I found a recording earlier tonight that I had completely forgotten even existed. It is a song with a checkered past. I wrote it in high school and apparently recorded it in my ‘home studio’ (I had a $9 microphone I borrowed from a friend and a copy of ProTools Free) when I was studying in Sydney.

Yes, Mr. Whitaker
I hear what you’re saying
Lincoln is a torment
and a tyrant
but I thought you knew what I meant
When I said,
“A person’s worth is not their weight in gold.”
Don’t you ever ever look beyond anything you’re told?

And if I’m such a redneck, what does that make you?
And if I’m such a redneck, what do you suggest that I do?
And if I’m such a hassle, why not just give me up?
If you don’t care about me
you shouldn’t give a fuck

And those eyes
they used to frighten me
But now I’m lost in a daze
And I’m taken away
And I can’t stand your expectations
I won’t handle another rejection
So I’m leaving, yeah I’m leaving
goodbye and good luck
You don’t care about me
you shouldn’t give a fuck.

Yes, Mr. Whitaker by johnlacey

Two thoughts occur to me listening to this some years later.

Firstly, the song sounds exactly how I imagined it should when I scribbled down the lyrics. I mean, of course I imagined it with some sort of piano underneath it. But the rhythm and melody is just as I hallucinated it as I wrote. [Music had always been something I struggled with. And for a long time I was obstensibly a 'poet' because I couldn't make sense of music at all. I didn't know how to translate what I was hearing into something I - or someone else - could perform.]

Secondly, my voice sounds pretty good. Infact my voice seems to sound better here on a $9 microphone than it does more recently with more sophisticated equipment now. I really think I want a new microphone. Ideally I would like a nice condenser microphone, but I am tied to this computer and it has a rather noisy computer fan. Maybe it was using ProTools (back when ProTools Free existed and ran on Windows 95), perhaps that had better effects than the Cubase I’m using now. Maybe my voice is growing older and not necessarily better. It is something to experiment with though.

This is more of a status update than anything. (Especially since Twitter has been so problematic lately!) It’s 10:30pm Australian time as I write and I have to say I am exhausted. I have spent the last couple of days getting my friend Rob set up with his new site and blog. All in all I have to say I’m really happy with the final results. When it comes to producing graphics, Rob has the skills to pay the bills. And with every new project I do online, I am becoming more enchanted with WordPress as a blogging platform.

Its interesting, though, doing such a collaborative project for the better part of two days solid. Especially while communicating via skype (mostly in text chat). I think, at times, our biggest problem was just finding a way to communicate our ideas to each other. It wasn’t helped, either, that due to some weird DNS issues, my friend couldn’t see half the changes I had made!

Sitting in front of the computer for such extended periods of time is oddly depleting too.

I’ve also been working on a song. The first I’ve written in some time. For a while I was worried because my hands always fall upon the same collection of keys in the same way every time I sit down to play. I worried that I probably only had one really good song in me, or, perhaps, twelve derivative pieces. Though I appear to have moved past those concerns.

I’m impatient to record it, with what little resources I have here. Just make a video of myself performing it. Which is great – in theory. In practice I really need to work out the verses and produce some kind of bridge. I am infatuated with the melody, though. Its such a pretty thing. Too pretty, perhaps, to confine to a lyric about a twenty-something’s unrequired love. I guess time will tell.

I am also a little apprehensive about singing in a video. I actually really like my voice. I figure its the only one I’ll ever have – if I don’t love it, who will? Though I have been quite sensitive towards criticism in the past, even starting a second secret channel on YouTube to house some of my vocal performances.

I’m going to avoid the computer tomorrow. Get outside and see what the real world looks like (assuming it’s still there!). I’ve loved the challenges and the coding – oh, how I love the coding! – of the process I have been a part of, I have not enjoyed feeling so tied to this machine. I have to remind myself that I’m a writer while I’m writing, and a photographer while I’m taking pictures. And I’m truly a nature lover when I’m out amongst it. I have no excuses not to be, so I’ll stop making them and start heading out into it.