Liam Faucher

Young kids don't often write songs, and although I’m sure they'd be interesting to say the least, I've learned that it takes a certain kind of experience and time to do so. I started in the fourth grade, and when I look back on these songs they reek of unoriginality. That said, unoriginality means that there was influence. While I may not have known a lot about music, I did know the Beatles, and that was all that mattered.

Around the same time I started wanting to be just like my older brothers and began following their footsteps by taking piano lessons. Doug Lyon sat at the side of my piano every week, bearing with me while I stumbled through the building blocks that lead to my eventual independence. When I stopped taking piano lessons, I began teaching myself guitar – a trying and ignorant side effect of teenage angst.

One of my greatest role models, a man named Paul, once wrote in a letter that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. He said that hope does not put us to shame. Everybody comes to a point when they begin to open their eyes and see that things aren't as simple as they once seemed. And as cliché as it sounds, high school was introduced alongside the birth of real pain, real questions and real experience. I began to understand that living life is a lot bigger than people make it out to be. To my absolute advantage, I was able to begin taking refuge in the honesty that many of my favourite artists sang. They sang about persevering in suffering and finding out who they were in hard times. They sang about feeling hopeless, but would also sing about finding hope. I realized through music that we're all broken, and we cannot fix ourselves by our strength. We're meant to love each other through life, to sing each other through the good and the bad. This realization is what keeps me learning and writing music.

Being a young, small-town musician has its down sides. It's funny how determined you can be to pull off something as insignificant as a half-hour set to a crowd of twenty people when you've spent years writing songs and wishing every day that you could play them for people. Eventually, my time came, and I started to play alongside musicians that I looked up to. Forming two bands in my last four years has lead to some of my fondest memories. When you don't take yourself too seriously as a musician, it doesn't matter if other people take you seriously or not - you're just there to play a good song and have fun doing it with people you love.

I will always enjoy busking downtown, playing a show at The Arts Station or contributing to local events. I love that we as a community are given such a rich variety of musicians year round, and I truly wish that there would be more of an audience. The shows I've seen throughout my childhood have inspired me and helped to form me as an artist. This town is great for music and so many of us aren't listening.

While I often can't remember what I had for breakfast the previous morning, I can look at a song I wrote three or five years ago and know exactly what experience or feeling inspired it. I’m more interested in spending my life helping and serving people than playing shows and recording albums. Though it’s a dream of mine, I'm certain that if I keep writing songs somebody will always be there to listen. And even if I'm the only one listening, I will count every moment of my musical life a blessing, because music is certainly a gift. Everybody has experience to put on paper, imagination to bring their thoughts to life and melody, and most importantly ears to hear what the honest musicians are singing.

May The Thunder Roll
There's a lion at the door says he knows my name.
Hadn't seen him in a while I was glad he came,
Till he burnt my whole house down.
Forty days and nights to rebuild my heart,
Started believing in God and brand new starts
Till he pulled, pulled me down.
And she rains, she rains down.
The lion did his work though I know his game,
Talks like love but he never stays.
It’s so hard to stop.
There's a church in the corner of the field and I
Never wanted that home to leave my eyes.
It cried, “Forget me not.”
It cried “Forget me not.”

May the thunder roll. May the thunder roll.
May the thunder roll me home.

Said the Father, “My son it is time to leave,
Must forsake my own, fulfill prophecy.
I know it doesn't feel like love.”
But there is no greater love than he died for me,
Makes the petty tone drown out my apology.
I just wish I felt strong enough.

May the thunder roll. May the thunder roll.
May the thunder roll me home.

Stories
I have always been waiting on the sun to set.
Thought I didn't mind the free ones passing by me,
Thought I was content.
Thought what I was seeing was a picture of who you had become.
Thank God I found I was looking in a mirror I had taken from
All the stories I had written for myself.

You and me, we used to talk but I almost forget.
You've moved on and I miss those times but no regrets.
I believe in fear, but I'm scared to admit that I'm not afraid anymore.
I'm insecure because everyone keeps changing what they're living for.
I know it’s hard to turn these pages but don't skip right to the end.
It’s been ages, it’s time to smile again.

Breathe in, breathe out.
When in doubt, sing it loud.
Some things are better left alone than fought for.
No sad songs anymore.

The Tide
Building castles in the sand.
Airplanes and parachutes in the sky.
If the tide comes in and washes away our home,
I'll tell you that I tried.

I'll put flowers in your hair.
We'll sing when we're lonely, we'll sing when we're scared.
If I leave too early and I can see it in your eyes,
I'll tell you that I tried.

If we dream too many dreams,
If you wake up one day and it seems
That I'm still dreaming with open eyes,
I'll tell you that I tried.

If I told you that I loved you
Too many times it was still true.
I played it all wrong, but I never lied,
When I told you that I tried.

It's never easy to have to say goodbye,
But I promise that I tried.