A True Friend

A True Friend

A story… But first, the lyrics to my first ever self-edited video…

1. Through life's valleys low

When you are feeling low

When you are about to slow

Yes, I'll always be about

To carry you high

I say be of good courage

And remember the old adage

Cause even when you are out

Yes, I’ll always be about

To make you smile.

2. You feel like giving up

When you’ve hit a bump

That’s when you want to slump

Yes, I’ll always be about

To encourage you.

I say be of good courage

And remember the old adage

Cause even when you are out

Yes, I’ll always be about

To make you smile.

3. Sometimes you want to die

When on the couch you lay

You want to say goodbye

Yes, I’ll always be about

To make you live.

I say be of good courage

And remember the old adage

Cause even when you are out

Yes, I’ll always be about

To make you smile.

4. A time to laugh, a time to cry

A time to rest, a time to try

A time to sell, a time to buy

Yes, I’ll always be about

To help you try.

I say be of good courage

And remember the old adage

Cause even when you are out

Yes, I’ll always be about

To make you smile.

5. Family comes and goes

Friends come and go

Money too comes and goes

But I’ll always be about

To guide and guard you

On life’s torturous/treacherous journey.

I say be of good courage

And remember the old adage

Cause even when you are out

Yes, I’ll always be about

To make you smile.

6. You feel like giving up

When you’ve hit a bump

That’s when you want to slump

Yes, I’ll always be about

To encourage you.

 

The year was 2005. A teenage boy then, wondering where money for college would come from, was busy putting pen to paper. There he was in Soko Mjinga, Kawangware, selling onions and tomatoes in the open-air, roadside market that was Soko Mjinga. Through rain and shine, he lovingly tended to his groceries business and sharpened his words, envious of his peers in college… At last, he had scrounged enough to record a song, ‘A True Friend’. He also had a collection of short stories and a teenage novel; what would pass for YA (Young Adult) nowadays.

This love of the word was not strange to him, but the business world was. Growing up, he had always been surrounded by books, welcome companions for a shy, introverted boy. The boy read tomes and tomes of books, some beyond his age. He read adventure and politics and religion and philosophy. He read books about the Mafia and about magic and his imagination soared. In the words contained in these books was his freedom.

In school, the words gleaned from these books morphed into songs. And dance. For Kawangware Primary School was known as a powerhouse when it came to music and dance competitions at the primary school level. Then, there were the evergreen songs sung… religious, cultural and play songs, only to find out later that we sung some of them wrong… Mabligan,mabligan was Public van, public van, etc.

And so, when the whole school sung, the shy, introverted boy sung too… but he longed to be a soloist, to stand before the whole school and lead them in song and dance. Still, he never could get the courage. The same was replicated in high school, another powerhouse when it came to matters dance and song at the secondary school level. Dagoretti High School.

Still, the boy gained some courage and volunteered to do a song during a Christian Challenge weekend attended by a couple of girls’ secondary schools. Suffice to say, his performance was a disaster. Then again, he did not die and even managed to net himself a girl that took pity on him. Still, that gnawing doubt that his voice could never be good enough to pull a note the way Whitney Houston does in I’ll Always Love You.

The year is 2022. The boy, now a man, is just from watching CODA; a movie about a singing girl from a family that is deaf. The music teacher tells the girl that Bowie told Bob Dylan – guy won a Nobel Prize in Literature for his music – that he had a voice like sand on glue or something to that effect. That some have pretty voices but have nothing to say. I shed a tear at that, the story of my life.

And so, I begin. 17 years later. Now wiser and at peace with the world. I invite you to travel with me in this my journey of words as a recording artiste, poet, writer and entrepreneur. For all that I am, all that I have become, all that I will be, I have been, before. The seed has now flourished into a mature tree for which there is fruit and shade and firewood for many.

NB: This is a song of encouragement for hard times; more so, Post-Covid when a lot of people have lost their jobs and the cost of living has gone up. A reminder that there is a friend above all friends to see us through the worst of times. My first ever, self-taught video. One must begin somewhere, and so I have. Hence, the name of this blog: upya=anew, which equates to a fresh start. Hope you'll be inspired. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q4ChYidWnA