I Sat Down to Practice, but Wrote a Song Instead

I think it was 1965. I was maybe 15. Maybe younger. But I remember the piano.

It was an old upright—Canadian-made, a Heintzman. My parents had bought it for my sister, because girls were suppose to play piano (according to them) but I kind of took it over. I played that thing day and night. My mother called it “banging.” She’d shout from the kitchen, “Stop the banging!” But I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t tear myself away.

It started with trying to learn piano, but the truth is, as soon as I was playing, I was writing. The two things—playing and writing—were the same motion, the same instinct. I’d sit down to do a Bartók exercise and end up, an hour later, with a song instead. I never got far with the Bartók. I guess I had too much to say.

At some point, my father—who, instead of buying things, always wanted to build his own—brought home a stereo tape recorder. Just for a little while. Two small plastic mics, a red button, and suddenly I could hear myself back. That changed everything. I was hooked.

00:00

Hushabye and Goodnight 1

03:48

This is the first song I remember recording—just one take, live with the mics sitting near the piano. No editing. In fact there’s some piano leaking into the vocal mic, because it’s all recorded at once. That song came from somewhere deep—maybe loneliness, maybe teenage confusion. We didn’t use words like “mental health” back then. But music? That was the thing that kept me alive.

Here is a photo of me at around that age with my first (very cheap) Kent guitar! Bought in a pawn shop in Toronto, and fell apart while I was playing it :-)

I grew up in a difficult household, in a time and place that didn’t know what to do with difference. Toronto in the ’60s was still a WASP city. I didn’t look like the other kids. I didn’t sound like them. I didn’t belong. And when you don’t belong, you need something to hold onto. For me, that was music.

My parents were political—left-wing, union people, McCarthy survivors. So I was raised on Odetta, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie. Songs with purpose. Protest songs. Music that stood for something. I think that spirit stayed with me. Writing songs wasn’t just a hobby—it was a way of making sense of myself. Of connecting to something bigger. Or maybe, just someone.

Because when I wrote this early song, I didn’t have a girlfriend. I wasn't in a band – that would come later. I was singing it for myself. Maybe to soothe myself. I don’t know for sure. Maybe to imagine safety, connection—being seen, being held. That’s the thing about songwriting: you learn things about yourself you didn’t know were there. The song becomes a mirror.

Eventually, people started showing up to shows. Not a huge crowd—but someone would come once, then again, and again. And you realize: something’s happening here. You’re not so alone anymore.

I never did finish those Bartók etudes. But I wrote a lifetime of songs instead.

And maybe, in a strange way, that was the exercise. So here's close to where it started for me. I wanted to share this early piece with you.