I So Believe In Love is a song about big, simple, love.

What gives you confidence?  What makes you feel strong?  My best answer is loving someone who loves you back.  In the song I So Believe in Love, I explore the unblushing joy one feels at love's first arrival and the strength of heart one knows after sharing love for thousands and thousands of days.  This is a song of celebration.


I So Believe In Love (words and music by Sean Riley)

Is it true?
I hope it's true.
What they sometimes say about love.
Wonder what's true about love.
I'm in love.

Yes it true.
I know it true.
What they sometimes say about love.
Now that I know about love.
I'm in love.

I so believe in love.
Big simple love.
Enduring changing love.
I so believe in love.
I'm love.

Now that love has found me.
The world has grown, I'm so free.
Wonder, joy surrounds me.
I am confidence.  I am strong.

Yes it true.
I know it true.
What they sometimes say about love.
Now that I know about love.
I'm in love.

I so believe in love.
Big simple love.
Enduring changing love.
I so believe in love.
I'm love.

I dream concentric is a song about awakenings.

Have you ever dreamt you were dreaming and woke only to find you where still asleep?   Some thinkers suggest our experience of life and the world is merely a construct aggregated from our senses: A dream created for survival through prediction.  I like to think that our experiencing mind is created for meaning, and with that mind, we are continually invited to awake into a next grander dream.

To listen to more music by Sean go to seanriley.com/music.    If you could choose, what would you dream?

I Dream Concentric (Words and music by Sean Riley)

I woke to a still world dreaming
silent save for the sound of breathing

I hear your song in bright morning air
my mind sings and soars I am aware

I woke to a still world dreaming
silent save for the sound of breathing

God Beware is a song about not letting go.

Would you resurrect a departed love, performing spells of reanimation while pulling sinews and bone from covering clay?  If you could, what consequence would such a dark act also deliver?  It's true some partings seem impossible to reconcile, but continuing to court the past, even in thought, leads to the greater casualty of hope.

To hear more music by Sean,  go to seanriley.com/music/.   What past have you not laid to rest?

God Beware (words and music by Sean Riley)

Is this now or memory?
Are you here, beside me?
When I wake alone,
Your gone.

I should be brave and let you go.
But cast a spell in midnight snow.
So your ghost is bound,
To me.

God beware, my prayer.

It is wrong keeping  you from rest?
I hold your bones against my chest.
Can't let go of who,
I was.

Is this now or memory?
Are you here, beside me?
When I wake alone,
Your gone.

God beware, my prayer

Always Darkest is a song about the endurance of hope.

Many would lessen hope to childish and rosy magical thinking that view the world as it is not.  Yet, hope allows us the vision to conceive things as they could be.  Hope assumes a future making space for possibilities.  It is brave to hope out loud and not sink under dark waters. Well founded optimism is contagious and is what we all need, especially in the Always Darkest last moment of night.

Thank you for listening to music by sean. To hear more music by sean go to seanriley.com/music.  When was the last time hope prevailed over your darkest moment?

Always Darkest (words and music by Sean Riley)

Its always darkest near the end.
The loosing streak before the win.
I believe that light is just around the corner.
Just get through this night.

I'm proud we've held together.
Enduring this brutal weather.
I believe that light is just around the corner.
Love will prove us right.

Keep awake and search the darkness.
Finding those to help us spark this.
I believe that light is just around the corner.
Tomorrow's looking very bright.

Its always darkest near the end.
The loosing streak before the win.
I believe that light is just around the corner.
Just get through this night.

She Said Yes is a song about Love's arch.

Does love at first sight exist?  Do we ever really really know anyone?  Imagine if at  a glance we understood what an entire life with that person would be.  Would we choose better? Or, is the best of love what happens once plans fail.

If you'd like to hear more music by Sean, please visit seanriley.com/music.  For what question did you most want to hear the answer "yes"?

She Said Yes (Music and Lyrics by Sean Riley)

Please stay awhile.  
She said yes.
Take my hand.  
She said yes.
 
Do you love me back?  
She said yes.
Will you share this life?   
She said yes.
 
Is this our golden age?    
She said yes.
I can't believe the time.   
She said yes.

Is it twilight yet?    
She said yes.
Please hold my hand.    

Roll Big is a song about those times when you just got to dance.

We've felt it, the irresistible desire to dance. There are times when the body follows its own kinetic potential, submitting to a rhythm's unremitting mandate.  At a more basic part of us resides a language of movement which resinates and flourishes when we dance together.  This primordial logic is legacy programming from a more ancient time . . . even before the 70s.

If you would like to hear other music by Sean please go to https://seanriley.com/music/. What song compels you to dance?


Roll Big (Music and Lyrics by Sean Riley)

I've felt the truth of funk
And the bliss of sway
I know my 1 and 3 
But 4 is where I play

Arch your back
Lean right in
I'll mind where we go  
Syncopated babe
That's it down below

Roll big 
Dance sexy
Roll big
Dance sexy

Keep the course but use the floor
Feel the swing through your hair
Let the rhythm push you
Bystander do beware

Shake it down, shake it down
Right there to the shame
Syncopated babe
Hold still your to blame

Roll big 
Dance sexy
Roll big
Dance sexy

Let the Wolf is a song about finding courage after disappointment.

Sometimes simply our breath is the best and most comforting companion when we are defeated.  Because breathing is both conscious and unconscious, it can bridge between a specific disappointment and greater potential possibilities.   Breathe to let the Wolf in and sit with its wild discomfort. Breathe to hear what a loss is inviting us to become.

If you would like to hear just the music in this episode or any other music by Sean please visit seanriley.com/music.

What big disappointment made you into something better?

Let the Wolf  (Music and Lyrics by Sean Riley)

Breathe
What's true

Breathe
We'll get through

This is not the end
It's just starting starting starting

Just Breathe
We're here

Breathe
It's okay dear 

This is not the end
It's just starting starting starting

Let the wolf come
The crow sing
The wind howl
Your ears ring
Like dawn
We will rise

Untethered is an instrumental song suggesting the trust needed in letting go.

Imagine spacewalking miles over the rotating earth and needing to untether yourself to float into the arms of safety.  Or consider swinging on a trapeze five stories high in the air, only to let go, trusting the net will catch you.  Letting go of what feels secure can be paralyzing, but trusting in yourself provides the power to move and grow.

To download just the music in this episode go to seanriley.com/music. Send me a message @seanriley on Twitter.

Untethered (music by Sean Riley)

Abeyance is a song about returning what's past.

Do the dead speak to us?  Can they hear our whispered incantations.  In the song Abeyance, I invite the hollowed stillness that thins what separates our time from all time so that what's past can be present, what's forgotten remembered, and what's lost can still be loved.

If you like to download just the music in this episode go to seanriley.com/music.  What beautiful secret would you like to her from someone who's past? 

Abeyance (Music and Lyrics by Sean Riley)

With candle, spell
And hands held tight
We call you to this room

With incense, bell
And spirits bright
We hail you from your tomb

How am I sure it's you
Tell me something that's true
I miss you

No more to tell
Farewells made right
I still smell perfume 

I don't Know My Name is a song about what happens after the end of the world.

Is there life after ruin?  Can one return from disaster?  It's been said despair is the last refuge for those whose world has been dashed. It is despair that provides a moment of frozen numbness to choose between continuing to wish for what was, or stand up and transform into something new.  

To download just the music in this episode go to seanriley.com/music.  Do you have a life after the end of the world story?  Tell me about it @seanriley on Twitter.

I Don't Know My Name (Music and Lyrics by Sean Riley)

I crash-landed on a lonely field under a steel grey sky
There’s blood on my hands and blood on my face (but I didn’t die)
I walk away from the smoldering wreck across the muddy plain
I don’t recognize this land anymore, I don’t know my name

I’m not a hero just lucky enough to outlive my death
I don’t have anything, don’t own anything but I can hold my breath
Pride pushed me to the stars and pride pulled me to earth
Will you still take me even after I’ve fallen and lost my worth