When the Darkness wakes up in the morning, the first thing it does is to look out of the window, see the Light shinning outside – and become full of anger, envy and rage all over again.
Because yesterday when night fell and it went to sleep, it made the great mistake of thinking that the Light is now dead.
The Light is never dead. It will rise again. It is we who turn our backs on it.
For a long time, decades,
I forgot about the power of music
I stopped believing that music can
Change the world.
It is easy to stop believing it
Because many people also do not really believe it
And so everywhere around you, people agree with you
In a gentle cynical sad way
But there is something greater than belief
It is Knowledge. Memory. New experiencing –
Conviction. Re-cognition. It comes upon you when music
Changes your world and brings you back to life
Inside you again –
This is what Music does to everything.
Then you become a believer again
And a disciple and a missionary of
The Religion of Music.
Sometimes when you kill a person, he keeps on living because he does not know that you have killed him. He keeps on living because he believes in you and it is this belief that keeps him alive. Until the day he learns that you already killed him, long ago. Then he dies.
I did not blog at all in 2014/2015 about the illness and death of my father. It was, still is, too deep. But I wrote a song with his words of advice – “There’ll Be Help Along The Way” – which captures everything he gave, and means, to me.
One of the most imprtant things his death did to me was to remind me that life is short. Do the most important things first. So I started making and recording Music again. And I ended up with my first Album in many years, called FIRST NATURE.
(V.1):
I remember
When the news hit me back in September
Daddy’s going home
Father father
Tell us will this be our last December?
Speak a word of hope
(CHORUS 1):
There’ll be storm and there’ll be rain
There’ll be tears and there’ll be pain
Keep on striving night and day
There’ll be help along the way
Those who have no fear to fail
Are the ones who never fail
Though they fall they’ll rise again
There’ll be help along the way
… way way way along the way
(V.2):
Have a vision
Live you life with purpose and a mission
Never never give up
Stick together
Be your brothers’ and your sister’s keeper
And keep your faith in God
(CHORUS 2):
When old friends have gone away – (way)
And new friends don’t feel the same – (same)
Yet stay on your lonely lane – (lane)
There’ll be help along the way –
Heaven helps who help themselves – (selves)
Don’t keep doubtig your success – (cess)
Just be faithful to your fate
There’ll be help along the way
… way way way along the way
(SAX SOLO)
(CHORUS 3):
Sometimes at the very start
The road you have to go looks hard
Just set off and just be brave
There’ll be help along the way
It’s no shame to be afraid
But don’t let it make you brake
’Cause in unexpected ways
Oh, there’ll be help along the way…
(FINAL AD-LIBS):
Oooh.. along the way
Children Children (there’ll be help along the way)
There’ll be help along the way…. (there’ll be help along the way)
Help along the way
There’ll be help along, there’ll be help along the Way…
Not because of what you know
Or never came to know…
But because in your eyes I espy
A certain thing
Which I cannot immediately define
But by which I have hope
That you will be the important one in my life…
She was a weightlifter
They found it unseemly
But she was a shape-shifter
Their disdain was a lighter burden to bear
Than her fate.
Slum lady. Carried mud and bricks
Bore stones and sticks
Firewood, rusted water in weeping baskets
The stretch marks of impatient thirsty men
Bunched up her muscles.
Owned by all, never owned a thing
The madams’ slaps, the masters’ secrets
Nothing was too heavy a load to carry
To snatch, to clean, to jerk off –
Each jerk. Very ordinary.
Today, when she steps out unto the mat
Under the lights, there you see
Sunset in one eye, sunrise in the other –
It’s not heavy weights she’s lifting
She’s carrying hope.
Why we sorrow, what we know
No tomorrow, yet we sow
Because this night, because this night
Because this night
Will crack
Light, light, I see tomorrow
Through a crack so slight and mellow
There’s a tiny track
The pain, though great
Will end.
The rain, though late
The rain, though late
The rain, though late
Shall bend
Our way again, this I know
Though we sorrow, yet we know
We’ll smile again.
Che Chidi Chukwumerije 