I’m Just Saying

A few years ago “I’m Just Saying” became one of those ubiquitous catch phrases that seemed to come out of everyone’s mouth at some point during a conversation. Even when I made a conscious effort to not utter that phrase I found myself saying it reflexively in many a spontaneous conversation. It was amazing how often that phrase just seemed like the most natural and fitting response in so many situations.

Yet, just as quickly as such phrases enter the popular lexicon they often die out. Now, I seldom find opportunities to say "I’m Just Saying" even when I’m vigilantly looking for a chance to use it. It is amazing how a phrase can haunt our verbal worlds for a period of time and then just vanish from our tongues.

The album "I’m Just Saying" explores the power and freedom of language, how words articulate and express as well as create and expand. Words not only describe and capture the real but unveil the possible and the totally fictitious. Words alter and modify our thoughts and emotions as frequently as they reveal or define them.

The songs on I’m Just Saying explore and revel in the myriad of ways words can impact and influence our lives. Words can be used as an endless resource to enrich our experiences and our lives as well as become tools of diversion and self-delusion. I’m Just Saying looks at the power of words to become interlaced with our life experiences or become empty abstractions divorced from our bodies and our physical existence.

You can read a more in depth reverie on each song by clicking on the individual track and read the liner notes, yet here is a brief description of how each song fits in to the theme of I’m Just Saying.

A theme in the lyrics is the importance of our thoughts, (those words we say to ourselves) and how they impact our perceptions and feelings which greatly influence the tenor and meaning of our experiences. Words mold our perspectives which in turn create the world we see.

Dawn Awaits -- is a song of two contrasting ways of being in the world. First, a woman’s restless night is fueled by her anxious and depressed thoughts. Always living in her head she is blind to the beauty of the dawn and spends her time bored and discontent. The singer has a different perspective on the night and life in general. He wakes refreshed and bathes in the morning air and the warmth of the sun’s first rays. His body in anchored in the world and his mind revels in each sensation of the morning dawn.

Every Bit of Your Heart -- is a song celebrating the playful unfolding of life. While most days do not match our ideal, we have the ability and the opportunity to find the words which maximize the beauty of our experiences and make it possible to explore and savor every bit of our hearts.

What We Live -- celebrates a rewarding blend of active experience with reflective thought. We rest to wake refreshed and engaged in the day. Our hearts feel, our bodies sense, our minds ponder and derive joy and wisdom from our intimate exploration of life. What we know is what we live and what we live is a wonderful journey full of mystery and discovery.

Loving Life is another song of contrasting perspectives. The first scene is of a child at play who crumples to the ground in laughter and smiles at the blue sky above. The second scene is of a couple who argue and find fault in everything the other does. The song depicts the choices we have to either feel lovingly connected or to create opposing sides, and this choice is often dominated by the words we say to ourselves which color our perceptions and experiences.

She Didn’t Know -- warns of the dangers of taking too extreme of a romantic or idealistic view of the world and of those with whom we share our lives. The subject of this story took the words of fairy tales literally and made them into her life long goals and expectations.

Turning Silver Into Gold is a song about being married for 25 years and looking forward to the next 25. It shows the power and beauty of looking at a partnership and our lives with kind eyes and hearts. The words we say to ourselves and our partner make all the difference in the level of meaning and intimacy the relationship engenders.

Fictional Space -- explores the ramifications and implications of our being able to live in the possible and fictitious as well as the actual. Language creates our freedom to glide over and blend the past, present and future into a personal history and sense of self.

Zeitgeist Buddha -- is a song pointing out the downside of the tendency of modern man to overemphasize the importance of consciousness while at the same time devaluing or even vilifying the body. The singer seeks intimacy with himself, others and the world through the marriage of body and mind in the precious passage of lived time.

Interlude is a song celebrating finding the sweet spot between extremes in how we experience and think about life. While words can’t help but be vague concepts containing judgments often choosing between two contrasting viewpoints, they also contain the ability to interact with each other in ways that promote wisdom and appreciation. Through the endless combination of general ideal words such as couch, tree, anger and beauty we can begin to feel and think in ways that fulfill us and give us a sense of connection, accomplishment and personal development.

Our Son -- a young man reflects on all he’s been told, demanded and advised on how to think, act and feel as well as what to believe, value and revere. All of their words, their directives and expectations leave him confused as to who he is and what he thinks, as to where he begins and his parents and their ideas end. Even his mental and emotional rebellions seem to condemn him to forever debate the issues of his parents. He wonders when if ever he will truly find his own voice and became the speaker of his thoughts and feelings.

Deus Ex Machina is literally the god machine. It was a device used in old greek tragedies to save the day at the last most improbable moment. This song warns of the dangers of our believing that something or some invention is going to arrive at the 11th hour and save us from the path of world destruction we seem to be on. Beliefs are words that have to do with the possible or the imaginary, and as most songs on this album attest to, language divorced from the body, nature and lived reality is often empty, dangerous and futile.

Words and Music by Jim Guido. Except Every Bit of Your Heart, Words Jim Guido and Music by Jim Guido and Brad Turner.
Cover Art: Photo of our son Lucio.