Track 5 - Don't Think Twice - Johnny Cash "Music Connecting to Me"

“Well it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe, ifin’ you don’t know by now, An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe, it’ll ever do some how”

I lied on the unplugged treadmill in the Alter Ego Films studio, my face damp from tears and an empty container of Greg’s toasted Marshmallow ice-cream in my hands. What a spectacle he must have seen when he left. I had just told him I was quitting. A shock, not only to him, but to me as the words didn’t seem to make sense until they actually came out my mouth. That was when I felt their weight.

“When you’re rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out your window and I’ll be gone”

I looked around the studio walls, covered in the sound panels I built by hand. I know it wasn’t my studio, it wasn’t even purchased with me in mind, I was just the cling on attached to someone else great idea. But I was in the walls, my essence in the air, I was a big brick in what held that studio together. We built a home there, (so much so that we didn’t even laugh when referring to it as such).

“You’re the reason I’m trav’lin on, don’t think twice it’s alright”

It wasn't Liam, my work partner who did anything to light this fire in me... instead it was that pesky Ex of mine’s voice that kept creeping in the back of my brain. One of the last things he said to me, one of the only things he could have said to tarnish any good memories, if we ever had any!

“Well, you better make it now!”.

He was insinuating my writing career, the thing he never supported.

“I ant sayin’ you treated me unkind, you could have done better but I don’t mind, you just kinda wasted my precious time”

For months I wrote those five words down in my journal before I went to bed like a kid in trouble, writing lines on the chalkboard. But I didn't do it out of spite, instead I did it because I had every intention of doing so...

To make it!

I was determined.

“I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul”

But there I was, sitting on a treadmill that wasn’t moving - Mind you the one I was on was a prop leftover from a spot Me and Liam filmed at the studio and thus was non operational, but, it didn't take away from the way I was feeling, it only added to it. I felt it deep in my gut, the gut in the midsts of sadness seemed unable to feel the near gallon of ice-cream swimming around inside of it, I was stuck.

“No it ain’t no use n’ callin’ out my name, gal, like you never done before. And it ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal. I can’t hear yah any more”

I had developed this bad habit of spending my time being the person other people wanted me to be. Especially if that person, somehow benefitted themselves. I gave up my everything for everyone in my life and anything that I wanted was put on the back burner, constantly. So, after leaving a 10-year-long relationship for reasons that echoed into my working career, quitting became the only thing that made sense. I had no prospects, I had nothing, just a small whimper of a flame in my heart telling me it was time.

"An it ain’t no use turnin’ on your light, babe, I’m on the dark side of the road"

Once I calmed down enough to drive home I got into the car and sat in the empty lot for 15 minutes, really thinking about what I would define as my own personal success... What would it take for me to ‘finally make it’ like he made seem so dire?

“I wish there was something you would do or say to try and make me change my mind and stay, we never did too much talkin’ anyway”

I had stepped so far away from who I was already before I decided to quit Alter Ego, I didn't even think there was anything else constricting me, I didn’t think there was any more dead skin for me to shed. But there was.

“I’m a thinkin’ and a wonderin’, walkin’ way down the road. I once loved a woman, a child I am told”

My freedom, just around the corner and I had no idea what the fuck I would even do with it first. So, I put the keys in the ignition, drove home and did what I did almost every night, scrolled through Adams massive record collection, almost zen like, in the presence of all that good music.

For those who may not be in the loop... I had spent the better part of a year subletting peoples apartments and on most cases, including Adam the most recent and most permanent of my sublets, they would cut me a deal on the cost of rent per month if I let them leave their stuff in the room. So that is precisely how I found myself existing in the same room as Adams massive record collection he inherited from his parents who lived in New York City in the 70’s, making them the coolest people in the world.

I digress.

Running my finger along the spines of those records I stopped at one specific album. The best of Johnny Cash live. I opened it up and looked at the record in near perfect condition. As I did so I could feel that calcified bone in my body straighten. This is exactly the kind of record that the old Glynnis would have skimmed right by ( I know sacrilege, its the Man in Black, but if we’re being honest, I never was a Johnny Cash fan [ until now ] ). I put it on the player and sat back, watching the vinyl spin, my swollen water logged eyes barely slits at this point, doing their best attempt at a skeptical stare.

Straight away, track one, I was happy I chose to open up to that record. It was a Boy Named Sue. A great freekin' tune!

However, It wasn’t until track 2 that I really got it. It was a cover of one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs. To say Johnny Cash does the song well is an understatement. His deep bellows rattled whatever was left in my internal bits... shaking up what was left of that stubborn back bone the one that had left me feeling so stuck! The things that were still holding me back! It reminded me what caused all those tears. I made a vow then and there, whatever it takes, to do what I want to get out of this world, I gotta do it for me and for no-one else. I realized, While it wasn’t that song that got me out the door of my relationship and job, its the song that let me leave, proud and tall, the song that let me walk away like the Cowboy Johnny Cash would have wanted me to be. It was the song that made me feel right, for the first time in months. Hey, when you open up to the world - You're often rewarded with sweet treats like this!

“So long honey babe, where I’m bound, I can’t tell. Goodbye is too good a word babe, So I just say fare thee well”

And that was the first step I took towards doing this fantastic music therapy mix tape project. And while yes it’s my lack of commitment, my newly found physical and emotional freedom that let me do it all, there is another key element to making all this possible. That is the Vessel and the heart of this story, which will actually carry me where ever I go. That... is the next track.