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Stephen Pickering

Tag: Music

  • My New Song “Thank You Day and Night” is Out Today

    My New Song “Thank You Day and Night” is Out Today

    On all the major streaming platforms as well as iTunes and Youtube. It’s another soft rocker. Here’s how I described the vibe to Spotify: “Meditative ballad about harmonizing the transcendental nature of our subjective feelings and thoughts with the realities of life.”

    Spotify
    Youtube
    Apple Music
    Thank You Day and Night Lyrics:

Thank you day
Thank you night
How far away is the light
I've been praying all the time
So much pain in this life

For a way back home
I'd give anything I own
Oh oh oh

Thank you day
Thank you night
I am blinded by the sight
A thousand shadows taking flight
Inside their hearts my soul's come alive

Drink the water from my soul
Traveled back in time to your door
Oh oh oh oh
Oh ooh oh
Oh ooh oh 

I've been digging through the floor
Sing my song maybe the gates will open more
Then she came at chakra four
Connecting worlds
Freeing shadows that have been ignored

For a way back home
I'd give anything I own
Drank the water from my soul
Traveled back in time to your door
Oh oh oh
Oh ooh oh
Oh ooh oh
  • My New Song “Sloan River” Released Today

    My New Song “Sloan River” Released Today

    “Sloan River,” a tune that came to me almost exactly on this day in 2019, was finally released today. I say finally. Really, it was one of those rare ones that just came all at once, even pretty much the lyrics. If, back then, I was thinking like I am now, I would have chased it down and gotten it out then. I never thought it was the greatest thing in the world, although I did think it was interesting and organic, and I was impressed by the way it made me sing (really high, especially on the verses!), but what I mean by that is that it captured the mood of a moment in time very accurately and spontaneously, and I think it’s better to chase those down in the moment and get them out closer to when they are born. Maybe all of them should.

    Another reason I think it’s good to get them out quickly, especially when you get the rare gift of the music and lyrics right there all at once, is that doing a million different demos sucks the soul out of you and makes what is exciting (making art!) suddenly not just a chore but a neuroses! And it nags at you! This little song, which again, I don’t think is anything special, has been nagging at me for the better part of two years! That’s just not healthy, either for the artist nor the art. I think what I’m looking for is that exact middle ground between rushing (as if it has to be out tomorrow) on the one hand versus procrastination on the other. That middle ground is a psychological state of acting, of progress, but within the bubble of calmness, relaxation. It’s a state that’s rewarding in and of itself, no matter what activity it is applied to.

    I am proud I at least got it out though, and with each new release I feel like I’m learning more and getting better.

    -Stephen Pickering, Little Rock. July 2021

    Lyrics for "Sloan River":

[Opens with four line chorus]
Sloan River takes you down
Sloan River makes you drown
Sloan River takes you down
Sloan River makes no sound

I wanted to pay
Pay my mistakes
Tried to walk away
But I could not escape

[chorus first two lines only]

I wanted to skate
And walk away
But memories of your face
I could not erase

[Chorus first two lines]

I wanted to leave
I wanted to find
The lady of the lake
Lady of your mind

[Final Chorus full]
'Cuz Sloan River takes you down
And Sloan River makes you drown
That honey river will take you down
That haunted river makes no sound.

  • My Latest Single “It’s Spring” Dropped Today

    My Latest Single “It’s Spring” Dropped Today

    My new single “It’s Spring” was released today via Distrokid which means it should be available just about everywhere you stream your music or buy digital downloads. It’s also on Youtube which I’ve embedded below.

    The track was written and recorded at the beginning of April 2021. I wish I had written in my notes the exact day that little riff came to me. I know I was sitting at my desk with a guitar in hand working on the lyrics for another song, when it came, as they do spontaneously out of the the ether. Usually with such things, I’ll record the fragment into my phone and get back to the task at hand, thinking I’ll come back and finish it later. Nine times out of ten that never happens. I was a little proud of myself for going ahead and finishing a complete draft which I was happy with and is more or less how it is. Maybe it’s the generic nature of the subject. Maybe I just got lucky. It happens.

    I had some specific images in my head from past Springs that feel so idyllic now. I think that helped drive it. Even if they’re not there exactly on the page in specific detail, I do think having pleasant memories in mind that you are working off of, playing off of makes the process more fun, and your mind becomes less judgmental, critical of what you are writing.

  • Just Released Two New Songs On Spotify

    My latest single just dropped on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube Music, Amazon Music, really every streaming platform on Earth by way of Distrokid. It’s also on regular old Youtube.

    It’s called “Just for a Moment,” and the B-Side is “Union Street (Hold On).” Give me a listen, like, and follow if you’re a fan.

  • A Generation X Woodstock View

    A Generation X Woodstock View

    As a teen I romanticized it. Now, I realize that’s the same as mythologizing something. Of course the reality of the experience was anything but. Unless you were having a good trip, as it were. As a young teen in the early eighties, maybe from my older sister’s record collection, I was into CSNY, Dylan, Clapton, Beatles, Stones, etc. This was odd for 1983 I suppose. Even though MTV fascinated me in and of itself, I always “hate-watched” the content thinking it was so superficial compared to my beloved 60’s.
    But enough about my thoughts on this now. I’ll add to them later including a whole chapter from my novel “The Horizon’s Blue Chance” which is all about a re-enactment of Woodstock at a college party in 1988. (the Chapter that is, not the whole novel. It’s the next to last one in the book, so it serves a prominent purpose to the story as a whole, at least psychologically and spiritually, a sort of “belly of the whale” experience.”)
    I saw an article in today’s New York Times entitled “Woodstock Was the Birthplace of Festival Fashion” and like so much of my blog I just wanted to create a repository for media concerning topics I’m interested in.

  • Pre-Save My New Single “It’s Nowhere” on Spotify

    https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/stephenpickering/its-nowhere