In my mind I had expected that I would sing this song through with ukulele, record myself on the phone, easy! But then I decided to complicate things and create an arrangement of vocal layers, playing around with some mouth percussion to keep the song ticking along. As playful and experimental as this was, it was a lot more time consuming, required a lot more takes to get it right, or good enough. I had a few chuckles to myself about the lyrics “over and over I start again” as I kept on having to re-record a part in this process of overlaying five vocal tracks, trying to get them to sound good enough to share.

Moving beyond the playful and experimental nature of this process alone, the lyrics speak to picking yourself up and keeping on going no matter how lost you might feel at times. And to always, always, keep singing!

over n over I start again

over n over I start again

here I am in the middle

I’m over n under again

in the rumble n tumble I fumble

my way through this turbulent land

a mapmaker traveller

sometimes I don’t know where I am

alone in the wilderness

oh here I stand 

over n over I start again

here I am