Spring rainbows, Song Circle, an old song
posting new songwriting courses, listening to carole king, and sharing "gloria"
Hello dear friends!
It’s April, it’s spring! The flowers are getting into daredevil mode, and sticking their petals out for the world to see. Over here, we had a peaceful Easter break. There’s still a lot of chocolate in the garden, I’m sure. On Easter Sunday, a mystery bagpiper played for an hour, somewhere on the lane, and I drew a card from a tarot pack that told me I was about to see rainbows.
Do I see rainbows, now, two weeks later? I think so. I’ve been editing my book, and I can kind of imagine a life where it’s actually finished! What do people do, when they finish things? I wonder. Lately, I’ve been listening to Carole King. I started a new notebook and wrote “lyrics” on the cover of it.
Hopefully this doesn’t out me as a poor fan, but I only just heard the song Beautiful, on Carole King’s Tapestry.
I like this:
“You've got to get up every morning
With a smile on your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You're gonna find, yes you will
That you're beautiful, as you feel”
I don’t always wake up with a smile on my face, and I don’t always make it through the day without some despair, exhaustion, or a soupçon of grief. But I do meditate on my heart, in the practice of trying to show it, the real part of it, the rainbows.
New Online Songwriting Course
Now that my season of book-writing is drawing to a close, I’m looking ahead to the next year, and feeling excited about new shoots, connections, and fateful meetings. This year, I am going to offer three seasonal “Song Circle” songwriting courses online.
The first Song Circle begins on Tuesday May 14th from 10am-12pm BST, and will run for six weeks.
There’s space for up to eight songwriters, and there is no expectation or requirement to join. You could be pursuing songwriting for the first time, or arrive with several albums under your belt. You could play every instrument, or none at all.
The group meets weekly, working on our personal songwriting dreams in a collective, supportive environment. This course, taking place in spring, will have a seasonal theme of “reawakening”.
You can find out more about the course here or book your place directly. You can also contact me for more details, and reserve a spot via email.
This spring course takes place on UK mornings, and the next will be evenings, to meet as many timezones as possible.
Old Songs
A lovely person wrote to me to ask for the demo for ye olde unreleased track, Gloria, from 2005. I found it! I found all of them! I found an old Myspace that’s still active!
Our seasons change, but the internet remembers them all!
That’s all from me for today. Sending you much love, to see you through April showers!
x
E
What a wonderful song. Please don't stop to please us with pearls like this from your archive. We simply need more Emma Lee in these days.
I thought I had heard all of the old songs, and Gloria is new to me! So thank you to the person who requested it, I’m enjoying hearing it!
Dear Emma, you used to have a website where you wrote some notes, and there was one about going to music festivals and being miserable, and telling yourself this is what fun feels like. It ended with something like “is that Coldplay in the distance? Isn’t this great?” As an avid festival goer I loved that note so much. Is there any chance that note is still somewhere on the internet as well?