The Songwriter

This is the true story of a life's journey from early years in the back streets of Belfast as an unestablished and very young Belfast Poet, to an emerging talent as an Irish Australian singer & songwriter .

I began to seriously write songs from early 1980 up to the present day where I am still writing when inspiration strikes. At the end of the twentieth century I was encouraged by some fellow artists to write down my experiences so others may appreciate the
hard times I've been through .

I would like to present to you "The Songwriter and the series of events that took place over four decades .

The story begins at the crossroads when violence erupted in my village of Ardoyne in Belfast and the decision my parents made in view to emigration.
The choice had been made to take a new path and make a new life in Australia .

The crossroad was left behind and a new road borrowed .
Sure what did I know of the places where I was to go.
What waited I was soon to find.
I was a step away from hell.
Soon to become lost in a wilderness of lost souls.

The journey as a songwriter was about to begin where I would be tossed
about from place to place followed by shadows and haunted by the ghosts of space and time .

On dark paths I would have to wander in the light of days to come,
There would be long days of despair with glimpses of inspiration.
There would be years where I slept rough when nights where cold and the only company was frustrated loneliness.
Each new day brought a battle with poverty, hunger and people who did not try to understand the calling on my life as a songwriter and poet.
What I was suffering for meant a lot to me. My persistence to achieve success was at first very important but in the end success didn't really matter anymore .

The fact that I had written over a thousand songs and survived the journey was reward in itself for me.
I would like to share with you the experience as a songwriter along the long hard road .

I did not bury my talent in the ground but dug it out from the corners of my soul and built a passionate lifestyle that touched others who I met .

With song writing my new vocation I decided to give it my best shot .
I had not chosen this life but rather it had picked me .
I had a few tools for the job .
Faith ,virtue, hope and love .

As a Christian I felt called to serve people and discovered early on
That the priesthood was not for me . Even though I was not called to religious life without my strong faith I would never have known how to exist out there in a world where the wolf rules every domain .

Virtue strives under oppression and I subconsciously grasped an understanding of hidden secrets in a world at times that I could not understand . Insight at times answered my questions as Eureka met
Waterloo and confirmed to me what I was doing as a songwriter .

I had hope even though I was not appreciated as a songwriter and with this hope in my heart and a song in my heart I was going to change the opinions other people had of me and get used to their appreciation on
my way through an experience life would never have allowed me to miss .

The love I had was God within me who has never and will never let me down .
God brought me into a wilderness to find him and then returned me to life again where I married my wife Mary In Australia in 1992 . Within six years we were blessed with four children .
It was then at the end of the century I began to write this book .
At this time I had almost 1000 songs most of them where registered works with APRA . Requests for my songs where being requested from music distributors , and working bands in Australia .
I have recorded some demo CDs and have had airplay around Australia .
Thank God I survived to tell the story of The Songwriter .

The Songwriter

By mcscraic

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