Huff Post Exclusive Music Download

When I first drove my car down Sunset Strip, I nearly crashed my car gazing at the monolithic ads of various celebrities. They are bigger than King Kong, and more frightening.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
The Huffington Post is pleased to offer its readers a HuffPost exclusive: free downloads of tracks from songwriter/actress Rebecca Pidgeon's upcoming album
Tough On Crime.

Each week leading up to the October 25th release date of the album, a new track will be posted for downloading on Rebecca's blog. A portion of every CD sold will go to support the Katrina relief efforts of the Red Cross.

r2.gif

When I had the idea to make a record, and began writing songs for it, my husband suggested I make a "theme" record. Mulling this over, and thinking of the old Peter Gabriel "Genesis" records I listened to in my youth, (The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway- very thematic), I tried my hand at themes. I came up with two songs on the same subject, felt I'd had my say, and moved on. So this weeks song, "Magazine", is on the same subject as an earlier song, "Ordinary Blues". The theme is media publicity, gossip, covetousness, ambition and greed.

We live in such an age of chatter and distraction. Everything is a challenge for the ears and eyes. We are lured away by our wayward senses to "worship gods of luxury and fashion", especially in the town where I live, (LA). When I first drove my car down Sunset Strip, I nearly crashed my car gazing at the monolithic ads of various celebrities. They are bigger than King Kong, and more frightening. It is an absolute feat of willpower to drive down that street, while looking at the road. At least in my experience. (This may dissuade some of you to go for a drive down the strip with me!) We are constantly arrested by, and barraged with, images. Sometimes near pornography, some graphic and violent in the extreme. (Sometimes I want to get a set of blinkers made for my kids, and have them don them for certain routes we have to take). Some just make us want to be pretty and gorgeous like the "girl on the cover". We want to have her body, or her life.

We may be taken over by greed and covetousness, fear and worry, and slip into a malaise of, as my friend calls it, "amorphous anxiety". We feel empty and worthless.

The other night I went to see Yogacharya Sri BKS Iyengar, the great yoga guru, speaking at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. It was an extraordinary evening. He talked about (among many other things) the word "yoga", and said that it means, " a life lived in auspiciousness". Free from desire or ambition. He says that as a result of his seventy years of practicing yoga, he has come to know the light of his soul, and can see the light of the soul in others. He says that through the practice of yoga, our intelligence grows, and our "I-ness", our ego contracts, and we are devoted to, and in communion with, the Divine. But that it is important to take this feeling of "auspiciousness" back with you into daily life. The yoga practitioner does not contract into a monastic existence, but rather practices what he or she has learned in the yoga, into everyday life. The life of the householder, as he puts it.

What about the challenge of driving down Sunset strip, or reading that magazine in the doctor's office and retaining your composure?

Enjoy the fashions, read the good articles, and when you feel threatened, turn your mental gaze inward, but keep your eyes on the road, or you won't know where you are going. Have a practice or discipline that lets you be in touch with your inner self, your soul. Be it yoga or something else that works for you. Compose yourself. Be good, kind, and friendly to the receptionist. She's had a hard day.

My yoga teacher told us that in India it is considered "auspicious" to have long arms. It means they are more giving. She instructed us in the pose, to make our arms long. Make your arms long. Be more giving, take less, and you will find that you have more.

The players on this song are; Larry Klein on bass and keyboards, Dean Parks on guitar, Scott Amendola on drums.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot