World So Big

World So Big
Words and Music: Sten Ardal 2001

I'm lying here all, all alone in my bed.
Can’t get you out of my head.
You went to Seattle, Genoa too,
and you’ll keep on going ‘til you lose.
Smelling of tear gas, and crying for more. What are you saving the future for?
You must believe that I agree with it all, but the world’s so big and I’m so small

We all believe that our motives are pure. Everyone is so self-assured.
We all have reasons for what we’ve done,
for when we walk and when we run.
We share the guilt for what’s gone before, for living well and for wanting more.
Please believe I agree with it all,
but the world’s so big and I’m so small

The future plays before my eyes.
I feel it can’t be otherwise.
Unchain yourself from that barricade.
I thought we had it made.
A simple life with little fear,
but now the vision seems so unclear.
Now we don’t agree at all,
and the world’s so big and I’m so small

Once was a time I decried it too,
but they were strong and we were few.
They took photographs, wrote down my name, it stopped feeling like a game.
So I left it behind, and a part of me too,
now that part is beating in you.
I’m just too weary to answer the call cause
the world’s so big and I’m so small

Lying here all, all alone in my bed,
can’t get you out of my head
You went to London, Tiananmen too,
you’ll keep on going ‘til you lose.
Smelling of tear gas, and crying for more, what are you saving the future for?
You must believe I agree with it all,
but the world’s so big and I’m so small

A trip to Montreal in 2001 found me staying with friends but left to my own devices one afternoon while they were both at work.

Inspired by the view from their 22nd floor balcony, I picked up my “crackaphone” – an old weathered Epiphone guitar - and started playing with a D minor chord.

From there two thoughts clashed as I started searching for words to match the structure my Epiphone was building.

The first centred on the angry protests at the G8 summit in Seattle. The second was how easy it is to feel that our own actions, however passionate, are often futile or at least, seem that way.

Of course no one (me included!) wants to lead or feel that they lead a futile life or that their voice and opinion is in the end, impotent. Hence the obsession the song's narrator has with rationalizing his place on the sidelines to his “radical" lover.

Via a plea soaked explanation of why it all seems too much, he carefully footnotes his reticience to join her by pointing out that he too has done his time on the front lines and sees that same spirit living on in her.

As for the cities referenced? By 2001 Seattle was already in the past, but the bloody riots in Genoa were fresh and seemed an extension of the anger unleashed in Seattle rather than a separate event.

Since this song has only now come to it's recorded life, I recently ammended the reprise in the last verse, bringing the song more fully into the now of 2009 by referencing both London – and of course the 10th anniversary of Tiananmen.

All rights are reserved by the artist.

For any commercial interests, please contact the artist at the email address: sten@rogers.com

Truth Panel is

Bill Nygren vox/bass
Sten Ardal vox/guitar
Dave Findlay keys/vox
Ron Kunitzky drums

This band of musicians turned marketers/gov't officials and studio rats came together accidentally, three of them being neighbours in North Toronto.

Quickly discovering that between them they had a full set of original material, Truth Panel has been in rehearsal and in the studio for just over a year now, working out of Toronto sound design/audio production boutique, boom sonic branding where Bill and Dave craft audio solutions/underscores for a range of broadcast and new media clients.

Truth Panel will be releasing their debut release entitled Preliminary Hearing via iTunes in 2010.

In the interim, completed tracks will find their way to their building community of friends and fans both here on Music XRay and on the Truth Panel Virb site. An interesting world this where both audience and content can be developed concurrently.

You can learn more about Truth Panel and its members at

www.virb.com/truthpanel
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Truth-Panel/116274925903?ref=ts
www.musicoverproductions.com
www.boomsonicbranding.com
www.stensongs.com