But when the flood won’t break the droughtIt got me thinkingTo quench a thirst that can’t be drownedYou must spiral outGroundhog Day it comes around againIt’s got me shadow jumping to the stageDon’t miss a b-beat manJust waiting on the world againCounting 3, 2One degree of futilityFeels like I’m fallingBut I’m not falling.Like I’m runningRunning in slow motion.Crawling, like I’m brokenEngines stallingRunning in slow motion.Better hold on for the rideBe the rock whose ripples flow against the tideNow let that sink in!Pull the plug to electrifySwitch in 3, 2,One Degree of RealityFeels like I’m fallingBut I’m not falling.Like I’m runningRunning in slow motion.Crawling, like I’m brokenEngines stallingRunning in slow motion.
RUNNING IN SLOW MOTION – THE DREAMSTATE AND THE NATURE OF REALITY
SONG BREAKDOWN / ANALYSIS AND INSPIRATION
Do you ever feel like you’re waiting on the world?
That you’re ready, but the stars haven’t aligned quite yet.
That feeling of trying to run in your dreams with that sensation of being stuck in the mud, not being able to get any traction.
(One of the reasons I became a soloist is because I didn’t have to rely on anyone else other than myself to get shit done. No depending on band mates to turn up to rehearsal on time and know their parts etc).
It’s an interesting exercise to examine one’s lyrics years after writing them to try and determine what I was on about.
Where each line or word came from…
Running in Slow Motion is inspired from a number of varied sources, and they’re not necessarily linear, tackling the nature of reality from the standpoint of a frustrated artist.
Piecing together disjointed, disparate yet innately intertwined thoughts and concepts.
Some of which I have described, detailed, alluded too, ranted about below, and posing some of the questions they leave me asking.
THE STORY BEHIND THE FILM CLIP
A couple of years back we spent three days filming and collecting stories to share at the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, outback Queensland. Rising with the sun each morning to capture the scene with my Go Pro Fusion 360, I didn’t really know what I had, or what I was going to do with it, until I got the chance play around with the footage in the editing suite.
The resulting film clip for "Running in Slow Motion" was one of my first forays into virtual world of editing in a 360VR environment. Believe you me, I learn something new and improve each time I play around with 360 footage in the editing suite.
The star of the clip is “The Ringer”, a giant bronze statue adorning the grounds of the Heritage Centre. How it got there is an interesting tale within itself as you will find in Episode 1 of One Town at a Time "The Ringer and The Queen", which features the Running in Slow Motion film clip.
PRODUCTION OF THE SONG
20 or so instruments on this track. I went all out on this album. Massively inspired by Cotton Sidewalk’s opus Evil V’s People.
Adam Price showed me what was possible from an independent Novocastrian band.
The levels of production on that album, the string arrangements, harmonies and groove, was the major inspiration behind how I approached putting Sticking to My Guns together.
COTTON SIDEWALK - MAJOR INFLUENCE
Though, Adam / Cotton are a lot more reserved and sparing in their arrangements, the influence is undeniable.
Not to mention I'm writing / producing with his brother Luke these days and Michael 'Sullo' Sullivan also makes a guest appearance on the new album on the track Between the Notes. (More on that another time).
I have included the video of their farewell performance for posterity. A very special night for all concerned and a night I will never forget.
ART / INSPIRATION / CREATIVITY - WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?
“Pull the plug to electrify”
How to disconnect from the matrix to connect to the infinite, the source of life; inspiration, the unknown, the universe, the creator?
The essence of the thing that artists in all of their forms and mediums attempt to interpret.
Be the black sheep. Question authority and convention, push boundaries…
"Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists" - Nicola Tesla
“You should continually work on developing scientific data about what you can understand while avoid making assumptions and creating beliefs about what you cannot understand. Appreciating your limitations is the first step toward both knowledge and wisdom”. - Thomas Campbell, Author of My Big T.O.E
THE QUESTIONING NATURE OF ART
Ask questions and keep asking questions.
We are attracted to art because it poses questions and we take comfort in the reassuring answers it provides.
Open to interpretation, once an artwork is out there in the world the artist no longer has control over it.
It no longer belongs to them.
It is rather gifted to society and humankind as a marker of the zeitgeist. A birth mark; the conception of an idea, a movement, a purpose, a way of thinking, a philosophy, a ‘sound’, a culture, a lifestyle.
Creativity / inspiration exists between the notes, existing somewhere between dreams and reality.
"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration" - Nicola Tesla.
FRACTALS; SPIRAL OUT
Patterns within patterns, reorganising into higher states of complexity.
You must evolve your patterns if you are to grow or risk being forever stuck, like a broken record.
GROUNDHOG DAY
The dress rehearsal for waking reality that is the dream state.
So eloquently described by Thomas Campbell in his epic scientific trilogy My Big TOE (Theory of Everything), it examines the nature of reality and our inability to grasp its infiniteness with our current level of consciousness.
Campbell was one of the two scientists that created and ran the experiments on Transcendental Meditation and altered states such as lucid dreaming at the famed Monroe Institute in the 1970’s.
The Deepest of Rabbit Holes, this lecture series answered so many questions and asked many more...
LUCID DREAMING
"The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence" - Nicola Tesla
Nicola Tesla’s lucid dreaming was said to develop to the point where he could no longer distinguish between the dream state and reality.
What kind of living hell that must have been…?
"My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration" - Nicola Tesla.
I know from personal experience when writing songs that at times almost complete melodies will just appear from nowhere fully formed. To the point I question myself as to “Where am I stealing this from?” Which more often than not if I am borrowing from anywhere it is generally myself, which in turn sees my development as a musical artist evolve. Songs and melodies get stronger.
Which brings to mind a thought from my earlier blog "The Art of Reinvention; How to Pirouette, Pivot and Prosper in a Pandemic"
“Pablo Picaso was a prolific artist creating some 50,000 artworks in his lifetime, paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings. Not every piece he created was a masterpiece, many of his works look like failed experiments. Often times you can see him trying to express an idea / concept but not quite achieving it, but then the same idea turns up in a later piece In it’s fully developed form. I believe using this approach, using your work to develop ideas and making it your goal to create consistently is the reason we know Picasso’s name and work today. History tells us that Picasso treated those he loved with equal parts admiration and abandonment, but he never abandoned his ideas. We would de well to approach our content creation in the same way. Don’t put to much importance on any single piece of content. Instead, see your content as a body of work, that as a whole supports your business. No one piece needs to carry the full burden and every piece you make will help make the next piece even better”. – Pamela Wilson – Master Content Strategy.
But I digress, yet again…
VIRTUAL REALITY
"It grabs and twists at something deep. One’s field of vision is magnified. The expanse can be accessed. You catch something out of the corner of your eye and suddenly it becomes the focal point".
Taken from NEW DIMENSIONS – THE HAMSTER WHEEL & THE LOOKING GLASS (Part 1)
A picture tells a thousand words and there is more than one way to tell a story.
With the 360 camera I am able to make one picture tell a thousand stories.
Playing with the GO PRO Fusion has opened an entirely new world to me as an artist.
I am consistently astounded at the capability of the technology and editing software and the visions I am able to bring to life.
The dreamscapes I am now able to imagine, previously unfathomable.
It truly is a whole new dimension of possibility. The simplest scenes become hypnotic and spellbinding. As I am sure you can attest dear reader, these are bona fide scroll stoppers.
Like all great art, it bends the mind and challenges one’s faculties of perception leaving one questioning themselves as to what they have just witnessed.
Witchcraft, special effects, a distortion of reality.
The 360 camera stands you ten feet tall with eyes in the back on your head, centers and brings into focus the peripheral. The small details that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Which brings to mind how much information we take in and our ability consciously process it and the information; How our senses work – data essentially going in backwards and upside down.
Our sensory organs are our doorway into this reality. They are how we gauge, perceive and interact with the reality around us.
The world exists only within our own minds.
There is no collective universal reality rather billions of disparate disjointed entities connected to form our illusion / reality of shared existence, when in fact our worlds exist in our own heads, other people exist in their own worlds in their own minds making casual guest appearances within our own.
It’s your movie…
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