Listening to Music by Sean is a podcast about meaning, wonder, connection and loss sounded out through music one song at a time. Each episode introduces an original piece of music revealing the conceptual and production context in which it was created.
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… Continue reading I So Believe In 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… Continue reading I Dream Concentric
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,… Continue reading God Beware
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… Continue reading Always Darkest
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… Continue reading She Said Yes
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… Continue reading Roll Big
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… Continue reading Let the Wolf
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… Continue reading Untethered
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… Continue reading Abeyance
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… Continue reading I Don’t Know My Name
Into Light is a song about the third option. If, as the many-worlds theory may suggest, every choice creates a new universe, then there is always another option. Ancient Irish lore celebrates the Tuatha De Danann people who avoided a hopeless battle by simply disappearing into light right before their enemy’s charge. It is rumored they… Continue reading Into Light
Stain is a song about un-acknowledge culpability. How do you right a wrong? How do you heal the transgressed? Some injustices violate so profoundly they can stain the heart of a generation erasing all optimism. Observers of atrocity reconciliation claim only a truthful acknowledgment of the crime can initiate healing and peace. However, giving statement… Continue reading Stain
Anatomical is a song about brevity. What is the half-life of a moment? How many moments span a life? The average human lives roughly 30,000 days. 30,000 days to grow, learn, work, live, love, and give. Currently, I have just over 10,000 days left. This feels abundant. So many moments, cups of coffee, glasses of wine,… Continue reading Anatomical
80s Leather Pants is a song about possessing a Talisman. Do you possess an object that makes you feel young or powerful? Do you believe luck can be gifted? In myth, a Talisman is a magical device such as a ring endowed with mystic energy to bless a life. At the beginning of an adventure,… Continue reading 80s Leather Pants
Underground is a song about depth. Myth paints the deep underground as a place of divine insight and spiritual transformation. Only in the starless black of the underworld do our heroes find truth’s light. Such brave voyages can also occur in our everyday lives through the emotional labor of generous and meaningful interaction. We exist in… Continue reading Underground
Cross the Horizon is a song about choice. Do we have free will? Maybe less than we like: Try deciding what your next thought will be. Do we have choice? Maybe more than we believe. Some choices are like event horizons, once taken all other options collapse, leaving only one inexorable path. So is… Continue reading Cross the Horizon
Hold Me is about reckless appeal. And your listening to Music by Sean. They say fear is an aphrodisiac, that we are most alive when dying, most attracted while trusting someone untrue. Near drowning victims speak of a clarity and stillness appearing just after the struggle just as inequitable liaisons provide glimpses of obsidian solace. In Hold… Continue reading Hold Me
I’m Falling is a love note to the song Space Oddity. Can you grow up loving a song? Can life have a soundtrack? Much of my childhood accompanied Bowie’s song Space Oddity. I believed in a world of space flight and science fiction whose evolved astronauts had the freedom to not be precisely defined. In… Continue reading I’m Falling
Machine of Change is a song about remaking the world. How do you change the world? How do you change your mind? In the song Machine of Change, I work though how such remaking starts with just a single spark of vulnerability invited not through force but by loving kindness. Believing in someone’s potential is… Continue reading Machine of Change
Little Light is a song about the light we sometimes see. Have you ever closed your eyes and seen a light? Not the subtle shimmering we all notice behind our eyelids, but a moment of pronounced light? Have you ever met someone new and had the sudden recognition that you two will be great friends, feeling… Continue reading Little Light
Shine is a song about transformation. I am inspired by the brave ones who live an authentic life out-loud. I am so heartened by those who are dealt a difficult path yet find their way. In the song Shine, I consider discontinuity and transformation through percussion loops and tape-based echo effects. We’ve all felt out of… Continue reading Shine
Green Flash at Sunset, a song about doing nothing. Who would you be if you had nothing to do? No problems to solve, questions to answer, or worries to resolve? Who would you be if the voice in your head continually telling the story of what is good or bad grew comfortably still. Who… Continue reading Green Flash at Sunset
Sean Riley created all music and content for Listening to Music by Sean. Learn more about Sean at SeanRiley.com