Travis Buster

Went to Steinway Hall in Dallas and picked the piano for the Poor David's show on 1/16. I love going there. Great pianos Great people.

I wrote Shine thinking about two people falling in love.  Actually Wendy & I falling in love.

 

and the beauty of Mirandola, the Italian from the 1400’s & his  "Dignity of Man".

Now before you shut me down because I’m getting all fancy classroomy on you let me explain. Mirandola eloquently wrote his Oration with big words and high thoughts but you can see the awesome Dignity of Man in this  little love song w/ horses and planets and a kitchen...

 

A  man meets beautiful woman & says his love for her is like a stallion chasing a mare across the prairies; like a planet chasing a star across the heavens;

if she will just let him love her she will shine like them…

 

And they fall in love.

 

 but then reality hits...

He can’t live up to this fantastic life he has dreamed of.

 

 but then he realizes… 

More beautiful than a stallion chasing a mare across the prairies;

More beautiful than a planet chasing a star across the heavens;

He, little ole he…can dance with this beautiful lady across the kitchen.

 

There is literally nothing more beautiful in the universe than a man and a woman dancing across the kitchen.…wow.

 

Way more beautiful than any car.

Way more beautiful than any house.

Way more beautiful than any job.

 

A man & woman dancing across the kitchen.

 

So officially the song is called "Shine" but you and I know it should be called "The Dignity of Man".

Here's to letting our dignity shine.

Click here to hear "Shine"

Lyrics:
 

Sam is a stallion. Mary is a mare.
They chase each other across the prairie.
Mary thinks that Sam is a super stud.
He thinks she’s a hot little filly.
I’ll be your stallion.
You be my mare.
And we’ll chase each other across the prairie.
And I will give you lots of love and you'll shine

Peter is a planet. Sally is a star.
They chase each other cross the sky.
She thinks that he is the center of the universe.
He thinks she’s the sparkle in his eye.
I’ll be your planet.
You be my star.
And we’ll chase each other across the sky.
And I will give you lots of love and you'll shine

but
I can't run like a stallion
I can't give you the stars above
but I can give you lots of love and I can make you smile

so
I’ll be your man. You be my woman.
we’ll chase each other across the kitchen
And I will give you lots of love and you'll shine

---

A musician friend of mine, John Fullbright, says "Somebody tell me, what's so bad about happy" in his song "Happy". Well that got me to thinking, which many people think is a dangerous thing for me to do, what is so bad about happy?

I try to stay happy.  I think most of us do. We try to exercise, avoid people that bring us down, try not to drink too much but no matter what I try, happy ain't easy. We try to think positive, always look on the bright side and all that but No matter what I think, happy ain't easy.

Happy ain't easy because bad things happen. Howling winds – they find us and they chill us.  In the Phantom of the Opera the chandelier crashes down and almost kills the fat lady (you know the one that has to sing).  The director tries to calm her by saying "these things happen"  but as the diva quits in disgusts she says "These things happen but they don't happen to me."  We like to think bad things don't happen to us, but they do.

Dogs die, precious people leave, all kinds of bad stuff.

Some of us throw ourselves into our job, some turn to drink, some go get a new relationship, some move to another place but no matter what we do, no matter where we go, happy ain't easy.

Then there are those that have all the answers. Ugh.  Some have lots of money, some are in the church, some just plain want you to think they have life all together. They're great and we're idiots…they call out from their safe place…Stand your ground - Call for grace, It’ll make you whole.

But what are these fine folks like when bad stuff comes to them, bad thoughts, bad people...who stands their ground when the wind blows straight thru your soul? Nobody.

I've been there.  You kind of get your stuff together and bam... bad stuff seems to come looking for you.  I think it really does.  I know where the wind blows, When the wind don’t know nowhere else to blow. Then the wind blows hard – hard thru our souls.

It does not matter if we are the king of the world,  bad stuff happens.  It doesn't matter if we "know God personally", bad stuff happens. No matter who we are. No matter who we know.

But… there's a limit to the bad stuff. The one who lets the winds blow, Holds back the seas.  We can be happy.  Maybe we will, maybe we won't but we can be happy.

So John You ask, what’s so bad about happy and I've thought about it and near as I can tell ,not one damn thing.

And I am happy quite a good bit actually. It just ain't easy :)

Happy Ain't Easy  Click here to hear the song
Lyrics:
You ask, what’s so bad about happy
Well near as I can tell - not one damn thing
But oh you know - Happy ain’t easy
No matter what I try
No matter what I think

Howling winds – they find us and they chill us
Howling winds – they always seem to blow
And they blow hard - hard thru our souls
No matter what we do
No matter where we go

Others they call out from their safe place
Stand your ground - Call for grace It’ll make you whole
But who stands their ground – when the wind howls
When the wind blows straight thru your soul

You see I know - I know where the wind blows
When the wind don’t know nowhere else to blow
Then the wind blows hard – hard thru our souls
No matter who we are
No matter who we know

The one who lets the winds blow
Holds back the seas
Speak up if you understand
But as for me
I’m just a man
And you ask what I do not understand.

You ask, what’s so bad about happy
Well near as I can tell - not one damn thing
But oh you know - Happy ain’t easy
No matter what we try
No matter what we think

 

To paraphrase Mark Twain, "There are two types of people: Those that know they have fears to face and those that are liars." But that also means we all have treasures to claim...

I keep everything I have left from you in a drawer by my bed.

Don't seem to clean it out, probably be there when I'm dead.

 

I have one of these drawers. And it's by my bed. It has pictures that require knowing some backstory to know what they're all about.  And they're not all stories about good things.  Some of the stories are ugly.  To somebody else they would just look like a bunch of unrelated pictures. But to me…they're my life.
 

Somebody else will come along and they will clean it out.

They'll ask themselves, what was this all about?

 

A young woman found a box of pics under her mother's bed. She discovered that some other man was her father by a previous marriage that her mother had never told her about.  Her mother hadn't thrown the pictures away.  She didn't tell her daughter about them.  The mother just kept them to herself and held onto them. Out of fear I suppose.

Someone else, re-married for 50 years. still  keeps pictures of her ex-spouses supposed lovers and shows them to people. She says she wants people to understand how bad she was hurt...

 

I hold on to the pain. Just won't let it go

Even thou it's no good for my soul

I hold on to the pain. Just won't let it be.

Seems it's become. Too big a part of me.
 

Not facing our fears causes trouble. "Frequently we bring about what we fear." says Judith Viorst in Necessary Losses. She says "I do unhesitatingly embrace Freud’s conviction that our past, with all of its clamorous wishes and terrors and passions, inhabits our present, and his belief in the enormous power of our unconscious—of that region outside our awareness—to shape the events of our life. I also embrace his belief that consciousness helps, that recognizing what we’re doing helps, and that our self-understanding can expand the realm of our choices and possibilities."

Some do not want fears faced. They do not want you to talk about the elephant in the living room.   Like questioning our own actions or questioning the ramifications of Africans that were enslaved  or exterminating Jews or eradicating Native Americans. They don't want you to face their fears.
 

There's lying eyes and souls that cry down throughout the years.

They chant "Give it up. You can't face down these fears."

 

I was put thru the adoption process due to divorces gone very bad. Learning to face the fears and losses of that is difficult for me.

 

Facing our fears is scary but worth it. Our fears are like dragons guarding our most precious treasures." said Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926), author of Letters to a Young Poet.  Ray Wylie Hubbard told me about Rilke  and Ray Wylie confronts  these dragons & treasures beautifully in his song, The Messenger. 

 

Some drawers are under our beds. Some are in our minds. But they're all real.

Here's to cleaning them out, facing our fears, and claiming our treasures.

Lyrics:

I keep everything I have left from you in a drawer by my bed.

Don't seem to clean it out, probably be there when I'm dead.

Somebody else will come along and they will clean it out.

They'll ask themselves, what was this all about?

 

I hold on to the pain. Just won't let it go

Even thou it's no good for my soul

I hold on to the pain. Just won't let it be.

Seems it's become. Too big a part of me.

 

There's a faded picture in an old frame behind a broken piece of glass

Smiling faces dreaming dreams that did not come to pass

There's lying eyes and souls that cry down throughout the years.

They chant "Give it up. You can't face down these fears."

 

I hold on to the pain. Just won't let it go

Even though it's no good for my soul

---

Sometimes it helps to just state the obvious.

 

We are born, some things happen, we make some choices, we're gone. That's about it.

 

We might lead a good life but then again maybe we won't. John Steinbeck ends his classic novel, East of Eden, with the word "Timshel" meaning We May or We May Not. Or simply… "We'll see".

 

We come along and we're given our voices. We're born into a family and the families vary,  hugely.  Some families are loving. Some are horrible. Some poor, some wealthy. Some people are given voices of privilege, wealth and power. Some are given voices so weakened by poverty and dysfunction that their voices are not heard. It's seems unfair.

 

Of course it's not just in our birth that we have no choice.  Life deals us things as we go along. Some good, some bad and we have no choice in the matter.

 

But some things we do have a choice in.  As Abraham Maslow's hierarchy says we ask , "What's Happening here?"  We look around and we make our choices.  And then we move on and the cycle keeps going. Some things happen, we make some choices.

 

Some choices are right and some are wrong. The right choices are great. Good for us. And some wrong choices are easy to recover from so that's not too bad. But some wrong choices can hold on our whole life. Some forgive and some hold on.

 

And then we're gone.

 

There's nothing more that we can do and there's nothing more we can say about this born, things happen, make choices, gone thing. Turns out things have always been this way. Over and over, again and again. What I can do is  try to make the best of the decisions I have. Make as many right choices as I can, recover from the wrong ones best I can and then live with the rest. 

 

Born, things happen, make choices, gone. 

 

Will we be a blessing will we be a curse, Will we make the world better will we make it worse… I guess, we'll see.

 

 

Timshel.

 Lyrics to "We'll See"
 

We come along and we're given our voices.

We look around and we make our choices.

And then, we move on.

Some are right and some are wrong.

Some forgive and some hold on.

And then, we're gone.

 

There's nothing more we can do.

There's nothing more we can say.

Turns out things have always been this way

And I guess that's all right.

I guess that's ok.

 

We may or we may not.

We have what we have we've got what we got

And now, we'll see.

Will we be a blessing, will we be a curse.

Will we make the world better, will we make it worse.

I guess, we'll see.

 

---

Hey, this is Wendy.  
I love seeing and hearing the birth of a new song, especially a love song and I thought someone else may be interested in seeing a new song progress.  While we were alone for a while in Vail, we had been talking about the brevity of life and life obstacles and the need to really enjoy the moment because it isn't going to last. A few minutes later, Travis was serenading me at the piano and thus began this song.  Sounds like something that Tony Bennett would like, I know I sure do.  ~ Wendy



Lyrics so far:

I see you right now
I hear what you say
The noises of life
Have all faded away
But it’s not going to last
It’s not going to stay
I don’t know about tomorrows
But we have today
 
So smile your smile
Let me love you
As if this were the last.

---

When I was a little kid I'd go to the park and there was this swing that had a frame  made of big grey steel pipes and you sat in this black rubber strip that was suspended by long brown chains that reached way way up.
 
I'd run and kind of jump to get in the seat but that only worked so much.  I'd struggle to tuck my knees under and push my legs out but sometimes I was just flopping. But, if another kid would give me a push...then I could really make it go.  Then I could lean back and stretch my legs out and go higher and higher as I flew towards the sky.
 
But this is not a song about swinging. Well it is a little bit about swinging but mostly it's about remembering the good things in life. The joy of swinging, helping others, smiling and watching them smile. 
 
After hearing "Swing" a fan told me, "Thanks for the push".  What a wonderful comment.  Makes me think it was worth writing. Thank you for the push Melva Garrett-Campbell. We all need one every now & then ;)

Swing - Lyrics

I was feeling down just the other day
What was wrong I couldn’t say
I was sitting by myself on a bench
In the middle of a park
An old man was watching the children play
Smiling like he could be there all day
The sun was shining bright on him
I was in the dark
He said, son I like to watch these children play
It reminds me of me back in my day
I’d swing
                       
I’d sit down in that swing
A friend would give me a push
I’d feel the wind and I’d feel the whoosh
I’d start to swing
I’d swing.
Then he’d push a little harder
And get a running start
He’d run under my legs and out into the park
And I’d swing
Then I’d lean way back and I’d go so high
I felt like I could almost fly
I’d swing
 
He said you know son life’s like that
Sometimes you’re down and you’re feeling flat
And you just need someone to give you a push
Or maybe it’s someone else that’s down
And it’s your turn to push them now
To help them swing
 
Sit down here son and I’ll give you a push
You’ll feel the wind, you’ll feel the whoosh
You’ll start to swing
Then I’ll push a little harder
And get a running start
Run under your legs
And out into the park
And you’ll swing
Then you’ll lean way back
And you’ll go so high
You’ll feel like you could almost fly
You’ll swing


image credit: Steve S.

---

Monday 6/8/15
 
There is so much more to doing music than just the music.  There's a lot to the part that isn't art.  Or maybe it is all art, just in a different way.
 
Yesterday I managed to get the story written for "Is That Too Much To Ask", and I'm pleased with it. So is Wendy.  I worked on it over several days and it didn't seem to come together. Then yesterday it did.
 
I discuss the process of writing the story. Then the I tell the background stories, which are "proof" that the stories are real.  I detail the issues that these stories confront.  I site a good reference. There is some humor. I give reason for some hope.
 
Then I thank Lourdes, who is a fan.  But I'm doing more than thanking her for the video she made.  It is me being happy that sharing the song must be worth it because she gets the song and wants to work to share it.  I think when that occurs it makes the sharing worth it. 
 
I have to write songs like I have to breath. It's that simple. Pain and pleasure in, music and stories out.  It is the way I am made. I write them and then I want to play them for Wendy right away.
 
But I don't have to share them with other people.  Sharing is optional.   I never write a song and then wonder if it was worth doing. I just do it. But after I share a song, in a performance or in a discussion, I usually wonder if it was worth sharing.  Did they get it?  Do they care?  Does it help them at all like it does me? That's where people like Lourdes and others come in. When someone else gets the work and then even works to share it with others, I think it must be worth sharing. 
 

---

 
 

Wendy talked with Wes, the owner of the studio where we're recording our album, yesterday and they set a date in March when we're going to try to finish recording songs for the album.  The plan is for it to be a simple raw type of recording that is pretty much what we do in the live shows.  We'll leave the flashiness to Miley Cyrus, which everyone seems to agree is a good idea and I don't think anyone is missing out by not seeing me swinging on a big ball and chain anyway.

Pretty much just me and a piano. We have to finalize the songs we're going to do & determining the tempo we'll use on each song is somewhat confusing. Slow, or really slow.  Fast, or really burn down the barn fast.  As my friend Ray Wylie says you get more attention burning down the barn than taking out the trash. But the thing is that I get a lot of comfort from writing songs that take the trash out of my life. So we'll see.