Finding A Song In Your Heart

Finding A Song In Your Heart  

By Paul McCann

I grew up in Belfast where as a kid we all made up songs which were used to play street games . The songs we sang where from our heart and we often could change the lyrics to fit a new tune . The kids I knew and grew up with always had a song in their heart .

“Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don't care if they lose it; they'll just make another one.”

-Tom Waits   

Growing up for me was living the dream and music and song was a big poart of that . I started writing poems at a very young age and they were like dreams that came to me every day.  

Over the years I have continued writing and my dreams are still with me and part of everything I do . I have never lost the want to write and about 40 years ago my poems became songs . I have never  lost the passion to write  

“Lose your dream, you lose your mind.”
― The Rolling Stones.

As a songwriter for forty years I have in a collection of thousands of songs  that I have found in my heart . I left my job to write songs and struggled for years financially however the want to share and sing my songs took me on a journey busking around Ireland , Australia , and the UK .

Who can say what it is that makes people abandon lucrative careers and spend their lives writing songs or singing songs ?.  

What is it that that drives people to singing songs and writing songs with an obsession that consumes every thought that comes .

Is it a divine calling ?

Is it a gift ?

There is no answer sometimes to why we do the things we do ..

 “We love the things we love for what they are”- Robert Frost

From the beginning of time there has always been a song to sing, or chant or an echo that lasts longer that others . Why do some songs endure while others fade away in a short time . Some songs that that have been suffered for have been forged in a fire that purifies the artform and strengthens the structure to withstand the changing times in the world we live .

“Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain”- Bob Dylan.

Where there is love there is a passion , where there is a passion is where your heartspace is and that is where you will find the song in your heart .

When we sing from the heart or compose from the heart , that is where we will find something that can only be expressed by the soul that feels comfortable in that place that is ours alone . Love is a song in the heart that does not care about being recognised or becoming famous, its just about the love of finding that song . Every song is like an image that paints a picture with words . Looking back into the mists of time songs has been sung by those with a voice and a wish to be heard or shared with another .  .

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” ― Plato

The hymns and chants of Monks are heard in monasteries all around the planet like a wind from heaven from monks in their contemplative lives that embrace the love of God .

“My imagination is a monastery and I am it’s monk “ – John Keats

In my imagination I have my own juke box of songs that cost nothing to play and I will continue to listen to that song ion my heart as long as I live .  

“It's now or never , I ain't gonna live forever . I just wanna live while I'm alive
It's my life”
― Bon Jovi

The End