Dave's Songs |
The View from Green Island GI Central - my 'net home' for several years, more or less hibernating for the last few years, but like any growly bear apt to wake up hungry and grumpy at any time, ready to engage whatever needs engaging - lots of venting, lots of good writing, lots of 'out-of-the-box' ideas you aren't EVER going to hear on the CBC (not for people who get triggered by intelligent ideas or certain words not allowed on the said CBC...) The Democratic Revolution Handbook by Dave Patterson
And a book for younger readers too, Dave's an eclectic sort of person - Aquila 
These and Dave's other books can be found at Dave's Smashwords EPUBS page - and for the curious, if anyone cares, a few words on From Hastings to Green Island - the (very) short form story of Dave's own journey.. Knowledge is like a candle. When you light your candle from mine, my light is not diminished. It is enhanced and a larger room is enlightened as a consequence. - Thomas Jefferson |
Music has always been an
important part of my life. My mother was an excellent pianist
who loved music, and my own musical love and talent must have
come from her. She made me take piano lessons for a few years
when I was in public school, which I thoroughly hated but
managed to do ok at, but from the time I was 8 or 9 years old
I was listening to the pop music of the time - late 50s, so
performers like Dion (I remember being particularly fond of a
Dion song called The Wanderer, somewhat precognitive perhaps)
and Elvis - and I have memories of standing on the dining room
table with a hairbrush in my hand as a mic singing (belting
out really) along with records pretending I was the great pop
music star. My early puberty-adolescent years came along just
as the Beatles did, and something went 'bang' in my brain (lot
of things were going 'bang' in my brain around that time,
actually, some would no doubt somewhat uncharitably comment
'permanent damage resulting') and I was an instant and
lifelong Beatles fan - I'd found my gods, and wanted to be
like them. The musical background from the piano lesson days
was very helpful then, as after trying the drums for awhile I
moved on to guitar lessons, and became a decent player after a
year or two of many hours of practice every day, and also got
back into the piano, with the considerable advantage of
knowing how to read music and etc from the earlier then-hated
lessons (thanks Mom!!). And was soon writing songs as well -
pretty uninspired stuff by and large, that's the nature of
learning curves, but I still remember the odd one - Cause We're in Love - my first 'true'
love, or 'truest to date' or something, I'd had a couple of
summer girlfriends {'handholding' stage sort of thing, then
learning kissing with Agnes, that was a good summer, at least
with Agnes, my mother decided no girls were good enough for me
and a certain war got underway that was to last a few years,
complicating everything else..) as I was getting 'to the age',
11-12-13-14, like that, vacationers at my home town of
Hastings on the beautiful Trent River where many people came
for the summer, but Kathy was 'my first love' - looking back
of course just a 'puppy love', but it felt real enough, not
the place to get into extended psychological analyses of puppy
love or the largish number of stupid things I was doing with
the non-music part of my life as I sorted out the world I had
been brought into - I was writing massive amounts of simple
4-line verse for Kathy, and somewhere this very simple song
came along -
 - we'll be hearing a bit more about Kathy towards the end of this little history, but for now - My mother was from Newfoundland, 'Newfy' as she usually called it, a place with a wonderful music tradition and love of the sea, and as well as the music I've also loved being around the water, rivers, lakes, ponds, oceans, whatever. Another of the very earliest, from what scanty records I have - (and to be clear, these are all newish recordings, the last year or two, a few like Fisherman Blues with some additional stuff, all done by me of course in my teeny tiny recording - well, you'd never call it a 'studio', just some minimal recording stuff set up around my 'center of Dave's world') Fisherman Blues
 - still really like that - Girl, I Won't Beg You - I really sadly have no idea about the writing of this song, I don't think it would have been for any girl in particular, I was usually more in touch with a muse of some kind in my somewhat naive search for 'true love' - but still one of my favorites - at some point in the later 60s I crossed a plateau of some kind to 'deeper words' like this, seems quite 'mature' or something for an 18- or 19-year-old - a beautiful song, in every way, still, to me, still love to sing and play it -
 And one more from 'the early period - Far
More Lonely Than You - another great song, in
my mind -
 Ok, on to part 2 of my musical history, it's been underway by now for a bit ... some pics too, I have absolutely nothing from the 60s .... Dave's
Songs part II - The Bill and Cottage Years |
