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I wanted to write about the contradiction that I think everyone must feel a little bit of. It comes from the idea that the things you want in life are simple. When you think about them, whatever they are, they seem like really simple things. And you think that if you could just get your life to arrange itself so that those things were true then you’d be so much happier than you are now. And you know that it’s not just that you don’t like where you are right now. And you know that it’s not any other things that will do. It’s just those few simple things that you want to change and if you had the power to do it then all would be well. So really those simple things become everything important. And in wanting those simple things, what you really want is the same thing everyone wants. What you really want and what your “simple thing” really is, is everything.

OH LORD  (ALL I WANT) OH LORD  (click to play) – Tim Pepper

OH Lord, I feel like I’m always alone;

I don’t know where I’m going,

I don’t know where’s my home.

Oh Lord, You know I come and go;

You know despite the show

I’m more broken than I’m whole.

All I want is a simple thing,

Just like everyone who wants everything.

And all I’ll take is most of it,

Or maybe every bit;

Whatever I can fit.

OH Lord, All I want is a loving hand

To take inside my own;

A body to behold.

OH Lord, All I want is another’s eyes

To look inside my soul;

To know my very ghost.

All I want is a simple thing,

Just like everyone who wants everything.

And all I’ll take is most of it,

Or maybe every bit;

Whatever I can fit.

OH Lord, I think I finely know,

My heart will ebb and flow;

My love will seep out slow.Share on Facebook

TWEET WEEK

When you read bios about people you’re interested in you often see head shots like the one above. You look at those head shots and come to all sorts of conclusions about them. I’ve been reading some bios and here’s what I think:

When you think about Steve Earle you think about “Copperhead Road” and when you think about Jack Kerouac you think about him driving across America in a big old car. You don’t really think about Jack working the railroad or serving as a merchant marine. You don’t really think about Steve Earle being married seven times and all the legal fun that that must be.

At 4 am this morning I was driving home from work and I was thinking about Townes Van Zandt. Although he didn’t reap the benefits much, it is reckoned that by the end of his life his annual income from song royalties was somewhere in the region of about $100,000.00. It’s not a ridiculously enormous amount of money but it’s pretty damn great for a songwriter. I think most people would be pretty happy with that kind of income. But most of his life was spent living on people’s couches or in hotels and playing dive bars.

As a latecomer to the game of songwriting, in my mid 30s, I take inspiration from reading about the real lives of some of the artists I admire. When you look at these guy’s lives you start to see the benefits of sticking with a thing over the span of a lifetime. You also get the sense that these guys can’t be summed up by their art. Their art represents tiny little splinters on the tree of their lives. All that tree for just a few tiny splinters. And we look at those splinters and we think we know a guy.

We’ve got it backwards. We’ve idolized the artists and their art rather than the life that created them. It takes a lot of living to write a song or paint a painting or build a building. A lot of the time that life is just like everyone else’s.

With that in mind I decided to tweet the mundane moments of my life for a week. Follow along @OHtimpepper and tweet your own with #reallyreallyreallifeShare on Facebook

HEAVENS HIGHEST HOPES

The blanket of self doubt had wrapped itself around me when I wrote this song. I sensed a descending darkness in my world. I was entering into that horrible place in which people go to lose their hopes and dreams. I couldn’t explain it really but the circumstances of my life had made it seem that everything I had always wanted was going to be impossible. I couldn’t express it to it’s full extent. I couldn’t talk about it. This song was the best thing I could do to get it all out of my system. I packaged it up into the neatness of a song and let it stand there like a dark and mysterious cloud that would always make people go, “hmmm…”

I haven’t always believed what I’m about to tell you. Maybe I just haven’t always been aware that I believe what I’m about to tell you. But I think that what I’m about to tell you is true. I think it has to be true. The thing is this: There’s always hope. In the deepest grim there is hope. It doesn’t feel like it when you’re there but even then, hope is there. Heavens highest hopes are those really far-fetched hopes that hang on by the thinnest, smallest, most invisible threads. They are so impossibly far fetched that they can’t possibly ever come true. But there they are and there they remain. Sometimes those stupid, far fetched hopes are the only things that keep you doing what you’re doing. Sometimes Heavens Highest Hopes are all that you have. But at least you’ve got them.

HEAVENS HIGHEST HOPES – by Tim Pepper

It’s alright if you get down; You can always come around. We’ll get nowhere with this game, but we’ll play it just the same.

Oh it’s heaven’s highest hopes that keep me in; keep me stable; feet on the floor. Some nights I feel the world might do me in. But I’m able; with these hopes I’ll soar.

On the wild road again. Hear the whispers in the wind. Across the field, around the way, can you hear them say my name?

Chorus

Oh I’m angry and I’m sad. My neck got broken looking back. I’m jealous and I’m mad. Have we finished with the past? Have I missed it? Have I missed the mark completely?

Chorus

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Hard As Hell – Tim Pepper

Sometimes I worry about how my daughter will handle life when it gets hard. She’s young now but I keep imagining her on her first day of school or at her first job interview or at that moment when her heart gets broken for the first time. I remember some of those moments in my life and I remember how those moments felt and I feel it all over again, and then some, when I think about her feeling those same awful feelings. I want to be able to move her past and over and around all of the bad stuff in life but I know that I can’t. All I can do is prepare her and love her and wait for those moments to show up in her life and hope that she knows she’ll get past them.

Hard As Hell – by Tim Pepper

Baby girl, here’s the world; feel it pressing in.
It will bite. You will fight. It will knock your chin.
It will take. You will break. But your heart will mend.
Every day you rise again;
Never let it keep you in.
Even when it’s hard as hell.

You will grow. You will go. Go and find your way.
Find your soul. Reach your goal, Baby come what may.
Guard your heart from the dark. Find a love who stays.
Don’t live life too fast;
Live every day like it’s your last.
Even when it’s hard as hell.

You can do everything you dream.
Life is hard but you,
Baby you will see;
You’ve got everything,
Everything you need.

It’s your move. Go and prove what is in your heart.
If I could choose, I would lose to advance your start.
But it’s true all I can do is just a small part.
But every day you rise you’ll know;
My love is wrapped around your soul.
Even when it’s hard as hell.

“Hard As Hell” is available as a free download on the EP, “Hotel”. Find it here.

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Home represents a place of comfort. It’s where you want to be. When you set out to find your dreams you tend to get lost from time to time along the way; You’re out there far from any visible trail and you start to wonder what you’re doing out there all alone. You start to wonder about a lot of things in fact. When you find yourself asking questions about your life and purpose and destiny, your soul might start to sing your version of this song.

ARE YOU COMING HOME – Tim Pepper

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