I went to sleep in sadness
This song was written several months after the death of a dear family member, following a period of mourning, a difficult stretch at work, and the long weight of winter. With the arrival of spring came a sense of reawakening—a quiet reconnection with myself, with the world, and with the life returning in nature. The song reflects that movement from heaviness into light, from sorrow into a renewed sense of joy.
The song closes with a gesture outward—a quiet prayer for those still in sadness, that they too may find their way toward light.
The song sits within the wider theme of The River’s Song— where flowing water becomes a symbol of change, renewal, and the quiet invitation to receive what is given, if we are willing to listen.
May you find peace and happiness
This song reflects on life’s journey—on travelling far from home, and on finding love, comfort, and strength along the way, even when “the road is long and hard and you journey far from home.”
The song sits within the wider theme of The River’s Song. The road becomes like the river—ever changing, never still. And home is not where the river stops, but what it carries within its flow.
Why all the worry?
I wrote this song for someone close to me—someone I have known for many years, who lives under a constant weight of fear, worry, and anxiety.
There is, in all of us, a tendency to hold on—to try to control events around us and shape the future. Yet that grasping often becomes its own burden. The more tightly we seek to control, the less freely we live.
The image of the river runs through the song. The river does not strive, yet it is never still. It bends, it yields, it carries what it must, and finds its way onward. There is a wisdom in that—a quiet reminder not to be anxious about tomorrow, but to remain present in what is given today.
Listen, can you hear?
This song reflects on memory, love, loss, and the quiet weight of nostalgia. It is shaped around the image of someone returning to an empty home—walking through its rooms, recalling the “laughter and love that was once here.”
Like the river, memories carry what has been, but has now passed. The past becomes part of the flow—held, remembered, and then gently released, as the current continues on toward the open sea.
There’s a star in the sky
This song is about a parent’s love for their child—a quiet, enduring love that remains constant, even as life moves and changes. It is written from the perspective of a parent looking with tenderness at their young daughter, watching over her, and wanting her to know that she is never alone.
The song gently reaches toward a future moment, when the parent is no longer physically present.
If I were a bee
This song explores the idea of seeing the world from another perspective—stepping outside ourselves, and into the small, intricate world of a bee.
It invites the listener to imagine that shift. To move through fields and farms not as we are, but as something much smaller—where the scale of everything changes. Blades of grass rise like forests, trees stand like mountains, and flowers open like stars across the landscape.
And, like the river, life flows through all of it—through field and flower, through the smallest creature and the widest sky—quietly sustaining, renewing, and binding everything together.
The Long Sleep
This song reflects on the passage of time and the long, unbroken journey of life. Where elsewhere in this album the journey is seen as a river flowing toward the sea, here it takes the form of a mountain—rising upward, drawing the climber slowly toward the heights.
I wrote it during a period of mental and emotional exhaustion, when the rhythm of daily life felt relentless. The cycle of waking, working, and sleeping repeated itself without pause—day after day, year after year—creating a sense of weariness that was both physical and inward.
At the end of the climb lies the “long sleep.” Not only as an ending, but as rest. As release. As a return—whether understood as stillness, renewal, or union with something infinite. Like the river reaching the sea, the climb finds its completion not in arrival alone, but in letting go.
The Chicken song
The Chicken Song is a response to the dissonance of the modern world—its noise, confusion, and moral strain. Against a backdrop of conflict, environmental damage, and constant unrest, the song asks a simple but difficult question: when everyone is shouting and no one is listening, how do you respond?
The singer feels the urge to “scream and shout” at the absurdity and cruelty of it all. Yet instead of protest, what emerges is the nonsensical phrase: “Boom Chicken La La! I wish you a Boom Chicken La La day.” The absurdity becomes a kind of release, a way of expressing what cannot easily be said.
In my boat, in the middle of the sea
In My Boat, in the Middle of the Sea captures a mood of freedom, escapism, and tranquility, alongside a deep sense of connection to the vastness of the sea.
Much of my early adulthood was spent by the sea, where I formed a close, daily connection with it. I would take a small boat out onto the water, immersing myself in its rhythms and currents, feeling both humbled by and part of something far greater.
The song reflects that experience: the quiet solitude of the open ocean, its beauty, and its depth. Ultimately, it is a meditation on freedom—the kind that comes from surrendering to the vastness—and on merging with the infinite, as embodied by the sea.
Day turns into night
Day Turns into Night returns to the theme of passing time, portraying it as a continuous and unbroken cycle of day and night.
Ultimately, the song is about letting go. It expresses a recognition of one’s place within the wider cycle of time and existence. The tone is wistful yet calm, marked by acceptance rather than resistance.
In contrast to Dylan Thomas’s call to “rage against the dying of the light,” this song takes a different path. It offers a quiet surrender to the flow of life, where the river continues on regardless. To “hold life in the palm of your hands as it slowly slips past” becomes not an act of desperation, but of gentle release—life perceived almost as a fleeting dream.
If wishes were fishes
If Wishes Were Fishes is a melodic and contemplative piece that explores dedication, longing, and the desire to turn dreams into reality for someone deeply loved.
The song opens with the imaginative metaphor of catching wishes like fish in the sea, evoking a sense of possibility and devotion. It expresses a willingness to travel anywhere—to the farthest reaches of the world—to bring those wishes within reach.
As the song unfolds, its focus shifts toward time and togetherness. It becomes a reflection on a shared life, shaped by companionship and the desire to walk the same path into the future.
Sitting on a park bench
This song explores themes of contentment, introspection, and the simple act of observing life from a place of stillness and happiness. Happiness and contentment is reached not by striving and doing, but by being, by living in the moment, accepting the here and now, and finding that inner place of stillness and calmness.
The song reflects the emotional release and freedom of letting go. Happiness found through lettings go of the world’s demands and expectations for ourselves, letting go of fear and anxiety, and reconnecting to our inner selves.
Sing to the sounds of the sea
Sing to the Sounds of the Sea returns to the deeply personal theme of memory, drawing on childhood days spent by the seaside. The emotional connection to the sea is vivid and enduring, where it comes to represent freedom, the infinite, and a sense of transcendent joy—an experience of merging with something far greater than oneself.
Returning to the album’s central motif of the river’s song, the sea is both origin and destination. All waters flow from it and ultimately return to it. Here, the music of the album reaches its fullest expression in the sea’s song—an infinite, unending song, representing something “greater than the voice of many waters.”