Counter Culture

By Tim Bragg

Everything seems as if it’s becoming magical, poignant and sad. A strange mix, plus there’s the feeling of reflection, optimism, hope and fear to add.

As I look out of my bedroom window Nature is framed like a changing piece of inspiring art. The window is long and the views impressive, whether they be mist lying over trees in the distance towards the horizon or the stars twinkling at night. It reinforces the rural nature of my current, and soon to be changed, environment. The view is the first and last I see each day. A view changing not just with each day but also through the seasons.

Okay, so you’re moving – what’s the big deal?

Well there’s the rub. We’re moving from this idyllic place to the banlieu of Paris. My wife has finally been promoted and promptly been sent to, frankly, the last place we wanted to be sent to. She’s there now. I’m still here, ‘taking care of business’. The good news is that accommodation comes with her job. We can keep our house here and live rent-free for three years, until her next move. Being a musician and writer I am flexible – so I shall dutifully follow her. I am an Englishman in rural France (as Sting didn’t sing) for a week or so more.

When I first came to France I reconciled myself to giving up music – but that wasn’t the case. In fact the gigs, the people I have played with and the recordings/session-work done have been some of the finest – if not the finest. What I thought was going to be a kind of rural death turned out to be very different. I became a big fish in a shallow but extensive pond. It’s been a fascinating journey over the past thirteen years – only the strange and ominous years of ‘covid’ being in contrast. From 2020 we all took a detour from ‘normal’ life. Those few years blotted out the sun for me to quite some extent – but the albums ‘Tall Stories on Short Street’, ‘Soul on Fire’, ‘Project 21’ and ‘Lark Mission’ were all released and the books ‘Lyrics to Live by 2’, ‘A Conversation of Trees’, HEAD – and other dark tales’ and now in relative ‘normality’ – ‘The Mirror’ have been published. The latter is my first novel release for 17 years and – unsurprisingly – dystopian. In other words, adversity enabled productivity.

Here we all are now and to some extent, I imagine, somewhat generally apprehensive of the future. Doubly so for me (and others I imagine for different reasons). I am about to leave a certain life for a life that I can only imagine will be completely different. From a grand old stone house built in 1925 to a small apartment block next to a school (where my wife is working) probably built in the 60s or 70s. From quiet and solitude to..? Well that I can only imagine (that word again) and, indeed, the purpose of this first piece of writing. This is where I am now. Contemplating an uncertain future within an uncertain future. But I am open to whatever it is I will experience. Out of my comfort zone I can have another spurt of growth.
           

A portion of the banlieu has a very bad reputation. It is where the riots you often see or read about occur. A populace of a different ethnicity and religion railing against the state. Burning down their neighbourhoods only for the government to build them up again. Are they Building Back Better? I’m looking forward to having some grasp of this situation. Early reports from my wife indicate that where she is, is a small haven of peace – though surrounded by a lot of poverty. In fact rural France is also often a very impoverished place – monetarily and culturally. The department where our house is (and where I still am) is the second poorest in France. Very beautiful and very poor. Central government is completely ‘out of touch’ with the lives of ordinary French folk in the countryside. At times you can feel as if you’ve stepped back to an early post-war period. Families and villages can be insular, in all kinds of ways; from good to very bad. In our local town I’m told there are drugs and just before we moved here a young girl was murdered (the subject of my song ‘The Montbron Girl’ – which is currently unavailable). In fact it’s generally a nice town – with problems hidden behind its façade. Maybe that can be said of everywhere – trouble behind the façade. Maybe there’s also a deeper understanding of life by looking beyond the façade. I guess there’s a lot of trouble behind each of our facades. We need to look inside ourselves – to understand ourselves.

Some difficult decisions have had to be made in moving. Emotionally I can only repeat the opening line; things are becoming magical, poignant and sad. ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’ But you know what – we were (are) ready for this move at a deep level. It needed to happen. Yes, I can now see the magic much more tangibly – and I will carry that with me. The poignancy makes you reflect and contemplate bigger things than simply a move. The sadness is part melancholic. We’re lucky too. Financially we have struggled for these past 13 years – that should change, to a degree. It’s an opportunity opening up for us. But for the moment this future is all simply in my head – my imagination. A part of France is going to be revealed in a very real, tangible sense. Maybe we’ll be in the eye of the storm – but isn’t that where peace is found? 

It’s going to be challenging in the sense of: what do I do now? Music? Writing? Painting? All three? None? I’ve been working on film scripts too – helping a chap, a friend, who lives next to a wide river. His life is like something out of a film – set in the 19^th century at the earliest. That has been some experience – kept me going through the recent dark years. Neither of us with much money – and yet the hope of millions! In fact we would and will be happy with enough to live in modest comfort and get the ideas (his mostly) turned into film or various series. The ideas are good – pity about the current writers’ strike in the US!

When I tell folk where we are moving to – those that know either pull a face (almost of abject horror) or smile and say we’ll be back within a week. But that is NOT an option. We have to see this out, regardless. The move is getting closer now and the amount of stuff I’ll have to take is piling up. You know, drums, guitars, recording equipment and various other musical instruments. It’s a strange time. When I go on walks I see and feel the presence of ghostly memories. I can hear the talk and thoughts of these ghosts as the past is brought to life. Poems come to me again, such as:

                        You can feel death
                        Surrounding
                        Pointed not Abstract
                        Angels dancing on a pinhead
                        Administering  before
                        Falling
                        Falling, Falling

And:
                        Enchanting Moonlight

                        Reveals a vast graveyard
                        Stone-tomb houses
                        Rising from the earth
                        Trees mourning
                        As death is brought to life

Believe it or not I’m not at all depressed! I’m optimistic – but the memory-ghosts haunt me. And the enchanting moonlight is just that. The vast graveyard is at peace and I am but a spectator – not yet a spectre.

I’m hoping that some of you will join me on my journey and like me learn a few things on the way. Today I jammed with a musician who has just moved to this rural idyll from…well, where else – Paris! Music kicks in optimism – and if I do or don’t play live in Paris, I will certainly keep on recording. I have many notebooks to take with me – with lots of fragments of songs/chord-progressions. I’m getting right back into flute playing too – maybe I’ll play flute and percussion with a band. For now – the future is an idea…an imagining. But does the future even exist?
Thanks for reading.