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Limping to the moon - video clip

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Here is the clip of my latest song - filmed at Mt Hawthorn by Ben Wilson last Saturday. It is off my forthcoming album "Ways that won't mend". I'm grateful to Jed for all his help in recording this song and the other songs on my album - cheers mate, you're a legend. Your creative genius and skill is beyond the ken of mere mortals. Ben, what can I say... the video speaks for itself; pure art! Thanks for making my vision come true. To the 2 drunks who heckled the shoot: this is what we were trying to do. And to the one who said: "Listen mate, you should start singing about things that you actually know something about; I've been in the Sydney to Hobart race and I can tell you don't know shit about sailing," I have this to say: the song isn't about sailing, you moron. Music and lyrics copyright © 2011 Dejan Djurdjevic.

The writing and recording of "Limping to the moon"

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It occurs to me that there are probably relatively few instances of songwriting where there is a “trail” left behind, revealing exactly how the song came to be. My latest song “ Limping to the moon ” is one such rare instance. I must preface my remarks by saying that I am, at best, a “reluctant songwriter”. In other words, I don’t really want to write songs; I have no special interest nor skill in music and poetry. Yet somehow I continue to write songs despite this (perhaps to the chagrin of my friends and family, I've written over 50 songs and recorded 22 of these). Why? Every now and again I get a song idea that seems too good to “let go”. And sometimes I think it might just be. My song “Limping to the moon” is one of these. It’s safe to say that I don’t really care if I never write another song again. Nenad said to me the other night (while listening to it in the car) “this could well be the best thing you’ve ever done”. I think he was right. Leaving aside the merits of th...

Limping to the moon: a song for Maureen

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I’m climbing, over the hills that turn to sheer cliffs in my mind And I’m sailing, over the seas made up of tears that I’ve cried But when all my water has dried hope seems to have died I see you by my side And I’m drowning, deep in a well dug out of my own despair And I’m burning, in fires from hell but nobody else is aware But when all my water has dried hope seems to have died I see you by my side I limp to the moon while you are busy planning things to do when we get there There’s never any “if” with you Take all my cares and stow my baggage out of view We’re limping to the moon And I’m grieving, my past’s in an urn heart’s broke in ways that won’t mend And I’m dying, nowhere to turn waiting for my time to end But when all my water has dried hope seems to have died I see you by my side I limp to the moon while you are busy planning things to do when we get there You always say “we’ll be there soon” Take all my cares and stow my baggage out of view We’re limping to the moon Take all...

The writing and recording of "Miss You Again"

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I was walking along the deathly quiet streets of Lancefield, Victoria in early hours of the morning, unable to sleep. I remember feeling totally engulfed by the darkness - street lamps and car headlights flickering like candles in the distance, the moonless sky showering me with the milky way, the chill, still air cramping my lungs, the gravel cracking underfoot like someone's knuckles. It was September 2007 and I was staying in a local motel near James' place. Except it wasn't a motel. It was the town's former hospital, converted into an eerie "B 'n B". I remembered how, the previous morning, I'd sat having breakfast at the former nurses' station with a bemused Hege and Lucia (who were sharing a room down the corridor), our spoons clinking against the chipped porcelain bowls on a mottled-green vinyl bench top, the musty smell still hinting at sterility, old people, dying people, isolation. No amount of jarring '50s decor, fake pot plant...

Memories of Taiwan: Third eye blind

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The sun has set behind the Kaohsiung skyline as our bus rattles along in the congested rush-hour traffic. I lie back against the head-rest, feeling the vibration on my scalp through the velour, and try to doze. Every now and again a jolt throws me back into the real world and I see flashes: flashes of the faux wood-panelled interior of our vehicle, the slumped, silent silhouettes of my fellow Chen Pan Ling practitioners, chaos passing in every direction, the smoky-red stain on the horizon and the neon glow of the pea-soup sky. We’re travelling from the Fo Guang Shan monastery into the city centre for our respective appointments with blind masseurs/masseuses. “Go on!” James had said to me in 2009. “Do it. You’ll feel like a new man.” But for whatever reason I declined – a decision I’d come to regret deeply. In fact, the moment I saw them arriving at the Kingship Hotel (each on the back of a scooter) and being escorted in through the foyer to the elevator (aided by the directions ...

Memories of Taiwan: Synchronicity

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It’s almost midnight and I’m limping in the blue shadows of the monastery grounds finally deserted by the maelstrom of day-time activity. I'm limping because I’m alone and no longer inclined to hide the pain in my lower back – pain that stabs like a thick syringe-needle with every step and the slightest knee lift. It is an injury I sustained in my very first training, and which scans will later reveal to be a prolapsed disc in the lumbar spine. Here’s a tip: don’t travel for almost 36 hours, then attempt long xing (dragon form of xingyi) without a sufficient warm-up. What am I doing? Oddly enough, I am searching. I’ve arranged with my photographer friend Lucia to take photos at the following dawn for the cover of my book “ Essential Jo ”. I’ve carted my gi and hakama all the way from Australia for just this purpose. I have come completely prepared – except that I have no jo (4 foot staff). You’d think that a Buddhist monastery built on a bamboo-forested mountain would have...

A treasure chest of memories

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Lately I've noticed just how "heavy" my non-martial material is. My fiction deals with themes of guilt, betrayal and the past coming back to haunt you. My other writing is mostly a "rant". So I thought I'd break with tradition and write something lighter; something that harks back to halcyon days in my childhood, back to a long-lost era of innocence and limitless possibilities. It was 1972 and I lived with my brother Nenad and my parents in Kavieng - the largest town on the island of New Ireland in the then Australian territory of Papua New Guinea. Kavieng is, I suspect, largely unchanged from those days. It is probably still a "2 street" town with fibreboard demountable homes, one "hotel"/bar, one general store, one Chinese cinema and a 2 room police station. All but the main roads are still almost certainly unsealed, finished instead with a crushed coral called "koronos". The spiky cocos palms still line practically ev...