A life, not a résumé.
In My Own Way
Pocket Card 3 of the hundred · Photograph — North Easton
ne · Pocket Cards
northeaston
Songs, stories, and the things we carry.
Every card turns over. Most of them sing.
Tap the card
More this wayne · Pocket Cards
northeaston
Songs, stories, and the things we carry.
Every card turns over. Most of them sing.
Tap the card
More this waynortheaston
“Everybody’s high on hurry,any fix to fix the worry,of running out of time.”
A continuing body of workthat can take you on a journeyif you let it.
(headphones enhance your journey)
Sit back and get lost in the stories,photos, lyrics and music.
Welcome.
One day can hold a life.
Ideas can hit at any moment.
They wake us,
shake us,
make us
STOP
in our tracks…
Or keep us up all night long.
If only we had the time...
“Our story starts at 6am…before anyone else is up…Six…remember when you were six. You were fearless…you were filled with absolute…”
“Twisting, spinning, floating, living —dancing in the wind on the way down.”
Tap the card to turn it over.
Everything was a question, everything something you wanted to touch. The world wants you to play…at first…it’s all they want.
“And when all your yesterdays have come and gone —you gotta stay young.”
Then the adults in our world start saying things like grow up…get real…can you be serious…and the wrestling with who we really are begins.
“Everything you need is still inside.”
You ever catch all the lights, land the dream parking spot, find a 20 dollar bill?
“All the lights are greenand everything betweenis like a dream that I’m living out.”
Luckily we have laughter…the kind that grabs your abs like a claw and doesn’t let go…belly laugh, unbreathable, eyes watering, gasps and snorts that only refuel the faces of those caught up in the viral moment. Like the feeling when you’re risking your life safely…a roller coaster, a fast car ride, a jump across something small but you feel wild…Catching the ball, winning the game, poking fun at something…Enjoying the passage of time.
The joy that needs no reason.
“I ain't wearing no pants and that's fine by me.”
8:15 – 9:30 a.m.
“It’s a regular day,it’s a quarter past eight.”
“The lighting was sweetbut to tell you the truth it took like 27 shots to get it right.”
“Follow my lead,look out below.”
“I’m fine with wasting time just hanging round today.”
How you gonna live your life like that?
Something ’bout a flashing yellow line. The blur of the grass. The rolling through small towns with big dreams, past raging rivers, crystal clear lakes and mountains that don’t care how tall I think I am. A lot of stories on the road. A lot of songs
Where moving is how the song gets written.
“We sold the house.Everything after that was written moving, or about it.”
11:50 a.m. – 2:10 p.m.
“Magnificent.I wrote songs, took some of my best pictures, and learned about myself.”
“I can’t wait to turn the key.”
“I love singing in my car alone.”
“Just remember everything you love.”
“Why don’t we take the long way home?”
“In ’79 he was standing on Bakers Creek Bridge,with a suitcase in his hand and his thumb out in the wind.”
“Like which bridge to burn,and which one to take.”
In 2016 I went to Australia for a mini tour, funded in part by FACTOR Canada. Sixteen shows in thirty days, and through some connections in Nashville, a few songwriting sessions along the way.
It was lonely. It was amazing. The landscape and the people kept changing, and so did I. The whole trip was a test of life on the road, and I’m still in it now, travelling in a bus named Grayce.
This song hit me hard. My father was a steelworker, a blacksmith of the old kind, who made wrought iron. He’s in it. The bridge isn’t real. I can see it in my head, but it’s every crossroads I’ve stood at.
It poured out of me. It’s still one of my favourites, and one of the songs people love most.
“I know all the roads around me and where they lead.”
“Forever skies in the wheat lands.”
“Pour me one more for the road.”
“It’s gonna be alright,it’s gonna be ok.”
The risk that is worth it.
“Sometimes you gotta bet it all to change your life.”
3:00 – 5:45 p.m.
“Ain’t afraid of the risk,I’m afraid of the cost.”
“There I was when you came along.”
“I don’t wanna wake you up”
“And keep me here tonight”
“Can’t we just go back to yesterday?”
“We could both just spend the rest of the afternoon,under the blankets, me and you.”
“Fix it with a kiss.”
Written with Rosanne Baker Thornley. A finalist in the International Songwriting Competition, out of more than 18,000 entries — kept here, on the afternoon shelf.
The low sun does something nothing else does. Flat, ordinary things light up from the side, skin warms, edges soften, and the whole scene looks better than it did an hour ago. It also lasts about as long as it takes to notice it. You can’t hold it or save it for later. All you can do is be there while it happens, or miss it.
Falling is where the songs begin.
“I have fallen more times in my life than I can count,and each one has led me to a song.”
6:30 – 7:35 p.m.
“She’s unstoppable,the carnival is starting up inside.”
“Making waves in the rain or the setting sun.”
“Have you ever been waiting for someone to stop and tell you to come back?”
No recording of this one yet — it lives on the card, for now. Step on to the next card.
“When you get pushed round,you rise above and try again.”
“Take a ball and a bat and a baseball glove.”
“Taking steps out on your own.”
“Hold on tight to the good advice.”
“You just gotta feel it,even when it rains.”
“How many times have you changed your mind?”
“That you and me are gonna be fine.”
Pocket Card 3 of the hundred · Photograph — North Easton
You know when that last light fades and the sun flares one final time before the blue sky is left alone. Like the weight of the day finally has a place to fall. Nothing left to impress. Dusk is where the dark things come out…
What is left when the noise stops.
“Look before you follow.Think before you choose.”
8:30 – 9:05 p.m.
“Sometimes it’s hard to stand on your own.”
“And I still remember everything we had back then.”
We all make mistakes. Some of us bigger than others. Some are still paying for mistakes made decades ago. If you could write a letter to your childhood self, warning them…what would that letter look like?
“I should have turned and walked away”
“You can always turn...and walk away”
“On the edge, you stand,ready to jump.”
On the edge, ready to jump — and the voice in the cage under your breath. It plays here, in the room.
There’s a moment just before the sun goes down.
Dusk
You climb into the car...it’s cold...breath cold...keys are cold...it slides into the ignition and you have this thought...please start...you turn...and a small explosion starts the engine...you could pull away...but you sit there...the thoughts are not strong...but you hold...you idle...caught in the in between...that feeling of having to be somewhere in this moment does not register. You stare..past the droplets on the window..but never really focusing...minutes pass...You look around...clear your throat...and drive away
What keeps burning.
“It isn't over...it's just begun.”
9:50 – 11:15 p.m.
It felt like I was in a broken elevator filled with water... drowning…my chest tight…my thoughts…on fire. For the first time in my life, I could feel the foundation of my soul crack. My pulse quickened, my breath shortened, my eyes narrowed...
“I climb up to the highest tower and there I stay.”
“No one knows the many roads that brought me here today.”
In a world that is pushing us all towards the same pattern. One company to rule them all. When the kings and queens own limousines, and they sell their faces for places at fancy tables. Far behind iron gates, eating off gold-rimmed plates, watching and waiting for what?…
He had no idea the glass was gonna break...his knuckles covered red in adrenaline...
He stood there in front of the building holding one of those red 5-gallon jugs you get at the gas station. Rolling his right thumb on the striker wheel of an old lighter he found in the glove compartment.
How you gonna live your life like that?
Some rooms you don’t talk in…You stand in a room with your hands in your pockets listening…and that’s allowed.
What we carry quietly.
“A hundred hands they hide in pockets.A thousand thoughts but not a sound.”
1:30 – 3:00 a.m.
“Whose hand do you remember?”
I had never seen someone get hit by a car before that night…and I never thought in a million years it would be my brother.
“Another crowd of faces gather,out there on the street.”
“Find me in a beautiful mess.”
What’s your favourite tragedy? Seriously? Hear me out.
Is there anything in this world more powerful than a tragedy? If you have suffered one…you know. If the world you had built has crumbled before your eyes…you know…and you always know that there is a certain type of conviction that comes along with tragedy…
“Wake up, tired, straight for the coffee”
“As long as it takes”
“How you gonna Phil the space
Somebody left behind”
“Go and find a better place”
What is your favourite thought about your mother? What was she wearing that day? Can you see her smile? Hear her laugh?
For me I learned to sing with my heart, in the passenger seat of an old faded red station wagon, windows down with an 8 track of the best 70’s tunes money could buy.
and we sang…
This song is tattooed on my heart…and my neck. A tribute to a human that left a mark on the lives of many and remains a guiding force between the wrongs and rights of my world.
Pour me one more for the road Show me a sign, that you don’t want me to go Talk with your eyes, tell me with your smile Everything is fine, everything is ok now Watch me waving from the car You’re standing on the street with your arms around my heart I can hear you saying as I’m fading out into the dark It’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be ok It’s gonna be just fine, and we’ll find a way to make it
“Who’s the goodbye you still hear?”
There is only one way…
Through…
Through The experience, the pain, the grief…the breath…
How are you feeling right now?
Have you ever just sat and stared into the mirror…Not for a second or two…or even a minute…but like a good 30 minutes. You are your audience. You are your best friend. You are your favourite person and worst enemy. You are everything all at once…and the menu that you pick from hasn’t been decided for you…you get to decide. At least that’s what I tell myself.
The one who looks back.
“He smiles to himself'cause he knows damn well better than to stop.”
12:02 a.m.
“There’s a man in the mirror,I barely recognize his face.”
“And all these days,searching for the sun.”
The reason to keep going.
“We all go crazy sometimesbut maybe that's what'll get us there.”
3:15 a.m.
“Katie’s a lady who drives a Mercedes,goes a little crazy when she’s running late.”
“We all lose hope, we all get scared —we all keep trying hard to get somewhere.”
“When I feel like that,I can do anything.”
A tribute to firefighters, from my piano songs.
The cards you’ve kept, here on the site — yours to come back to.
The whole house is on its way to the Listening Room.
“There’s a pile of coats on a chair by the door.”
“All my thoughts will be making plans of when we meet again.”
Wherever this journey takes us next…a house concert…a theatre…a music festival…or somebody’s front porch…leave a light on…for yourself and those who might need some good energy when the world is trying to monetize it. Thank you for taking this adventure with me.
Songs, stories, photographs, and a few ways to work together.
House concerts, theatres, intimate venues, festivals, and unexpected locations.
“By the end of my first listen, I found myself hitting the play button for another round.”
“North is an incredible artist, songwriter, guitar player, and entertainer.”
Solo, guitar and voice. Fourteen cross-Canada tours, so I’ll come to you.
A six-day, all-inclusive songwriting retreat at REO Rafting & Yoga Resort in the Fraser Canyon. Five nights glamping at the river’s edge, daily master classes, and a close look at six parts of a song: rhythm, melody, music, lyrics, dynamics and heart.
In their words.
Want this at your place? I’m looking for a second location for the retreat.
The song you’re stuck on, or the one you haven’t started.
Festivals, fairs and the people in them.
If one of these belongs on your wall, I can make that happen. Pay what feels right. — north@northeaston.life
