Fifty-sixth song: The Writing on the Wall

Back when I was recording for my album “And Somehow I fell Upon this place,” I had to decide what kind of direction to go in as far as the overall mood was concerned. I had a long list of demos to choose from and a lot of the songs were so diverse in both the style and tone. There were songs that I thought were strong but they just didn’t fit into the whole picture. When all was said and done, I had made selections to focus on and the leftovers remained in a folder on my computer still in their infant demo form.

One of these songs was called “The Writing on the Wall” and although there is no official recording of it I have rehearsed and played it with my band for several live shows in the past. “The Writing on the Wall” is an observation of the obsessive nature of human beings and technology. It's about how people can’t help but check their phone every spare minute for fear of missing something. Although iPhones, and iPads and computers are paving a new and interesting future for us, I don’t think we have caught up socially with the implications of these advances.

The song touches on subjects like Twitter, Facebook, texting, pornography, depleting social skills and many other aspect of life that are affected by the way we use technology in our daily lives. I love technology, I find my iPhone and iPad to be quite useful for business and quick communication but I dislike the idea of being dependent on it to survive in the world. I think it threatens the social skills and attention spans of both adults and children.

I have been playing with Garney Patterson (bass and vocals) since around 2007. Our first gig together was the Ottawa Bluesfest on the River stage for my first “Tyler Kealey” band appearance. He’s a great friend. The kind of person who will go out of his way to make ends meet. We both love listening to Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant ,and Karl Pilkington’s podcast and we are both big fans of the show “Lost” which is where we got the name for our band “Tyler Kealey and The DHARMA initiative.” I have been playing with Steph McAlear (drums) for nearly 3 years now. He’s also a great friend and he is my encyclopedia for any band or artist that I am curious about. He has introduced me to a lot of music that I didn’t know about.

The three of us play together as much as we can but its rare that we get a chance to just hang out outside of playing music. Garney has converted his basement into a home theatre. He has a huge screen with killer surround sound speakers. The three of us finally found some time to combine a quick rehearsal with a movie. We ran through a couple of tunes and this was one of them: