all in my head
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“I’m just trying to get by…”
So the song by Shawn Mullins begins…
Shawn Mullins is best known for a number one hit song called “Lullaby” that he wrote after playing at Genghis Cohn, a restaurant in Los Angeles. He saw a girl in the audience who was visibly unhappy and following his performance, sat down with her and she told her story. On Shawn’s drive through Arizona to another gig the melody came to him and the rest is history.
I met Shawn when he was with Vanguard Records. You immediately pick up that he’s a great listener. He has the sensitivity of a philosopher-poet and the ability to capture the human condition.
”I’m just buzzing on a sugar high…”
Aren’t we all kind of buzzing on a Sugar High right now. The world’s gone cuckoo. We all want to do something and it’s so damned frustrating and we WANT to have the patience to figure things out. But it’s tough.
Somehow I was able to convince Shawn to appear for “The Green Flash Concert Series” which he did for three years at San Diego’s Birch Aquarium at Scripps. The audience of the radio station I worked for at the time, KPRi fm, was smart enough to appreciate him. I’m forever indebted to Shawn for the comfort his songs bring. His shows sold out three years in a row. But new management came in and changed the acts… So it goes.
“Everybody moves so fast no time to wonder why… I’m just trying to get by…”
Living on an island where I live, Roatan, Honduras, forces you to slow down. Combining the latino “mañana” and the “no worries” ethos of Roatan forces you to evaluate if you really want to be in a hurry… and gives you a deep appreciation of time and it’s value.
In the US we are always in a hurry, only to find we have to wait on someone to do something… All the while feeling pressed to have it finished because our boss, wife, children, parents (fill in the blank) demand it…
Here on the island you often can’t go fast… You can try… but you will go crazy. I constantly see people on Facebook here posting about how slow things are. They are slowly stewing their brains.
“Is it all in my head… Is it all in my head… could everything be so right without me knowing?”
Do you ever wonder exactly if “maybe” you got it wrong?
I do. Especially as I’ve gotten older. Things that really mattered don’t have the same priority. Professionally I haven’t changed. In the other things I’m just not so sure. But I will say this… there are a lot of people out there and they are “100% CERTAIN” about things…
I’m not one of them.
I’m like the character Shawn is singing about. Is it ALL in my head?
Is it me? Am I missing something?
I wonder why I’ve lost contact with people I loved, I wonder if I made mistakes in relationships that can never be forgiven, and I wonder if the people I knew once upon a time ever think… “He was a pretty nice guy… but man he was a pain in the ass.”
I wonder why I’ve lost touch with Shawn… We’d e-mail now and then… a couple of times a year… just to touch base… I am pretty sure that I play more Shawn Mullins songs on Blue Wave Radio than any terrestrial radio station in the world. Maybe there is a streaming channel dedicated to him… there should be, I think he’s that important a songwriter… He’s much like Kris Kristofferson in the way he thinks about people…
Could we have lost touch because while introducing him for an encore during one of those concerts… I told a joke… that a listener told me… on the way to the stage… (she was a beautiful woman from the audience and she stopped me as I was going on stage) and she said…
“Madison… Do you want to know how to make a man laugh and cry at the same time?”
Politely, I said yes… She said…
“You tell him ‘You are a much better lover than my ex… but you’re not as good as your father!’ ”
Maybe Shawn and I just lost touch because life goes on… Maybe I’m lucky enough that he thinks back on those shows with fondness… I don’t know… Do we really know anything?
You see… it’s all in my head.
Click below to listen to Shawn Mullins - All In My Head…
