The Song I Was Scared To Release

Embracing the vulnerability of "Blue Feathers".

Winter has become a difficult season for me. Along with the grey skies, the freezing temperatures and the dark that rolls across the sky before you’ve even finished your workday - there comes this familiar sadness. My Dad passed away a few years ago in December and it hit our close-knit family pretty hard. When the days get shorter in November I start to feel again the sting of loss. Loss of loved ones, the loss of close relationships, of childhood and innocence. For some reason most of my painful experiences have been in winter these past few years. And yes, I have been taking Vitamin D.

Last January, a close friend visited me and we decided to take a trip up to the Scottish highlands, and one of my absolute favourite places to retreat from city life and let my soul breath: the Isle of Skye. The weather was icy cold and yet the skies were such a beautiful clear blue, the sun piercing through and lighting up the mist from the melting ice of the landscapes. Winter never looked so beautiful.

We took a train ride, got delayed for hours in Preston while the announcers called out platform changes, and finally made it to our Airbnb in time to watch Howl’s Moving Castle and drink tea. After the movie I had to hop on a call, the first session of an online songwriting class I was taking with one of my absolute favourite songwriters in the world: Adrianne Lenker. She challenged us to write from our ‘intuitive compass’. That feeling of delight when we shut out the voice of the inner critic that asks “is this good?” and instead leans into the deeper part of ourself that asks “does this feel good?”. She left us with an exercise of writing an observational song. To start off with images, ideas, maybe some of them abstract, and along the way, to find that one line - the key that is the core feeling of the song. I began to write freely:

“Blue feathers, coloured coat
Heavy weather, stay at home
Moving castle, where’d you go?”

And then the line that felt like a key unlocking the heavy feeling I’d been carrying for so long:

“I don’t want to be alone”

Loneliness. That was the feeling. I don’t know why it took me so long to admit. But just as soon as I had named it, I started to recognise all the things in my life that brought the clear, bright sunlight of hope into the cold winter of loneliness.

“Changing platforms at Preston
3 then 4 then 3 again”

(I smirked to myself writing this line - not only was it a true story, we did get moved from platform 3, to 4 and the back to 3 again. But it’s also a description of the song’s meter in the verses. Each line has 3 beats, then 4 beats - alternately.)

“Walked with you right to the end
The sunlight felt just like a friend”

Again, a true story - we walked to the end of a long platform that day just to catch the only patch of sunlight - but it also spoke into the people in my life that I had walked with until the end, and how friendship brought such a comfort in their absence. And then, in a very self-referential chorus about writing songs:

“Since this December I’ve been talking to myself
Writing to process, and I guess it kinda helps
A little taste of heaven on the days that hurt like hell”

Writing songs became a balm to my soul through the winter times. I was writing free of expectation to ever release them or call them ‘Jonathan Ogden’ songs, and free of the voice of my inner-critic. These little songs stayed on my hard-drive and my Dropbox folder. Some of them I just needed to write, sing a few times and that was it. But others, like Blue Feathers, I found myself returning to again and again.

The exact spot in the Airbnb I stayed up writing the song until 1:30am

I would play the demo in my car, I’d sing it whenever I picked up a guitar. It gave language to my feelings in the most cathartic way. “But I’ll never release this” I told myself. It’s too personal, it’s too much of a lament, it’s not “biblical enough”, it won’t connect with people. Ah, the inner-critic decided to chime in again.

But after some encouragement from my friends, and sharing brief snippets of the song on my stories, I realised how many other people were connecting with it. And they encouraged me to release it under my own name and not bury it away in some obscure side-project. That’s the thing with having my artist name just be my name. It’s not a brand or a project, it’s just me.

And so, it’s time for it to see the big wide world. In keeping with the songs themes I had some good friends bring extra warmth to the arrangement, from Kumiko Bankson’s stunning violin parts, to my friend Gideon helping me shape a new bridge section. It’s finally come together in a way I love and that I feel is ready to be shared. And although it feels like opening up a page of my journal for the world to read - I just hope it can bring a little light and warmth to others too. Last winter I needed this song. This winter, it’s for everyone.

---