Dave's Music #79 Mike Ward : Psychosongs - Particles to Pearls

My blog followers may know my involvement with Great River Folk Fest Songwriter contest, and when I ran into Mike Ward's music I instantly became a fan.  He also became an inspiration for a playlist with his "Career Advice" .. It's a Job.  When he dropped a new release I immediately put in my wishlist until I had time to listen to it.  I made it a journey to listen as a pruned the raspberries, weeded, cut lawn and mulched the garden.  Local residents might catch the reference, but I kept thinking "Am I listening to Johnsmith?" (A legend in some people's minds, but a really a friendly neighbor to us in the LaCrosse region)  Each song was so tightly written, contrasts used tastefully, and the list of subjects kept changing.  Truly this a crafted piece of work that should be enjoyed and studied like it's songwriting class.  While I give a blurb about each of the dozen songs I highly recommend you stop to his Bandcamp page to read along with the lyrics to each song.  Let's get going:

1) Time 

Mike might not put every image of life and generations moving along, but he does put a lot into it; but his craftsmanship puts a nice chorus to pull it together.  Now stop looking at your phone and find some more precious time.

2) Words

I'm not expecting to take he or Shanna in a Dress up for any challenge scrabble game.  Mike in this piece reminds us that words are what we really only have, and only if we could use them not to hurt.

3) Broken

As I said early Mike does vary his stories and this is a classic life on the road for independent musician, why do these characters always die; but Mike lets die tastefully.

4) Back Again

Mike shows his age by looking and writing about really photographs and not something on your phone.

5) It Should Be Me

Regret in a great story but with a chorus that we can all find our stories inside.

CHORUS: I walk each day with a stone in my shoe
A reminder of the pain I had put you through
I think of each time I let you down
It should be me…six feet in the ground
It should be me…six feet in the ground

6) Let Love Lead The Way

We eternal optimists are becoming fewer and far between, maybe we all listen more to a song this song.

7) A Lot of Work

Every songwriter loves to write a song about writing a song, and Mike must be working on perfecting a long time relationship too.  How long Mike, ?  Exactly?

"16 thousand 21 days
Since we met each other’s gaze"

8) Letting Go

Grief, tenderly written in a family and mother's eyes.

9) Wrestling with Ghosts

This was my favorite, maybe as I get old and feel it's inevitable my memory will go.  I love the imagery of wrestling with ghosts. 

10) Quiet Here Today

Mike's pandemic offering as everything just seemed to stop and cars stopped rolling by.

11) Not Today

Meeting our brother and sister on the margins, creep into us reach out or keep moving.  Mike reached out and got a song.

12) Let Them be Loved 

Here's the closer, Mike works the release just like a concert.  Let's sing along and enjoy each other.  

Let them learn lessons to let others in
To know when they get knocked down,
they can get back up again

Let them be heroes. To see the unseen
Let them help others to dream their dreams

Hope you loved the journey.  You can find and follow us on Facebook  and as always Good Music has NO Expiration Date, so if you are listening to this ten years from now, it still will be awesome music.  If this is a first time visit, check out the index of themes for past Reviews and Playlist editions and for the Reviews alone, click here. 

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