I want to present to you another song of mine called “Harry Isn’t Happy,” though this one harkens back many years to a time where I lived a life very different from the one I live now. I lived in San Francisco and later Oakland building a systems consulting company with my friend and business partner Gary. I always had a bit of an entrepreneurial bent but with this venture I was also very consciously making a bit of a deal with the devil. The business world was never intended to be an end unto itself for me. I really wanted to live a more free and creative life, but saw this venture as an opportunity to barter a share of my personal/professional life energy in hopes of creating a successful company which could then be parlayed into a new more free life (I imagined myself eventually becoming a woodworker making heirloom family dinner tables, and perhaps a songwriter as well). I had committed to a five year business plan but eventually stuck with it through 9 ½ years before we sold the company and I finally punched my final time card.
I had done my best to instill meaning and purpose with my work through building a supportive, fun and more progressive culture, but the actual intent/nature of our work/service meant very little to me personally. Did it really matter to me or to the world for that matter if we helped other companies become more efficient and effective through utilizing telecommunications technologies?
This time of my life was very prolific in terms of songwriting. For many of those years, I rode the train to work and much of that commute time I would dedicate to working on song lyrics. As I was living a life within the capitalist ecosystem which was somewhat anathema to my deeper soul’s yearning, I wrote many songs which reflected that struggle, including:
“Ordinary Life,” an almost funereal minor key lament:
Going through the motions of an ordinary life,
Never seen the ocean, quit his job or loved his wife,
Going through the motions of an ordinary day,
Nothing seen and nothing much to say.
“Goin’ to the Country” which dreamed of severing ties with my urban life:
What’s the hurry about, hey where you runnin’ to?
The train you’re tryin’ to catch already left at 5:02,
Monkey suit there standing in line, boy ain’t you shaven clean,
You sell your soul parcel and part for a piece of the pie, your American Dream.
“I Need to Go” which marked the growing intolerance I had for continuing this professional life for too long:
I need to stop I can’t search for your grail anymore,
I need to stop I got lost on this trail,
I’m counting to three then I jump from the rail,
I need to stop I can’t search for your grail anymore.
and many more including the somewhat playful, tongue-in-cheek:
“Everybody Looks Like Me.”
Can you tell your wife how sad you are?
Can you tell your life from an empty jar?
Can you tell how far you still can’t see?
Can you tell how much you look like me?
The song I’m presenting to you today is “Harry Isn’t Happy.” I wrote this song a few years into this business world foray of mine and while reflective of many of the people I saw around me, it was also reflective of myself and a warning of what was to come were I to allow myself to remain in that life indefinitely. I used the name Harry as a nod to Harry Chapin, a songwriter/activist I admired.
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Harry Isn’t Happy
Harry isn’t happy,
In this job that’s he’s had for the past 9 years,
He dreams of open oceans,
But he’s anchored to his desk like he’s anchored to his fear.And it seems today he’s remembered what it’s like,
To be hiding from a knife,
To be holding on for life.
And it seems today he’s remembered how to cry,
‘Cause he’s so afraid to die,
While he’s living in a lie.Harry’s on the train,
That he rides everyday with a thousand dreary eyes.
His head is in the paper,
So he never sees their faces like he never sees the skies.And it seems today he’s remembered what it’s like,
To be the one that no one likes,
To be the kid without a bike.
And it seems today he’s remembered how to cry,
‘Cause he’s so afraid to die,
While he’s living in a lie.Harry’s in the forest,
Where he goes when it seems like there’s nowhere left to hide,
He never wants to leave,
Yah, he’s clinging to the trees like he’s clinging to his pride.And it seems today he’s remembered what it’s like,
To be running from a fight,
To be the one without the might.
And it seems today he’s remembered how to cry,
‘Cause he’s so afraid to die,
While he’s living in a lie.
And it seems today he’s remembered what it’s like,
To hiding from a knife,
To be holding on for life.
And it seems today he’s remembered how to cry,
‘Cause he’s so afraid to die,
While he’s living in a lie.
©Ted Evan Seymour
While riding the train home after my final day of work after having sold the company and enduring an additional year of doleful transitional employment with the successor company, the song Harry Isn’t Happy returned to my consciousness. I found myself laughing out loud as, like Harry, my job had lasted 9 years and here I was again riding the train, but this time for a final time. As much as I may have thought I had written an archetypal song of the lost soul in modern society, matching my 9 years with Harry’s I couldn’t help but recognize that I indeed had been Harry though I had managed to escape. Songs and poems can have a way of sneaking up on you if you aren’t careful.
The song remains self-reflective so many years later as I still “dream of open oceans” (though I am about to undertake a sailing adventure toward realizing that dream). I am also writing this “in the forest” where for many of the past 30 years I have tried to take at least one annual solo personal retreat. These retreats, often in the Sierra mountain range in California, remains one of the few places in my life that fully makes sense, where my soul can deeply rest and get back into a sympathetic rhythm with the energies of the natural world.
Recording Studio – He Remembered
I’ve been spending time over the past many months in the recording studio working toward an album of my music and recently recorded “Harry Isn’t Happy.” In that session, after spending some time recording separate guitar and vocal tracks, it became clear to me that there’s simply too much energetic emotional interplay required between the guitar and my voice to be able to separate them. Once we started doing fully live takes, by the end of the third I was crying. Peter, the sound technician and owner of the studio walked in to the recording room and I greeted him with “He remembered,” referencing Harry in the song who “remembered how to cry.” It’s not that I had forgotten how to cry, but I had deeply connected with the song, with Harry’s plight, and with so many memories of those years of my life which kept floating across my mind’s eye as I sang. From the time that I’ve spent in a recording studio, I’ve learned enough to know that if I’m personally not emotionally moved during the process of recording, that it’s not yet good enough.
I’m truly appreciating the role that songwriting and singing has had in my life. I’ve had countless interests and professional forays but music and songwriting is noticeably the one constant, the thing I have always loved and continued to make space for. Looking back and resuscitating some of these old songs is reminding me how long and deeply this musical current has been running.
It feels good for Harry and I to be living out some of our dreams!
One reply on ““Harry Isn’t Happy””
Nice, Ted !