Guy Garvey: A hero of modern music...

"latituuuude...good attituuuude! and our gratitude...for your platituuudes...oh latituuuuuude!"

guy garvey's words, sumptuously sung to a silently expectant crowd of thousands...spoken like a carefree soul, drunkenly pondering the mind's innermost musings...a musical mantra for the magnificent masses...

and the man himself; a softly spoken saint, sent forth to save so many hurried and unsmiling souls from one more rushing, racing, raging day without the movement of music in their minds...

freeing us all from worry, with the understanding that "one day like this a year will see us right..."

and he and him and they moved earth and heaven to make that day the day to see us right...to sustain our hopeful and artistic souls through the corporate calendar...

and they delivered their message with delicious deftness and daring dexterity...leading and moving with the crowd with consummate ease...offering a king's serving of ambitiously atmospheric artistry and a worldly feast, thrumming and humming with a wealth of wonderfully wild words...rich man, poor man, beggar man, suit...one and all under guy's omniscient opera...

the crowd were sent soaring and adoring...we stood sighing and shuffling and shifting and whispering as words winged their windy way from front to back, from saint to sinner, from heaven to hell...

guy garvey; a more humble hero there is not...

a message to the world...

this is a message from my home, although you might call it a womb,

i’ve been here nearly 9 months now, and it’s starting to feel like a tomb…

it won't be long till i’m out, i'm patiently playing a waiting game,

but it’s so dark in here, it’s hot, cramped and constricting,

and to be honest with ya, i think it’s time to be leaving… 

i'm not sure what's out there, that's me not able to see,

but from all the mumblings and the murmurings, there should be plenty out there for me...

y’know i’ve been thinking, and i’d love to be greeted by blue skies and flowers, but the future is a mystery, and reading it is out of my powers...

don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to be hard to please,

and when the time comes, believe me i'll leave with ease,

but for now i’ve got time to waste, so i wait and waste to my own pace...

waste now and then let that word be, for what i plan for me, is to let the world see me be the very best me i can possibly be...

and the big day's getting close now, i can feel the outside world looming...

blue skies and rainbows, and a million flowers blooming...

now there's a noise rumbling outside, and light creeps into my eyes, so i guess this is the end of the ride...or is it just the start? i really can’t decide…

i hope the world i'm becoming a part of, is a beautiful haze of lazy summer days, but i suspect that isn't quite true,

instead i've heard it’s rotten and sinking, on account of the things men do…

status, labels and money - i've heard that these are our priority...

but placing them over charity, philanthropy and the very essence of humanity is beyond me...that i just cannot see...

now i'm hoping this ain't the truth - because that doesn't seem quite fair...

but then it's you who's leaving this world first, so why the fuck should you care??

in a world that’s moving too fast, too quickly today becomes the past,

no time for old ‘uns and nowhere for the young…

how do we expect to leave any good behind, when all is said and done?

now i know that must seem bleak, but listen to the words i speak,

i just long for a world that looks out for everyone, from the strong to the weak and the meek…

but hope does spring eternal, unrelenting and unending,

so i haven’t given up my chances, on my dreams of a happy ending,

and i can't wait to know my parents; my guardians, my teacher, my friends...

there through thick and thin, until this world ends...

my enduring defence - teaching me sense, showing me love, preserving my innocence...

well i'm here now, and as she watches me intently, i can see my mum loves me…

and although i’m yet to hear my name, i can see my dad feels just the same…

the feeling of a loving parent – the best life can possibly be,

if things go wrong, just look for their house, and with my family is where you’ll find me…

I am a dead man talking...

i am a dead man talking.

a voice from the grave so that other souls i might help save...

my life came and went, a gift from heaven sent…

ungratefully received, flattering to deceive by my make believe prophecies...

happy promises lay unfulfilled, hollow vows of false dreams into a thousand ears spilled. 

these are the ghosts of a dead man walking. dead man talking. dead man stalking.

days and years flew by so fast, time that i had now time that has passed...

and now on reflection, i can only plead insanity as i scour eternity for my redemption...

it's so clear when the end has been and come, how it all seems so foolish - adventure, not status, should've been the top of my wish-list...

and i'm not saying that it was all negativity, i just saw too late the need to rethink my priority...

so indulge me while i expand, and show you the good times that i hope outweighed the bad...because please believe there were good times and there were great, of that i can surely make no mistake...

parties and holidays and long forgotten walk-ways...jokes with friends as the road straights and bends, dancing for hours on hours, long passed the night's end...

these are the joys of a dead man walking. dead man talking. dead man reeling.

and while these are just swell, there's a point i must address - a thing that saddens and burns hot as hell, so forgive while i digress...

i'm talking about regret, that nagging itch your mind won't let you forget...

regret that mocks, haunts and plagues, screaming 'carpe diem' from behind a frosted window haze...

a missed chance to ask that girl to dance,

a moment to be seized but instead you freeze,

a question to ask a stranger casually walking passed, but your tongue twists so you finish the race last,

a glimpse of spontaneity that too easily drifts into forgettable mediocrity...

these are the pains of a dead man walking. dead man talking. dead man dying.

and now i see it's all too easy, to take for granted the chances that lie before you, and here i beg you not make the same mistake as me, and spend your days living the life you truly want to…

so here's some advice from someone who had their chance and missed it, be kind, be adventurous and to hell with the rest of it!

dream wildly, shout loudly, run quickly, love madly, travel widely and live fully – that's the advice to you from me, on how to live a life completely...

these are the words of a dead man walking. dead man talking. dead man...dead.

yours,

a dead man talking...

Talk is cheap...

Words, words, words. When you think about it, they’re what our days are filed with. From hazy, city sun rise, to lazy, late night starlight, we are surrounded by words, words, words.

Written words, real words, spoken words…soft words, strong words, barked words and marked words...whispered words, wise words, secret (and sacred) words, hateful words and happy words...throwaway words, provocative words, magical words and memorable words….words from people at work, strangers on the bus or just folks on the street. Everyone’s talking. All the time.

Some of these words are wonderful and insightful and inspirational and captivating! My high school teacher was a great man - and not only for putting up with the shit he had to on account of us pesky kids! On one of the days he wasn’t dealing with some mischievous and meddlesome little miscreant, he was generous enough to share some words with us.

He said “some people have something to say, others have to say something…”

These are an example of ‘wise words’. And they landed like a hammer blow in my mind. This was my moment of revelatory realisation that those people who said the most, weren't necessarily the people I needed to be listening to.

Obviously, in the 12 years since I’ve come to realise that for myself, and I've seen it proven time and time again...but I just think that every school should have someone like my teacher - Mr. Simon Ford, if you're asking - to give the kids of today and the teachers of tomorrow a heads up early on about those shysters of conversation, who shout and commandeer as they flatter to deceive...

So in lieu of the man himself, it's only fair to pass on his learnings and lessons with a dash of my own musings...

-          Think about what you say…don’t be someone who speaks just to fill a silence, be someone who considers every cog of the conversation…don’t waste a single word

-          Turn the volume down - if you need to be loud, then what you’re saying probably isn’t worth it…people will listen if what you’re saying is worth saying

-          Step out of the spotlight - if you need to be the centre of attention all the time, ask yourself why you’re not comfortable letting other people hold the crowd…?

-          Don’t use ten words when five will do; if you’re making a point, don’t confuse the matter. End of.

-          Use your ears – half of a conversation is about listening, so pin ‘em back, and take in what’s being said

So folks, today’s lesson, is people who have something to say are rare, and the things they have to say can surprise you. So listen up for when they do speak up…and in the meantime, avoid the grossly garrulous, the terribly taciturn, the violently verbose and the lavishly loquacious – I realise the irony here – and instead share a coffee with someone who thinks more than they speak, and find out what magic lies behind their wordy restraint…

Just a thought…

And here are some of those things that are worth saying, by some guys who had something to say…

-          Buddha – “Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace”

-          Henry David Thoreau – “Be not simply good – be good for something”

-          Yann Martel – “Work, work, work – but what mark do we leave? What point do we make? People who are too beholden with work become like erasers; as they move forward they leave no trace of themselves”

-          A.J Muste (A reporter interviewing a man who stood in front of the White House with a candle night after night protesting the Vietnam War, one rainy night asked, “Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?” Muste replied, “Oh, I don’t do it to change the country, I do it so the country won’t change me”

-          Mark Twain – “All generalisations are false. Including this one”

-          Woodrow Wilson – “We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers”

-          Albert Einstein – “Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man value of value”