🎸 NEW ORIGINAL SONG: "I AM"

Pleased to meet you.

You can call me James.

I may be pushing forty but I’m still in the game.

If you think you know me, ‘cause you’ve seen me ‘round the way

(maybe ya read my stories,

maybe ya heard something I had to say),

but I ain’t no Devil, that’s the truth,

I ain’t no Saint either - well,

I live a little loose.

What I really am, is all that I am,

I just am what I am.

Well first I was a son,

Then I was a brother,

Then I became a friend,

and learned to be a lover,

Then I was a husband, I became a Papa,

Now this ex-husband is trying to apply all he’s learned so far.

So here’s what I know:

(well at least what I’m willing to show,

‘cause I still wear some masks,

Though some I’ve outgrown)

I will never be what you say I am

‘Cause I am what I am.

CHORUS: I am what I am.

So cast off your masks,

Stop playing for the crowd.

Let your honest feelings show,

Don’t be less true than proud.

You won’t find the answers in labels and vows,

but if you take enough chances you’ll get to make a few bows.

You can’t ever change someone (‘cept maybe yourself),

You can’t really know someone without loving them as yourself.

So be you,

be true!

Don’t let others name you, and say “I am what I am”

(Say it with me now)

CHORUS: I am what I am.

I get lonely when I’m alone,

And I get tired when I work my fingers to the bone,

And I love my children just like you,

That’s why I’m trying to better all the things that I do.

So now you know me - you think!

Why don’t you sit down and pour me a drink?

I’ll show you who I am,

‘Cause I ain’t what you say, or even what I say I am.

I simply am what I am.

CHORUS TO END: I am what I am.

Music, lyrics, and demo recording copyright © James Alexander Roff Higgins, 2024. All rights reserved. No unauthorised republishing without written permission from me.

(Demo Recording Note: The sudden change at the end into another song is not part of “I AM”, but rather is intended to show you a sample preview of how the #SOLSTICE album will continue from there into Track 2)

SONGWRITERS’S NOTES:

I’m pleased to offer this demo recording of my new song I AM for you to enjoy. It’s very fresh indeed, written and recorded all in the last month. It was last of all in the sequence of creative outpourings that now form the early iterations of FUTURE ALBUM #SOLSTICE. It’s often the way for me that the best or most personal or inspired song comes last in an album-writing process, in one final spray from the font of creativity as though to wring every bit of vision and hope from the whole project into that last pièce de résistance.

This song is that for me. I knew all along as I started writing the songs of #SOLSTICE that the opening track would have to be some kind of re-declaration of myself to the world. This album is a return from the valley of loss and change, and a year of almost complete abstinence from having a public persona. I haven’t put out an original album in about 4 years, and it was during that season that my marriage ended and I had to start facing myself really honestly if I wanted to learn and grow from the experience.

So what do I say to the world to declare who I am, when so many things I thought I was are not me at all anymore? What part of me is constant through all the tremendous change and uncertainty in life? What can I say? What composition of words could ever be a complete and accurate depiction of a self? Who even am I?

I just am what I am.

I just am.

When that tautological (almost obnoxious) thought struck me, I decided it was going to be the lyrical premise of the tune, and so I put the ultra-basic drum beat on a loop, and start smacking the piano in a lazy blues feel. The basic form of the song came together in an hour, and the lyrics were scribbled and crafted at the same time as the instrumentation was brought together (with a virtual James voice experimenting with melody in the back of my mind).

You can see I had more lyrics than I needed, so the weakest lines got the chop.

When the song was formed, I hit Record with a Shure SM57 on the table stand, and the lead vocals you hear were the first completely improvised take (granted, I overdubbed a couple of lines afterwards to offer an improved performance, but the final melody was formed spontaneously and honoured). I was glad it came about like this, as an expression from my body and the musicality that is ingrained in me from 30 years of working at it, as opposed to a considered contrivance of my mind. This way feels more authentic and appropriate to what the song means to me.

I feel the lyrics are an authentic representation of myself to you, and are the best advice I can offer from these 38 years of living. The second verse is my favourite because it’s the advice-giving verse, and I much prefer giving unsolicited advice to talking about myself. But I think this is good advice. I’d like my sons to learn these ideas and try to live by them. The more I lean into the ways of verse two, the richer my life has become, and the healthier my relationships.

I hope something in this song moves you, and I hope you see some of yourself in me, on some level, because that would mean that my art is true, and that’s how I like to live most of all.

Hey - tell me what you think in a comment below!