Dreams I've actually just posted on, funnily enough. But dreams always help to push me forward a little, lift me a little.
And fun - well, I just get lost in it sometimes :D That's how it's really supposed to happen, if anything can "supposed to be" a particular way with fun.

But my centre, I think, is something else. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you can probably guess.

Love.

Love is my centre. It's what drives me. What tears me apart, sometimes. it's what I cherish; what I try to give, wherever I can; and really what I long for. Always longing for a little love. And every little bit - every one - is amazing. You have no idea how much love effects me; how much the love of other people can just run through me. The tiniest thing can have the biggest impact. It's an old line, but it's true.

I know what my centre is. What's yours?

Dreams...

We all have dreams. Daydreams, dreams in our sleep, dreams of the future. Yet so often, that's all they ever seem to be...

As I'm writing this, my little sister is watching Tangled just next to me. If you're at all familiar with the movie, you'll know it's got a lot to do with dreams. Following your dream, finding your dream, living your dream; but also, often realising in doing that that your real dream is not what you really thought at all.

I've had many dreams. Of all sorts. Dreams of different futures; of things that could be, or could change, or that I could do. Dreams of places, times, people. Love, of course. I think we all do.

And, sometimes, those dreams have come true. And usually, when I least expect it. I got to go overseas; I got into the uni degree I wanted; my music has made people laugh, and smile, and think; I got into the job I wanted, and then again; I've been able to see beautiful, wonderful things; I've had amazing friends that have been there for me all through my life, and a great family that loves me so much; I've discovered so many things about myself; I've become so much closer to God.

I'm only 20, and already I have so much. So many things to be thankful for, and to thank God for. And yet, I still seem to want more. Part of the human condition, in part, I guess. We always like to think that there's more for us. Maybe I'm just a whiner. I hope not. I'd like to think that there's more to me than that. I dunno.

But I still have dreams; and I suppose it saddens me to think that perhaps these are ones that are just dreams. I've had dreams before that haven't gone anywhere, sure; but there's always been another that has. I think I just need to be a little more patient; which seems to be an ever-harder thing to ask for in today's world.

I know these blog posts tend to be in the form of me asking a lot of questions, and not really giving that many answers; perhaps that's not the best thing, but it seems to be how I work.


On another quick note; I've just hit over fifty thousand views on my blog! Now, admittedly, if you cut out my Four Chords list, that does drop down to about ten thousand, but I still think it's a good milestone to celebrate. So thanks everyone who reads my blog :) This is a really useful avenue for me, and I'm quite grateful that every now and then I can just go on here, post a bit about something, and people will have a look.

So yeah, thanks :)

Stories + Recent Happenings.

Hello everyone!

Firstly, a couple of quick updates on stuff that's been happening lately.

I've recently put up my Four Chords, 100 Songs, Original Audio video, which I've been working on for quite a while, and can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4k62X4Kx7o
I think it's pretty awesome, and I'd love for it to get out there a bit :)

I've barely been doing anything with my music lately - I really haven't written anything, I haven't gigged at all, and it's been bugging me a fair bit. Thankfully, I've gotten this video up ^^^ which is something, but I'd really like to work on a bit more of my own stuff.

I'm also graduating from uni in a week from yesterday; which is pretty cool. Going to be good to catch up with everyone again, see what they're up to. Even though it will really be only for a few hours, but that's OK. Think it will be good. :)

There's probably more stuff that I'm not thinking of, but that will do for now. There are a couple of posts that I want to do that I haven't done yet, but I'll leave those for those posts.

On another tack, however. I've been doing a lot of camps lately, and there's been so many good moments, so many great stories. And I was just lamenting to a friend that there's just so many, it's getting difficult to remember them all. So they suggested putting it down here. Which makes sense and stuff, which makes me annoyed that I didn't think of it :P But anyway. I've been busy, OK? :P So yeah. Going to relate a few of the better moments of camps insofar. No names, I'm afraid, just because it's better that way.

Probably one of the best moments I've had so far was on a TAFE camp. It was a canoe trip out in Kangaroo Valley, and a few of us had decided to sleep in the canoes. I was pretty keen, I'd never done it before. We had just gone for a night paddle before that, actually, and that was pretty awesome. You pretty much just laid down in the canoe and looked at the stars. So peaceful. And sleeping in the canoe was just the same, really - it was so amazing being able to sleep like that, looking up at the stars. Would be awesome to have a glass roof or something just for that.... It is a little squishy on the sides, but it wasn't that much of an issue.
What was interesting, though, was what happened before we went to sleep. A point for beforehand: whenever we get out of the canoes, we tie them up with rope. Either that or pull them up onto the bank, but that can damage the bank. Also easier tying them up if there's not so much space, or a difficult bank to get up. But that's just a quick aside. We were getting into the canoes, and I had already put my sleeping mat and sleeping bag in, and then I got in. I got into the sleeping bag and started to lay down, and then I started to feel as if the canoe was moving - I thought I could see the landscape moving. So I sat up to discover that the canoe hadn't been tied up properly with the other canoes. I turned back towards the bank to find that I had already drifted about five metres. "Uh...guys?" We all laughed pretty hard then. I wasn't scared at all - it wasn't like there was much of a current - but I didn't have a paddle, so I had to use my hands to work my way back over to the bank. We joked about that quite a fair bit after that.

Aside from that, most of it's been little things. One girl at the last camp I went on thought for a moment that a red belly black was a spider. Close, but no cigar. She had a fair few of those moments, actually, but it was good. Made it interesting.
Another time, I was helping run the flying fox, and there was one girl who was really scared of going on. And it was a pretty big flying fox - you had to go up a hill to get to where you started, and the rest of us would wait at the bottom. And if you saw the end bit, there was quite a jolt. I believe the word "ragdoll" may have been used more than once. But we managed to convince her to get a harness on, and go up to the top. Then she got clipped in once. She debated about it, went so close for ages, they were really talking her into it and egging her on - she was in for about half an hour, then couldn't do it. A couple more people went through, she got clipped in a second time. Again, she couldn't do it. She got clipped in a third time, and finally did it. You know what one of the first things was that she said afterwards? "Can I do it again?" And she did, without hesitation. She loved it.
One of the best camps I've had so far was on the cabin side of Crosslands. Same camp as the last one, actually. I probably have it as one of my favourites because we were in cabins, we had cooks (one an actual proper cook - son of one of the Boomerang employees), and they had a piano there :D And I was playing that piano a fair bit, as you can imagine. And the kids really liked that - they were singing along with me sometimes, and a couple of other kids were playing as well, a couple more practiced than me.
On most camps that we've been on so far, whenever we haven't been in cabins, I've done the wake-up call. My go-to songs for this insofar have been The Circle Of Life, and a combination of Oh, What A Beautiful Morning and Oklahoma!, which have both gone down quite well. One of the best responses I had was one morning, one of the kids said it felt like he was waking up in Africa :) Another one said that he wanted to record it and use it as his alarm on his phone :D

Another thing that I've been able to do a couple of times now is Initiatives, which have been quite fun to run. So far, I've done Tarp Turnover and Acid River. And, of course, being me, it can't be that simple. Because you can explain them in about five seconds, but then it's no fun. I have to do a story ;)
So, with Tarp Turnover - all you have to do is get everyone on the tarp; flip it over without anyone touching the ground; fold in half similarly; repeat steps 2 and 3 until either time runs out or they can't do it any more. I however, come up with a much more interesting explanation.
"Over here, guys! Quick, on to the platform! OK, is everyone here? Good. Well, I've got some good news, and some bad news. Bad news is, we're flowing down an underground river of molten lava. The good news is, however, that we've managed to find a Lava Resistant Platform (or LRP for short), and, in fact, the only one around. So good job, guys! Problem is, with these platforms, that they're not perfect - the lava does manage to slowly eat through the platform. As such, it needs to be flipped regularly, to decrease the lava wear. Of course, being human, we can't really step in the lava - we tend to disintegrate fairly rapidly. I am wearing lava boots, but I have the only pair, and I can't take them off, because they're molded specifically to my feet. So you're going to need to flip the LRP completely, without stepping in the lava. You can carry each other if you want, but unfortunately the cave is too low for you to go on each other's shoulders." "OK, so you've flipped the LRP over. Fantastic! But, being weak, we now need to fold it in half, in order to increase its strength." "And now we need to flip it again!" Etc.
With Acid River - you have to get from point A to point B, using some foam mats. You have to be stepping on the foam mats all the time, and you can't put a mat down without having part of your body on it. If you don't, you lose the mat. There's one less mat than people. This became something more like this.
"Congratulations! You are among the first of a team of explorers on Mars. However, we have encountered a bit of a problem. Our barrel - which contains some invaluable supplies - has washed over a bit thataway. Thakfully, it has caught on a bit of a snag, so it's staying where it is for now; but we still need to go and get it. Unfortunately, it is in the middle of a giant acid lake. The thing is with us and acid, that we tend to boil and bubble and burst when we mix. I'm wearing special Acid Boots, so I'm OK. No, you can't wear them, there's only one pair and they don't come off. And no, I can't get the barrel for you, because it's too heavy for just me. We're all going to need to go and get it. Thankfully, the Science Faculty did consider this eventuality. They have provided us with a limited number of Weight Supporting Acid Resistant Platforms, or WSARPs for short (though people tend to just call them acid mats). Because they're weight-supporting, they can hold our weight; since they're acid resistant, they can do so in the acid; however, they are not current resistant. If you put them down in the lake without putting part of your body on them first, they will get carried away and we won't be able to get them back." "Fantastic! You've gotten to the barrel. Now, we need to get all of us and the barrel over to that point over there [about twice as far]. And, because of the wear these platforms are getting, if you aren't carrying the barrel, you need to be on just one foot at a time. You can change from one to the other, but you can't have one foot on two separate mats at the same time. You can jump between the two, but only one foot at a time. Thankfully, the barrel can be used to weigh down mats, or even to sit on, since it seems to be acid resistant as well."
So yeah, I had fun doing those.

There are so many more stories, but I really can't remember them all. As well as that, I don't have the space or time to write them all! I've already written quite a bit, so I'll leave it there, but I'll try to put up more fairly regularly.

:)

Four Chords, 100 Songs, Original Audio - Song List

Again, I had to post this here, because Youtube has a set description length.


This is the full song list:

1. The Fragrance Of Ithilien (from Return Of The King), by Howard Shore;
2. You're Beautiful, by James Blunt;
3. Forever Young, by Alphaville;
4. I'm Yours, by Jason Mraz;
5. Take Me Home, Country Roads, by John Denver;
6. Give It All, by Rise Against;
7. Superman (It's Not Easy), by Five For Fighting;
8. Right Here Waiting, by Richard Marx;
9. No One, by Alicia Keys;
10. High, by Lighthouse Family;
11. By Your Side, by Tenth Avenue North;
12. Dream Catch Me, by Newton Faulkner;
13. The Eastern Sky, by Adventure Land;
14. Beautiful Ending, by BarlowGirl;
15. Hope Vol. 2, by Apocalyptica featuring Matthias Sayer;
16. City On Our Knees, by TobyMac;
17. Bright Side Of The Rainbow, by Forever Road;
18. Legacy, by Nichole Nordeman;
19. Love Story, by Taylor Swift;
20. Don't Stop Believing, by Journey;
21. Wanna Be Loved, by dcTalk;
22. 20 Good Reasons, by Thirsty Merc;
23. Pathways, by Enoch;
24. Amazing, by Alex Lloyd;
25. Wherever You Will Go, by The Calling;
26. Can You Feel The Love Tonight, by Elton John;
27. She Will Be Loved, by Maroon 5;
28. Pictures Of You, by The Last Goodnight;
29. Cigarettes Will Kill You, by Ben Lee;
30. With Or Without You, by U2;
31. Happy Ending, by Mika;
32. Where Is The Love, by Black Eyed Peas;
33. The Show, by Lenka;
34. Lady Luck, by Latch Key Kid;
35. Vanilla Twilight, by Owl City;
36. You Raise Me Up, by Secret Garden;
37. 21 Guns, by Green Day;
38. 9 Crimes, by Damien Rice;
39. Tonight I Wanna Cry, by Keith Urban;
40. Fire, by Krystal Meyers;
41. Give It All Away, by Aaron Shust;
42. Magic, by Kaytee Faulkner;
43. Canvas Bags, by Tim Minchin;
44. Misery, by Good Charlotte;
45. Dead Man (Carry Me), by Jars Of Clay;
46. Beds Are Burning, by Midnight Oil;
47. Ishmael, by Helen Mottee;
48. Fall At Your Feet, by Crowded House;
49. Not Pretty Enough, by Kasey Chambers;
50. Let It Be, by The Beatles;
51. Under The Bridge, by Red Hot Chili Peppers;
52. The Horses, by Daryl Braithwaite;
53. Down Under, by Men At Work;
54. Here I Am, by Bryan Adams;
55. Boulevard of Broken Dreams, by Green Day;
56. Breakeven (Falling To Pieces), by The Script;
57. The Lost Get Found, by Britt Nicole;
58. Breakin' Down, by Latch Key Kid;
59. Wait And See, by Brandon Heath;
60. Grenade, by Bruno Mars;
61. Dive, by Steven Curtis Chapman;
62. Almost Anything, by Latch Key Kid;
63. Holiday, by Green Day;
64. Complicated, by Avril Lavigne;
65. For Once, by Helmut Uhlmann;
66. When You Love Someone, by Bethany Dillon;
67. The Meaning Of Life, by Hawk Nelson;
68. Blood To Bleed, by Rise Against
69. Always, by Blink-182;
70. Urban Hermit, by Brendan Raymond;
71. Taylor, by Jack Johnson;
72. Take On Me, by A-ha;
73. When I Come Around, by Green Day;
74. Save Tonight, by Eagle Eye Cherry;
75. Africa, by Toto;
76. Self Esteem, by The Offspring;
77. Apologize, by Timbaland featuring OneRepublic;
78. U + Ur Hand, by P!nk;
79. It's Time To Go For Growth, by The Axis Of Awesome;
80. Does Anybody Hear Her, by Casting Crowns;
81. Birdplane, by The Axis Of Awesome;
82. Drowned, by Tim Minchin;
83. In Pieces, by Shannon Noll;
84. Stranded, by Latch Key Kid;
85. Waiting On The World To Change, by John Mayer;
86. New Song, by Jordan Worner;
87. Happy, by Ayeisha Woods;
88. Be Like That, by 3 Doors Down;
89. May It Be, by Enya;
90. You Found Me, by The Fray;
91. Light Up The sky, by The Afters;
92. Breathe Into Me, by RED;
93. Give Me Your Eyes, by Brandon Heath;
94. Angel In The Alleyway, by Latch Key Kid;
95. The Scientist, by Coldplay;
96. Reflections, by Jay Seeney;
97. Collide, by Howie Day;
98. Poker Face, by Lady Gaga;
99. Kids, by MGMT;
100. Scar, by Missy Higgins.

93. is reprised at the end.