Welcome to Letters from Quotidia Fractal 5. At the end of my last post I cited a piece of verse that that had just come into my head. As a prophylactic against writer’s block, I now treat every attempt at song as a preliminary sketch so if it falls short I just place it in the bottom drawer and move on. However, I picked up the line from the conclusion of Fractal 4, I catch a glimpse of a shooting star, and there you are, and used it as the beginning of my first song, And There You Are.
So what is it? Everyone has a guiding principle, even the nihilists among us. So that’s the best answer I can offer- whatever it is that is the lodestone of your existence. A romantic aficionado may reference Wordsworth and the idea of pantheism, a devout Christian may profess a personal God, a Hindu may point to cosmic Karma and rationalists quote the Golden Rule.
Fractals are strange echoic phenomena. As I was writing the last stanza of the song, a sense of déjà vu came over me, and I realised that I had used the same idea over thirty years ago in a song written when I was at a low ebb. But first, here is my song, And There You Are, [insert song]
The blast from the past for this post is Patrimony, first published on the 18th of March 2021. I wrote it in a caravan in my brother-in-law’s backyard a couple of months after returning to Sydney from North Queensland in 1995. Yet another “starting over again” and by this stage, in my mid-forties, I was getting tired of these new starts. So, I was at a low ebb, and I wrote it as a pick-me-up for me and a testament for my children.
But the tide rises and now thirty years or so later, there have been changes. We managed to get into the housing market by purchasing the worst house in the best street and we hung on to it by the skin of our teeth. Now, because of the tenfold rise in house prices in a suburb that was once a haven for first home buyers with a modest deposit, I could no longer write such a song with the opening line, I ain’t left a will there’s nothing much here that can’t be divided easy.
Nor could I have afforded to buy this house with the limited means I then possessed. As I mentioned at the introduction to the previous song- I recognised a recycled idea from this present song. The final verse of each references taking one’s ease by a running stream among the trees. So, I quoted myself- and not for the first time.
The title of the song is Patrimony and, to avoid the charge of sexism in our overheated milieu of contending silos, I give a definition by Merriam-Webster: Patrimony is defined as anything derived from one’s father or ancestors. As I said at the end of that original post, Patrimony is really just the good stuff we tell each other.
The version of the song you are going to hear was recorded in the year 2000 at a home studio up the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney when I was still rather strapped for cash. It’s just an acoustic guitar and vocal- I couldn’t afford overdubs or any fancy arrangement. I was 50 at the time and still angsty- which I think comes through.
I quoted a Thomas Hardy poem then which will bear an encore- I am the family face;/ Flesh perishes, I live on,/ Projecting trait and trace/ Through time to times anon,/ And leaping from place to place/Over oblivion. Let’s face it- our DNA is more durable than the stuff we squabble about endlessly. Here’s Patrimony. [insert song]
One morning recently I woke up with a question in my head: how did two become twenty? And as I pulled at that thread, I recollected that I had been dreaming or just thinking in that pre-waking state, about how the balance between the good and its opposite had changed by an order of magnitude.
When I was in my teens and even into my twenties, I was certain that evil doers comprised only about 2% of the population but that the vast majority of people were generally law-abiding and willing to be helpful to others as a rule. Now, the weight of evidence suggests- to me anyway- that the figure representing malignant actors of one sort or another is closer to 20% of the population.
You may accuse me of being that old man shouting at clouds now and a rather naïve fool when I was younger- I mean, after all, you would point out that even among the Apostles the percentage figure for backsliding, also known as Judas Iscariot, was over 8%.
What am I getting at? If I may quote from the 2B Collective, A social tipping point is a sociological term and is defined as: “a point in a social system where a small quantitative change can trigger rapid and non-linear changes. This inevitably and often irreversibly leads to a qualitatively different state of the social system” And Damon Centola in Psychology Today writes, Activist groups at or above 25 percent were able to change the social norms in their communities.
So, let’s say, if the rusted-on baddies are at 20% and, opposing them, the card-carrying goodies, are around 30%, this leaves the undecided, the easily swayed, the silent majority at 50%. Shall we take into consideration, too, Yeats’ acute observation from his 1920 poem, The Second Coming that, The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.
A century later, this must strike most rational people as even more applicable in this world we live in. We are perilously close to a tipping point that will change our society utterly. Yeats will have been, somewhat tardily, vindicated in the apocalyptic view expressed in his famous poem. What gives me hope is the fact that the forces of evil are energised by hatred and characterised by selfishness and malice while the forces of good are energised by love and characterised by selflessness and mercy.
Although full of passionate intensity, the infernal legions are driven by fear and self-interest and riven by suspicion whereas the forces of light are willing to die for one another and show mercy to foes wherever possible. Will this be enough? I don’t know. And despite the foregoing, the song I offer now is not a dire vision of Armageddon but rather examines the verbs Look! and Listen! [insert song]
Dylan sang in a great song from his 1979 Album Slow Train Coming, You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed…it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord/But you’re gonna have to serve somebody. I believe this is true. Meanwhile, take care, stay safe, be well.
And There You Are (words and music Quentin Bega)
Intro: Cmaj7 Dm7 Em7 Dm7 Verse: C Am Dm G-2 F G -4 Am G
I catch a glimpse of a shooting star, and there you are
Beyond my reach but still in my heart, you’re never far
From my mind when I wake, my dreams when I sleep
On my knees when I pray, In every single way
I go through life- I go through life
I watch the sunrise from the deck, and there you are
Filling the sky with spreading light as the day unfolds
In front of me with my chores, as I sweep up the floors
Do the dishes, prepare a meal, no matter how I feel
You stay with me, you stay with me
I go out to the marketplace, and there you are
Among the crowds in the crush and noise you keep your poise
As I get what keeps us going as a family held together
By love and affection which can handle the world’s rejection
Every time, yes, every time
I walk in through the forest park and there you are
In the soft breeze through the swaying trees as I take my ease
By a stream that runs beside me, telling me there’s no guarantee
But in answer my searching has found the only key
I’ll ever need, that I will ever need
Patrimony (words and music by Quentin Bega)
I ain’t left a will there’s nothing much here that can’t be divided easy
Some things I’ve been some things I am are not very likely to please ya
What I have left are tokens at best a battered guitar and a sack full of rhymes
I hope you can make more of them now than I was able before ya
And if you can prevail escape the swinging flail that knocks ya down to the ground
Then you might rise above the cruel tides that endlessly seek to surround ya
Wear this cloth cap it represents what our forebears had to put up with
Put on these boots yeah walk in the shoes your father tried to get by with
Take this gold ring place on the finger of someone who loves you and can bring
Into your life the gifts of the time that will never leave ya
And if you can prevail escape the swinging flail that knocks ya down to the ground
Then you might rise above the cruel tides that endlessly seek to surround ya
Now go outside gaze at the moon whistle a tune that comes easy
Walk through the trees yeah take your ease by a stream that is running beside ya
Splash in the waves laugh at the clouds smell the wild flowers and kick up the sand
And if you can watch the sunrise painting the sky up above ya
And if you can prevail escape the swinging flail that knocks ya down to the ground
Then you might rise above the cruel tides that endlessly seek to surround ya
Then you might rise above the cruel tides that endlessly seek to surround ya
Look and Listen (words and music Quentin Bega) Intro, Interlude and Outro: Gbdim Cm7b5 Bbmaj7 Bb6 Ddim E7 A7 Ddim E7 A7 Dbm7b5 D Verse: D A -2 C A G Bb
(Intro)
Look at what I have achieved along the way we both have come
Look at where you might have been if you had not just acted dumb
Look at where you might still be if you would only follow me
Look how you might turn around your fortunes, make your woes all flee
My friend, can’t you see life is leaving you behind
The devil takes the hindmost is a truth we all should find
(Interlude)
Listen to the birds on song in trees that flower all around us
Listen to the hedgerows buzz and bustle without any fuss
Listen to the dolphins sing as through the waves they make their way
Listen to the sound creation makes with its creatures all at play
My friend, do you think your plan is worth your while
When from true happiness you remain in exile
You should listen to you heart as it is beating still
It is not too late to bow down to a higher will
(outro)
Credits: All written text, song lyrics andmusic (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.
Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.
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