First, a little update since I’ve missed a few days. I started getting a tickle in my throat on Thursday night, and it developed into a full-blow illness on Friday. I spent the entirety of the long weekend with congestion, coughing fits, and a general lack of energy that obviously made it difficult to do Jamuary tasks. Luckily, COVID tests for me have been negative. Unfortunately, the symptoms hit me pretty hard and I’ve had to skip songs for the last few days. I’ve decided to leave those “slots” open and revisit them at the end of the month to make up any days I’ve missed. I’ve got some very rough ideas or song sketches from those days (it’s harder to write when you can’t sing!) that I’ll flesh out in the same framework that I’ve been doing for normal days.

This is a song about recognizing when it’s time to listen to other people, and how that perspective helps us to learn. Especially in our digital era, it’s very easy to develop a hot take or just keep running your mouth. Sometimes we lose track of the value in hearing other perspectives, especially if they are from people with different lived experience than your own. I wrote and arranged this song on the 15th but wasn’t recovered enough to record anything until the next day, as I especially didn’t want to push myself too hard on the vocals and further delay my recovery.

Musically, this is all pretty diatonic and straightforward: all the chords are the usual suspects, leaning heavily on I, IV, V, and vi, with a small appearance from ii right at the end of the verse.

The guitars and bass are both electric here, and the drums are provided by the Blasting Room kit. I recorded the vocals on my Shure SM-7B in as few takes as possible because my voice is still recovering from the cold that I’m getting over.

Lyrics

I’ve never been accused of being reticent

I’m more than happy to keep on speaking my mind

But I need to learn when is right and when is wrong

Need to learn when to follow or just sing along

To broaden my understanding of all I know to all humankind

 

Now is the time to listen

Now it’s time to keep my mouth shut

Now is the time for learning

‘Cuz I know I’ve said so much

All I gotta do is make the choice

Truly hear the words from another’s voice

And now is the time to listen

Yeah now it’s the time to listen

 

So how can you learn without ever once hearing?

Aren’t you curious about others’ points of view?

No one’s saying you shouldn’t tell us what’s on your mind

Just asking that you don’t hog all the airtime

And maybe you’ll see the promise in thoughts you now devalue