My Red Sky: My True Calling

My Red Sky

My red sky has fallen

Must be my true calling

A hefty toll is taken

But nothing is forsaken

We love the sound

Of falling down

It’s coming back around

Behind your setting sun

My time has just begun

See what I’ve become

Never come undone

Reach the ground

Exalted sound

We’ll be left with none

Don’t hold on

For too long

On the inside

Forever……

“My red sky has fallen, must be my true calling.” I’m someone who has, and continues to, experience acute bouts of panic attacks, chronic anxiety and overwhelming episodes of panic and psychosis.  In this song I refer to this disposition of mine as my red sky.  Red because “alert”, “warning”, “danger”, “don’t panic”, “mayday”, “alarm”.  Sky because when it falls it is catastrophic, cataclysmic (in a non-biblical way) and all-encompassing.  Mine because I’ve learnt, partially through years of therapy, but also through hard experience that these episodes, and importantly what I experience and who I am during them, are as much a part of my true being as any other aspect of my persona in total.  My dear Mum, who is and always has been wonderfully supportive, has said many times, “You seem a lot better now, which is great.  You’re yourself again.”  I know the perception of people experiencing panic attacks, psychosis or bouts of depression, especially among those who know them best, is that they are not themselves during those times, or seem to become someone else. And while it’s true that during psychosis for example, I become agitated, paranoid, edgy and disconnected in total contrast to my usual, or “default” (for want of a better word) easy going and good natured disposition, I have long come to accept that psychosis, panic, anxiety, and at times depression, are an inevitable part of who I am and who I will always be at times. For people like me there is no “transcendence” – no getting over it, resolving issues, moving on or any other common notions of complete closure or finality.  As an ongoing and permanent medical condition, one which I must always negotiate, successful management and mitigation of these symptoms in an ongoing way is the only realistic goal. People like me need strategies, therapy and medication to MANAGE the condition – a permanent condition – for the rest of our lives.  And in the depths of the cognitive haze and emotional fogs, that does sometimes feel like a life sentence (I might call a song Life Sentience one day), it is akin to having to take blood thinning medication and have regular check-ups, insulin dosages for people with diabetes, or any other form of condition which requires ongoing maintenance and intervention. As a society we have collectively come a very long way in our understanding, and partial acceptance, of these conditions, their treatments and symptoms, and of the people who live with them. But I can tell you firsthand that it wasn’t long ago that that wasn’t the case.  And there is still much ground to be made.

When I first whistled the melody over the chords to this song into my the voicememos on my phone in 2015, I had quietly, but assuredly, blown my own mind.  I heard that I am capable of writing and creating coherent musical ideas which anyone could hear and recognise as a decent song, and a song which many of the people I know at least might identify as having merit and musical substance.  I recognised that I am capable of being not just the bassist I have been since 1994, but a songwriter in my own right!  This had been a lifelong goal for me since childhood.  I grew up as a student of the violin, played in orchestras and chamber ensembles at school and on music camps, and had been very lucky to have wonderful violin lessons for seven years as a school student.  I had been raised on classical music and the great western composers and enculturated as a child to uphold musical composition as the foremost, highest achievement of humankind.  Therefore, at the age of 37 when I wrote My Red Sky and recognised myself to now be a songwriter, and thus a type of musical composer, I was finally becoming someone who can enact the highest form of human creative endeavour. I’ve never framed it in those terms to anyone else ever.  But in my own mind, and in accordance with my own internal code of being, that was and is my own secret truth.

Duncan Beale’s wonderful vocals on this recording make what I think is a lovely song a wonderful song!  Dunc is a supremely skilled and talented practitioner of music and a composer, performer and songwriter in his own right.  When I’d first written the song, I immediately thought how perfect Dunc would be to provide vocals for it.  I was more than thrilled, in fact absolutely stoked, when Dunc was keen and agreed to be involved in the SWO recordings.  He was a mainstay, stalwart, support and mentor throughout the six-EP recording journey SWO eventually became in the years subsequent. I have learnt a great deal of valuable musical knowledge through working closely with all the great musicians and creative souls over the SWO adventure. And Dunc has been a prime example of that.