"Let's take a little journey... through the eyes of a semi tortured soul and an artist.
And a journey through a place called 2018!
We'll start in the early summer. I spent a lot of time in the newly assembled swimming pool. Warm, crisp, non humid air and the fresh smell of chlorine, saturated my soul with happiness.
I had a great report from my doctor, about my health. The future seemed bright, like the summer sun. But deep down... I felt doom was looming.
Close to mid summer, I found out that an amazing uncle of mine had passed away.
He was an uncle I hadn't seen in many years but he, and my aunt whom he was married to, are amazing people and I was very saddened for her and sad that he was gone. I have amazing childhood memories of their house, in a small town in Michigan.
Still feeling peace from the warm fresh water, I was now sad and melancholy too.
A few glasses of wine later, I was floating and feeling the strong wind flowing over my face.
I stared at the pool water and was mesmerized by the ripples that were created from the breeze.
Watching that and thinking about my uncle...
was the birth of >WIND ON THE WATER<.
It's like wind on the water... ripples on the stream...
the tsunami had calmed after the stormy sea... now your soul is light and free.
The song was just exploding in my head, as I float in the pool.
So immediately, I emerged from the swimming pool, scrambled for my phone to record a rough melody that was also forming in my head and a notepad to start scratching down the lyrics that just kept coming and coming.
Usually I don't work on anything artistically, under the influence of alcohol (as I said, I had had some wine) but I had to record the song right then.
I headed to the studio, sang and recorded the song with a rough guitar riff.
The guitar sucked (lol) but my voice prevailed!
There was the song (now currently mixed and edited). Next, I had to build a whole album around it! Every Jonsona album has a theme and well, this one would revolve around water.
I truly didn't want to do another album this year.
The >DEATHLIGHT< album was excellent and productive so I was ready for a break. I was (am) so ready to paint again but what the hell. One more record for 2018! That one song, from the pool, conjured an entire LP entity that had to manifest into a digital recording!
As the early summer progressed into late summer, the tone of the year just kept getting darker and darker. External things and dynamics, that I have been fighting for years, were starting to take its tole on me.
Holding in emotions, to try to keep the peace, was making me into a pressure cooker!
I won't get into all of the details of the months, years and decades that had let up to the later 2018 moments of blackness and despair that were to ensue but it changed the shape of my record!
And as the lyrics state on the track 'Toxic' - I'm a sinner, I'm no saint - I, in no way, claim to be perfect! My mistakes in life, are in abundance from actions to interactions. But I have also done so much for a lot of people, emotionally and physically and one way or another, that always ends up biting me in the ass. Always! And it did again!
Anyways...
More often than not, I will create the song titles for an album before there is any subject matter.
That applied to Wind On The Water (the album) as well. I created titles that generally revolved around water.
I had many ideas swirling around, like a whirl pool, in my artistic psyche.
But as the summer progressed, the songs changed, changed, and changed some more.
I went through 2 full notebooks of lyric writing, more than half being scribbled out or tossed out.
What was inspired by the peaceful swimming pool days, the high I felt from a great doctor report and the death of my uncle, turned into a completely different tone - of anger, self examination, darkness, and struggling with forgiveness.
That is what Wind On The Water (the album) has become.
The rough cuts of the music for the album had already been created. Some tracks quite flow-y to go with the water theme, mixed with some high energy dance and raw pop sounds. I wasn't sure if these sounds would flow naturally with the new dark tone of WOTW but it did end up balancing quite well. Definitely an interesting sounding recording.
We usually make a 'tracks descriptions' page but not this time. Just a general description.
The album is a journey from beginning to end.
It starts out with the title track about my uncle but even that song blended with the deeper attitude that eventually evolved.
By the time August rolled around, my life had turned into complete and total dog shit!
No longer feeling hopeful and good, about my new good health, my many accomplishments and hard work of the last 4 years, on many things... everything was essentially destroyed outside of me and in me!
Many regrets about my drunken explosion of emotions that ultimately hurt people I love (hence pressure cooker) but also, in the entire month I isolated myself, I had A LOT of time to think about the past and present and realized, I had a right to be so angry but also struggling with, I gotta forgive, I gotta do the right things, I gotta protect my karma but the anger isn't going away (still struggling with that) but anger isn't good for me (also, my good health has failed a bit due to recent stress) love is suppose to win, but it's not. I need to be forgiven to forgive. How do I work towards that and still stand up for myself?
And on and on.
A true roller coaster! That is the course of this album.
Along with a shout out to Richard (Beebo) Russell, who stole the Alaska Airlines plane and crashed it in Seattle (which fascinated me, along with millions of others) in "Tsunami", a shout out to an amazing young friend of mine in "Millenial Girl", and the usual, state of this fucked up matrix world we live in, in tunes like "Posiedon" and "Mother Mary" - this record is an artistic expression of that and my experiences of late 2018 and how I have failed myself, failed others, failed my karma and failed God.
Along with all of the anger, is a pleading with God and Jesus (Yahawah and Yahawashi) for help, forgiveness and eventually PEACE!
That's how the album concludes.
In a nutshell, that is the WIND ON THE WATER album - ALBUM 11.
Say what you will about Jonsona, but I am a strong bitch.
There are times where I don't know how much strength I have left but it almost always prevails.
Still though, I struggle daily and it is a small miracle that this album got recorded!
But... it did. It's not a 'feel good' record but it is an excellent record. Some of Jonsona's best work and a work of art.
That's that. Twentysouth Entertainment is aiming for a release date of either November 15th or December 1st. It'll be officially announced on Jonny's social media soon.
Finally, I will say that I may not be a 'cutting edge' music artist but, I'm just doin' me and I am good at what I do!
Listen, don't listen - whatever. I have 11 full studio albums, 1 compilation album, hundreds of recorded songs and many many music videos.
I will always be very proud that I accomplished this and had the courage to put myself out there without selling out and putting financial gain over creativity. (Although, lack of money is a HUGE problem in my life, it would be nice to be recognized as a talented artist> with $$$$$)
I have no idea what the future holds for me, at this stage of life.
I have lots to figure out in my personal life and in 2019, I will be taking a year off from music.
It's not my preference but you never know when I'll just say - enough, I'm done, and disappear forever, somewhere else, off social media and never to be contacted again.
Hopefully it doesn't come down to that.
Plus, I'd really like to continue making more music!
Time will tell!
If the ship stays afloat, I will be presenting new paintings next year on >JONSONA'S ACRYLIC BAR<.
The last line of the second chorus from WOTW's title track will end this narrative and hopefully end this way at the last of 2018...
It's like wind on the water - waves on the ocean - beautiful storm flows to the east - a bit of time will bring... the peace."
e
