Voice From The Pavement

  Voice From The Pavement

By Paul McCann

A songwriter is like someone who observes life from the pavement and tells the world what he can see,  I feel songwriters have a responsibility to leave a legacy of what’s going on today in our world . As long as honesty still exists and as long as we still walk and talk and breathe life is as it should be and how it was meant to be . Life is music and music is life . We ne3ed to have great songs and brilliant  music to speak one message to the world about , making the wrongs right and fighting injustice where ever it is happening . While others try to control and divide us , love and peace will unite us and calibrate us towards emancipation .

Probably the most exciting thing for a songwriter like me to do is to bring a selection of original songs into a music studio and start record them on a new album. I’m lucky enough to have begun that process at La Casa Del Audio with a great Peruvian musician and sound engineer who brought in  some excellent musician friends to the studio . Son there was Fito Jorge at the controls of the mixer arranging the tracks somewhere in the deep space  of a musicians universe where new windows of sound frequently appear in visions of momentary genius . He would encourage time as we know it to stand still as he records  vocals to become images of sound at  near perfection  levels and introduces other instruments and ideas in the mix to bring everything together into a tapestry of sound ,. I started recording my latest album in February 2025 with the title track entitled  “The Streets Of The Soul “ the first one we finished .

I started recording the album in February 2025 with the title track entitled. 

“The Streets Of The Soul “  I felt inspired to record ten original songs that will appear on this my sixth album , “Streets Of The Soul “

The selection of songs for the album is always interesting . I needed each story to be part of an entire story , like chapters in a book .

The songs on the album are more than stories; they are images of life and the struggle we go through in the world today . Some are personal others a secular and somehow, we all get through our own challenges to personal victories ,

The title track :Streets of The soul talks about a place where we exit life to reflect and recharge . Like the great escape narrative . There are those of us who lose our way and find others who have also done the same thing and we meet for as while in five-minute friendships to share our stories and then disappear like a ghost of time never to be seen again .There is a beauty  about that kind of experience . In the overcrowded world where depopulation management is happening and chemical spraying experiments in the atmosphere is creating confusion with mother nature about who is really in control of the weather and the bush fires and floods that have become more and more apparent around the world . The lyrics on “The Streets Of The Soul”

Is asking us to consider life and all the natural beauty of the world before its gone and our cities are like ghost towns .

The track entitled , “Street Walking Man” is all about making connection . Today more than ever we all need to connect with each other . The main character in the song arrived like a man with a backpack with nowhere to go . He doesn’t come with polish or pretence. . He turns up as a self-narrator who is worn down and rain-soaked, unadorned, unknown and stubbornly alive. He is like the man from God knows where with a song to sing and he understands dignity is not something bestowed by success , but instead a virtue he has carried quietly through failure, neglect and long nights when nobody was watching what he had to endure.

From its opening lines, Street Walking Man introduces a voice that is brutally honest and almost aggressive in the plain. delivery announcing that he is  known as Sorrowful Jones but nobody really gives a damn” . Thid opening lyric is not a cry for pity , it’s a statement of fact. The song never begs the listener for sympathy. It simply tells the truth and lets the weight of that truth do the work. In an era where suffering is often stylised or sanitised, this feels refreshingly unsentimental. In the song the power is its refusal to romanticise hardship. The streets have no names and the water in the gutters goes nowhere but down the drains and  the dead ends are not metaphors here , they are literal. Yet in the songs he keeps walking. not because he believes everything will be fine, but because stopping would be worse.so he continues along on his way with a unique sense of motion, slow and dogged,  is the backbone here and that is the message when walking becomes an act of defiance rather than escape. There is a deep lineage running through this track. You can hear echoes of working-class blues, folk confessionals, and the kind of street-level songwriting that once defined the great troubadours. From the past still walking and still talking among us . The Street Walking Man never feels derivative. Its language is too plain, too lived-in for that. Every line sound like it has been carried around for a long time before being written down.  The emotional centre of the song is not the street itself, but the longing threaded through it. Again and again, he years to  walk back to someone and to be there welcomed by open arms .

The refrain gives the song a human gravity. The streets may be merciless, but they are not empty.  Love exists there, even if it feels distant, fragile, or hidden he is not chasing redemption or success. He’s chasing connection.

The quiet triumph in the song balances toughness with vulnerability. In the line “I could take rocks and break them into rubble” suggests brute survival, while “I don’t mind crawling if I need to” strips away any remaining pride.

This is masculinity without bravado. Strength is shown not through domination, but endurance. The song does not deny his weariness. He carries it.in his backpack like the unspoken grudges he feels in the awareness embedded through the lyrics. “No one moans, nobody owns any of their fancy homes” lands like an offhand observation, but it speaks volumes about dispossession and illusion. Ownership is exposed as a myth. Stability is temporary. He lives outside the frameworks of society and sees only the scaffolding behind the façade.

He is not bitter in any way or does he bring blame in the world . The lyrics refuse to point fingers. “To tell you the truth I’m not to blame”  , Instead, it sits there, unresolved, like a truth that does not need defending. That restraint is what gives credibility . The want to connect is more openly addressed in the  closing moments, with images of bars, strangers, and hands being shaken, The Street Walking Man feels comfortable in simple conversation and again after , he leaves with no goodbye and keeps moving forward, carrying his backpack with him. There is no grand resolution. No false uplift. Just persistence. The song trusts the listener to hear . It does not try to explain itself. It does not decorate the pain. It walks at the same pace with silence  .

The trach entitled “The Fights on me”  is about surviving the school of hard knocks and rising above the challenges that come  We may have enemies and we may have friends but the real test to our success is what we have in our hearts . In the things we do and say we leave memories along the way . We may win and we may lose but we continue to get up every day and roll with the punches . We fight our own battles and sometimes the battles of others as well . Thos song is very down to earth and has an attitude like the eye of the tiger and survival that we need to have to rise above . If there are times when people rattle our cage, they may not realise that our rage can easily be set free from a cage and we can roar ever more if we are allowed .

I felt this song needed to be written to speak for all those who are going through some personal hardships that need to be resolved . It moves along with a rockabilly feel and invites the listener to move their body about 

With the song “The moon shone blue” comes a sad reflection of love lost . Many relationships today are not lasting as long as those from other generations where couples stayed together and worked together to overcome difficulties .

Some of the things I have observed as there are now too many excuses today for relationships to dissolve . With all of the on lone dating sites and all of the social media platforms the temptation to interact and engage in flirting conversations can destroy trust and innocence . There are many who have been hurt and have suffered the loss of a partner due to the pain of separation brought on by someone being disloyal . In the world today there seems to be more songs written about  love lost rather than love found , 

Even the moon that used to hold a warmth about romance and those in love seems to have changed . Now some of that warmth has gone cold and the mood has sadly turned blue with the change .

The  two tracks “ Downhill with No Brakes” And ‘The Breakdown Blues” are my observations about the way we are so dependant today on the cars and vehicles we drive and jhow dangerous it is to drive on the roads today ,

It’s easy to fix a flat tyre but very difficult to fix a bed attitude . It’s also more expensive tgee4s days to have regular car maintenance  done and as a result there are those who ignore the sounds of bumps and clunks as they drive . More of today’s cars have new gadgets and devices , different fuels and other alternative energy supply for their engines . There are so many great guides today for drivers by computerised maps that know the quickest wat top get where you’re going and then there are the cars with a built in self-automatic driving system to take you where you want to go . Regardless of all of the new technology cars have problems still exist and breakdowns can happen anytime anywhere . The big question is todays are we safer today on the roads that back in the early days of motoring without freeways and all the latest technology .

The track entitled “The Axe Ig Going To Fall ” is a consideration about the elite who are in control of our world and how they are to be held accountable for their actions . In the end no one is above judgement we are all answerable for the wrongs we have done . There is no escape or easy excuse for doing harm . When the axe falls down head will roll and that’s a fact of life that will happen . Today more than ever greed has taken over and those needs are being left behind . It’s just a matter of time when justice will call and the axe will fall and no one is above theocratic rule . Honesty and kindness will prevail and goodness shall be seen in the days to come.

The songs “ Down at the crossroads and  ‘Living On Rock and roll street”

are considering the plight of the refuges around the world today and the hungry and homeless who are living on our streets . I worked with some organizations in Australia . the Uk and Ireland who were helping the homeless and during that time I ate and slept with people on the streets . Some of those were runaways others were refuges and some victims of domestic abuse .

There are always  the haves and the have nots in our world and I often wish that there was a better balance of understanding in today’s society .

The lyrics are a there to bring an imagery to injustice and the acceptance of what we can all take for granted .

There is a crossroads we come to in life where a decision has to be made or the choice of leading a new way of life is offered . That place is where courage and faith make the choice for us all .   

Imagine leaving everything you own in the world and working with the less fortunate . I have met some people who have done that . They exchanged a comfortable life and found a new way of life with charity and kindness leading the way .  Today there is a need to reach out and help the needy rather than just  pushing them aside which can seem like an easy way to get on with things however it’s not the best way to deal with that situation .

We need to listen and then assist and alleviate the needs of those who have fallen into difficulties in the wars , domestic violence , loss of employment and drug and alcohol use  .

We All Need Shelter “is a song that looks at the vulnerability in us all to highlight the fact we never know the moment in time when we need to find shelter from the storm that tossed us into some helpless situation like a toy in the hands of a traumatic event .Life can bring change or hardships that we never saw coming and they are like season’s that come and go . With the help of others who are there to encourage  new ways of thinking and ways to get through each season that life would bring .

When some event in our life would throw us overboard into an angry sea, we need to discover an ability keep afloat and to stop from sinking in the troubled waters .

We need shelter from the storms and the rain , the hard times and the pain . We are all the same when it comes to being in need  . We need to survive the seasons with shelter from those wild winds and storms by finding common ground with those who are out there to support us and get us through each day.

The Streets of The Soul is an album that speaks through concrete and opens window in your mind to see the bigger picture there. My wish is to continue working  on this album and have it released for your pleasure . Here I stand on a pavement with my voice calling out in the wilderness , for justice and love , freedom and consolation to make changes for the better and in all honesty  isn’t that what we all want as our time here ticks away.

By Paul McCann