#yakobo

Mgogoro wa Palestina na Israeli Ulianzishwa na Israeli Mwenyewe

Eneo la kihistoria la vita visivyokwisha kati ya Wayahudi na Waarabu, kati ya Israeli na Palestina, Ukanda wa Gaza, Mpelelezi wa Tume ya Dunia ya Kudhibiti Madawa ya Kulevya Daniel Yehuda kutoka Kidon (Kitengo cha Mauti na Utekaji Nyara cha Shirika la Kijasusi la Mossad la Israeli) alipokuwa akitekeleza operesheni maalumu ya Jeshi la Israeli katika mji wa Khan Younis – faksi ya Oslo ilipofika…

So this week's mini video is finally here. Right here.

Apologies for the poor sound quality on this one. Not quite sure what happened, but by the time I'd filmed and uploaded it to computer it was too late :/ Anyway...

Aesthetic Glimpse is a song about people, and paintings. And potential, positivity, past and purpose too I guess. But mainly people. So for this video I commission a mini team of mini art-creating fans to do some tiny portraits. Well, most of them resemble people... but there's a robot, a sheep and a creepy tentacle man thrown in for good measure.

I love going to art galleries, but much to any serious aficionado's dismay (although to most people's relief, I'd imagine) I don't really understand much of what I see on a sophisticated, analytical level. I just like the way they look.

I wrote the song after visiting an orphanage in Cambodia. I didn't have very long there, and in that time I could have asked the back story on some of the kids there, learned lots of information about where each of them came from and tried to understand some more about them. But for fear of being overwhelmed by the details that I knew would be heart-wrenching I chose not to ask. I decided just to blow bubbles, hang from monkey bars, play volleyball and most importantly to laugh with them. I think it was better for everyone that way.

There were plenty of details I could gather without having to pry, of course. Their names were a big giveaway (Biblical names suggest that the western, Christian founders didn't know what they were called before - hence the 'Paul and Moses' line). Each of the kids will have plenty of issues to deal with, but the overwhelming sense there was not of dwelling on the past but of real hope for the future.

My old art teacher once told me that a painting is never ruined. In my frustration I disagreed, after making a huge black mark across a portrait I'd been slaving over. But I didn't throw it away, and I was pretty happy with the results in the end. If there's any truth in his statement beyond hubristic optimism then I trust the same can be said of people. Our past certainly forms us, but what if even the worst of circumstances can lead to the best of character?

To my eyes it works best with Jesus in the equation. He kinda turned things on their head as far as weak, broken, failed people are concerned. Of which I am one.

If your eyes don't see it that way, or if they rolled in the previous paragraph, that's fine. But out of my tiny bit of experience I can say I've never seen as much hope in anyone's eyes as the kids I met in Cambodia, and I hope you'll agree that's something to celebrate. Nay, to write songs about.

I had a 'mare tuning-wise singing the 'ooh's before the black stains section. Apologies for that, but did you see how I 'worked it in' and made it part of life's big tapestry? ;)

ON YOUR OWN SHORES - SARNIES AND SQUASH

Here's the latest installment of the series of mini-themed videos leading up to the mini-album. I'll admit that the links of miniature items to song content is invariably tenuous, but it's in there somewhere.

On Your Own Shores is at the heart of the forthcoming 'Glimpses' mini-album. It's a little peek into my brain, or soul, or thereabouts. I wrote it after spending a bit of time in Cambodia and Laos last summer and meeting Christians who were facing some pretty drastic consequences for openly believing what they do, but yet they are more wholehearted in their beliefs and lifestyle than most westerners I've seen. For me this is a spiritual issue - sorry if I've ever beaten around the bush about the fact that I'm a Christian, but no matter what your viewpoint it's a huge issue of freedom of speech and basic human rights that doesn't get a great deal of attention in our media despite affecting millions of people worldwide.

The thing that really got me thinking though, as a Christian going 'over there' and seeing a glimpse of this, was coming back to old Blighty; "where the heavens are grey and nothing's new". In many ways it's very easy to be a Christian here, but it's also very easy to be entirely apathetic in the comfort of your own home. I want to live out of deep moral and spiritual conviction, and I honestly believe that what I have in Jesus is worth giving my life for. It's not something at the periphery of my outlook on the world, or at least I hope not.

This song is about that dichotomy. This is what I believe, or at least what I believe I should believe. It's my resolve to stand for something greater and more worthwhile than my own comfortable existence. I sing the anthem-of-a-chorus out of a sense of 'I hope I mean this'.

I realise that there are a lot of people suffering for lots of other things too. I'm not on here to argue a point or even to give the whole picture, just to share a glimpse of what is pertinent to me and the songs of Yakobo.