Don't Forget Your Roots

“Don't forget your roots, my friend
Don't forget your family, yeah
Don't forget your roots, my friend
The ones who made you
The ones who brought you here”

Don’t Forget Your Roots – Six60

I’m going on an adventure. I say it’s an adventure because I don’t know where I’ll end up or what I’ll be doing the whole time or even how long I’ll be gone for. All I know is I’m starting by jumping the ditch and seeing where life takes me from there. It’s a big step and I’m a little bit scared about doing it, but I also know it’s something I have to do – ever since my trip to USA I’ve realised there’s a whole world out there for me to explore and learn from.

I left my job at the end of last week and my friend there gave me this plaque, saying it was something to keep in mind while traveling and fitted with my love of music and my love of New Zealand.

Yes, there is a whole world out there waiting to be seen, but there is always a place to call home. I was lucky enough to grow up in a wonderful environment with my family and my friends from all walks of my life. I credit them for the person I have grown into today and I know without the support I have I could not venture off shore. Alongside my core support group I have seen so much of our beautiful country – from New Years Eve spent in the Coromandel, sports trips across the North Island, numerous visits to our coolest little capital Wellington, ventures into the South Island and the spectaculars of the four corners of my home city Auckland. I cannot wait to be the next person to take stories from my homeland into the world.

As I travel across Australia and later further across the world my goal is to learn and enrich my life. This blog post is ridiculously cliché but it is the clichés which are important to remember, like in the end you only get one shot at your life and I know now is the time for me to go exploring. Who knows what I might find on the way – some of my friends have gone as far as saying I might find love and never come back. But I will be back one day – because to never come back means to forget your roots. And no matter how glamorous a life overseas may become I am determined to remember how great New Zealand has been to me and how proud I am to be from country.

Ka Kite Ano Aotearoa

In a Song

“It's alright,
It's this goodbye
Won't hurt me for too long
I'll be fine on my own
It'll take some time, but I know that I
I can find where I belong
And I'll find it in a song”

In a Song – Hunter Hayes

I’ve always been into finding new artists and discovering music. I typically discover new artists by their song being played on on the radio or watching on a show like The X Factor or at the suggestion of a friend. My latest music discovery is Hunter Hayes, who I found in a slightly less conventional way – that is, I saw his display in a Walmart in Yuma, Arizona, and when I came back to New Zealand looked him up because I thought he looked like an alright artist. Okay, I thought he was cute. Really cute. And you can’t have bad music if you’re really cute, right?

I listened to a few tracks off his self-titled debut album and thought I must have this all the time. I bought the entire album, Encore edition, and have since listened to it nearly every day. A few days ago I would’ve written it’s the best album I have heard in a while, but then I discovered Hunter Hayes has a second album that is as good (and maybe in a different blog I will address that New Zealand is still six months behind discovering artists have new music). I have always been hesitant to get into country music as it is such a big beast and I wouldn’t know where to start. I wish I had started listening to country music much earlier; there is something in this type of music that speak s to me – the honesty and tenderness, and the lack of trying to make a song edgy for the sake of it becoming popular.

I could easily write a blog about every one of Hunter Hayes’ songs. I could write about being swept off your feet like in Storm Warning. I could write about everything going wrong but keeping positive like in Faith to Fall Back On. I could write about going an adventure like Better Than This or creating a life with someone like in Storyline or I could tackle a heavy issue like bullying as written about in Invisible. But when I mapped out what I would write I kept realising one common thing: every song had an answer within it.

In a Song talks about what I believe in with music – that when all is lost, the music will be there. I search for answers in music when I’ve been hurt or I’ve hurt myself, when I feel lost or confused or when I have so much going on I need to find a release. When I have my iPod plugged in I go to a different place, my happy place, with my music. I’ve walked away from relationships knowing that I have my music and have my blog to make me feel better; I may harp on about some problematic guy in a post, but after it’s been written the hurt goes away.

Discovering Hunter Hayes’ music has made for a great past few months. In my mind I have pulled apart all his songs and taken what I need from them. This is the kind of artist I want to go on an adventure with; I want to follow his music for as long as his career spans and every song he releases I want to feel something from. One day I will see him live in concert, and it will be so exciting. And I will look up at all 1.68m of him and secretly smile at how my love of his music started in a Walmart.

Take a Walk

“Honey it's your son I think I borrowed just too much
We had taxes, we had bills, we had a lifestyle of fun
And tonight I swear I'll come home and we'll make love like we're young
Then tomorrow you'll cook dinner for the neighbours and their kids
We can rip apart those socialists and all their damn taxes
But see I am no criminal
I'm down on both bad knees
I'm just too much a coward to admit when I'm in need

I took a walk

Take a walk, take a walk, take a walk”

Take a Walk – Passion Pit

On first listen to Take a Walk it’s hard to understand exactly what this song is about. I read an interesting article where Michael Angelakos, Passion Pit’s lead singer, was nervous to release this song as a single because he thought it would be interpreted as political statement. Rather, he says, Take A Walk is about three generations of his family at different and rather difficult times of their lives. After I listened to this song a few more times I begun to hear the struggles in the stories of these men. One of the stories stood out to me – it’s the story that I chose for the above excerpt of the song – and, one very specific line caught my attention over and over again:

I'm just too much a coward to admit when I'm in need

Yes, that line. Read it again.

I'm just too much a coward to admit when I'm in need

I'm just too much a coward to admit when I'm in need

This could be one of the most significant lines I have ever heard in a song. I think nearly everyone would be able to admit they have done this. They have acted like nothing is wrong in their lives because they were ashamed or afraid of the backlash they would receive, because our society still connects being in need with being weak.

I’ve done this on so many occasions I have lost count of the number of times I could have used some help. I’ll share with you the most recent time I needed help but didn’t get some. I was in San Francisco and struggling with the death of a new friend. It was a really bizarre situation, being away from home with people I hardly knew and dealing with such an emotional burden. I felt like I had no one to talk to and I wanted to be alone – but that didn’t mean that I was okay. I didn’t want to admit that I was still struggling while I watched my fellow travellers move on and enjoy their trip. I also knew that when I left San Francisco and got back to the comfort of my own home I would be fine. But there were 48 hours or so where I spend a good deal of time in the hotel room alternating crying and sleeping and feeling at a very low point of my life.

When I think back on this time, and other times I never asked for help, I guess I felt like I could handle it myself and I felt like my problem wasn’t really a big deal. But sometimes, no matter how big or small, you need someone else’s help. I wish it weren’t a thing to have to put aside your tough guy persona to ask for help, and I wish it didn’t feel like others were judging your weaknesses for admitting you have a problem. But then I think this idea is just in our own heads – that we feel like people will judge, when in reality they won’t, they will just help. And they won’t let you take the walk alone.

Bliss

“Aaaaaaa Ya Ya Ya Ya, Ya Ya Ya Ya

Drink Yourself More Bliss
Forget about the last one get yourself another
Drink Yourself More Bliss
Forget about the last one get yourself another”

Bliss – Th’ Dudes

For as long as I can remember, alcohol has been a part of my life. I, like most people, grew up with alcohol being served to adults and I would get the occasional sip. As a teenager I dabbled with different drinks at parties, though I was never considered to be a wild child who got drunk at parties every weekend. In fact, my parents still laugh at how little my tolerance can be. A doctor once described me as a binge drinker; it sounded terrible at the time but I guess he was right – I hardly drink during the week, but now and then I will have a big night on the booze.

After my trip to USA, where nearly every night involved drinking, I decided to take a much-needed detox for the last two weeks of June. The detox turned into an unofficial Dry July and my abstinence has continued into August, apart from one very drunken night on my birthday a few weeks ago. I haven’t even participated in a Friday night drink or been tempted by a glass of wine after a long day at work. My drink of choice lately has been the classic orange juice or a soda water with lime. In terms of health I have felt great – my weekends have been much more productive without a half day hangover. And, to be honest, I much prefer the way I act when I’m not on the booze – lately I have felt I am just one drink away from saying or doing something I will very much regret.

Over the past few months it has been interesting monitoring the thoughts of others when I tell them I’m not drinking. Their reactions ranged from “good for you” to “fuck that” to “do you think you can not drink for that long?” and, my personal favourite, “you should drink tonight anyway”. It seems many people could not understand why I needed to abstain from drinking and seemed to think one drink couldn’t hurt. And they are right – one drink really wouldn’t hurt. But it was the attitude that I needed alcohol to have a good time that really got me thinking.  

I very deliberately picked a song that says get another drink for this blog. When I was in Arizona a few months ago someone said to me “where’s your drink?” I said I had finished it and they said, “so get another one, that’s what people usually do in bars”.  Here’s the thing about our society: every function, every work event, every party from a raging to 21^st to a civilised dinner party includes alcohol, because that is what is normal. I am not starting a crusade to change this – because I know I never will - but what I wish would change is the way people react when you say you aren’t having any alcohol. I feel like I am being unnecessarily judged for choosing to abstain, like it’s a really big deal and people think you are either a hero or crazy for sticking to the orange juice. And I felt like I had to explain myself every time someone asked what I was drinking and saying something like “I’m doing Dry July so I just have my bottle of soda water!”

I don’t know how long this abstinence will last – it started out as a health thing, then turned into a personal challenge, and now I rarely feel like an alcoholic drink. I’ll most likely start drinking again at social occasions, but I’ll do it because I want to and because I want the taste of that particular drink, and not because society says should have some booze in my hand. The best bit of the past few alcohol free months is that I really have proved to myself I can have fun without being on the piss.  

We Are Done

“Done with being a silent many
Every voice rings out and carries
No we won’t just go back
Home without you hearing
The sound when the many say
We are done”

We Are Done – The Madden Brothers

I grew up with Good Charlotte as my favourite band. From when I first heard The Young and the Hopeless album when I was about 11 I fell in love. Billy was my favourite; Joel and Benji were alright and I did enjoy their stories, but Billy was the rockstar of my teenage years. I remember when I found out Billy wrote Ghost of You on their third album and it was totally my favourite track of Chronicles of Life and Death. Yes, in the 2000’s you could throw any emo style boy band at me and I would probably like them, but Good Charlotte were my top pick, always.

It’s always a bit of a mind battle when your favourite band goes their separate ways and start releasing solo music. When I heard The Madden Brothers were a thing and a thing without Billy and Paul, their longstanding band mates, I was sceptical. However, I am a fan of We Are Done. I’ve heard a lot of negative feedback about the musical style of the song and I know this isn’t the best work The Madden Brothers have done, and probably not the best work they will do.

No, it is the theme of the song that draws me in and in the best way possible reminds me of why I loved Good Charlotte. Nestled amongst the music from girls singing about their heartbreak and the boys singing about their favourite boo was this band I loved for challenging society in a way I could relate to. The music Good Charlotte made was never threatening but thought provoking, and was more than giving a giant middle finger to the world. Throughout their five albums their lyrics raised questions about the society we lived in – hierarchy, family issues, living outside of the spotlight and above all, making you think about what you believed in.

I know that Good Charlotte’s music was never known for pushing musical boundaries and people would think it strange when I say they were my favourite band. But they were the band that helped me gain my voice. They never told me what to do when a man broke my heart, they told me stand out from the crowd and be myself throughout my life. It’s a lesson that I thought would end in my teens, but has actually become more prominent as I grow into an adult. I get that it was time for Good Charlotte to move on and pursue new projects, but I am so glad The Madden Brothers still hold their priorities straight.