In 2007 Paul Kloschinsky won the Music Aid Award for Best Canadian Songwriter. He resides in BC, Canada. I remember when I used to live in Canada the air was fresh and everything seem to have an extra sensitivity to the nature around us. Paul’s latest release, “Woodlands” has that same authenticity.

Each song has an unique feel to it. It is mellow and dreamy. There are some enticing guitar solos and picturesque lyrics. I can see why he won an award for his songwriting skills. He has an interesting way to tell a story with his droning melodies that leave lasting impressions.

The CD was appropriately titled. It is a journey through undiscovered territory. The music takes you on a pleasant stroll in the back woods and gives an appreciation for the world around us. The CD is as natural as the air we breathe.

Paul Kloschinsky’s CD, “Woodlands” is worth a listen. It provokes a sense of foreboding and then offers a comfortable resolution through melody and story telling. This CD is a 45 minute ride through atmospheric music. He claims it was a decade in the making. Within that time each song has grown into a life of its own.

Rebecca Hosking

Woodlands Interview

Then I thought I’d zoom back and express some aspects of society that make people sad, and wrote the lyrics for the second verse. “The wind blows the wasted words that were tried, Down to the poets who fought as they died, Wearin’ Blue” was based on the work of some of my favourite poets, including Walt Whitman and Goethe, and how so many people make the same mistakes they always do, in spite of the words of the great poets.

I then decided that with all the sadness I’d like to express some simple hope, and went from A minor to the relative major C major and tried to write a simple melody that expressed hope. That became the bridge.

Finally, for the third verse, I decided to reread some favourite passages from Goethe’s autobiography “Poetry and Truth”, which was rich in evocative autumn imagery. After reading this, I came up with my own autumn imagery, where I tried to express the melancholy and sadness a lot of people feel in the fall. The end of the third verse,” Autumn of sorrow, you stole my tommorrow, and left me to sweep up the ruins” was inspired by my knowledge of Seasonal Affective Disorder as a physician, where people suffer major depressive episodes in the dark, cold autumn and winter months.

This song won the 2007 MusicAid Award for Best Canadian Songwriter. I have a music video for it and some other songs, and if you have a moment, I would appreciate you checking them out on YouTube and leaving your comments. The link is www.youtube.com/kloschin1.

Fans of Bob Dylan will rejoice at discovering Paul Kloschinsky. His songwriting style is much like Dylan’s though vocally, I’d choose Paul. At times, though, on songs like All I’m Hopin’ For, you may think you are listening to a young Dylan.

The song Wearin’ Blue won him the MusicAid award for songwriting in 2007 in Canada as well as being a semi-finalist in a UK songwriting contest.

Good folk songs are more like poetry than most songs, and Paul knows that, and with Woodlands he creates a more than listenable album. Some stand out tracks besides the award winning Wearin’ Blue are In My Mind, All I’m Hopin’ For and the Gordon Lightfoot-esque Like Nothin’ Before.

Also, like Dylan and Lightfoot, Kloschinsky doesn’t have a perfect voice. At times its very gravely, but it provides character to the songs he’s singing. This may not be for everyone, as those kinds of voices are an acquired taste.

Besides being a talented songwriter and performer, Kloschinsky also shot the photography for the cover art. Pretty impressive!

You can purchase Paul’s album Woodlands @ Amazon Mp3

A Time To Cry Interview

Artist: Paul Kloschinsky
Reviewers Name: Julian Gorman

Rating:  4/5 stars

Title of Review: Woodlands Magic

Review Summary:

Woodlands is a consummate work of art where prodigy Paul Kloschinsky writes, sings, plays guitar, harmonica, produces and even shoots photography for the album cover to create a very cohesive folk album.  Intense lyrics explore a wide range of subject matter that is both timeless and elucidating with natural common sense wisdom.

The first thing one notices about Paul Kloschinsky is consummate creativity.  A poet, artist, photographer, singer-songwriter, and producer, to name but a few occupations, the album Woodlands is a renaissance of expression all from one illustrious performer.  For a moment at the beginning, one is thrown off a bit by the lamentation of life and the coarse vocals, but soon swept up by intensifying strings and piano welling up under the acoustic guitar, everything is in its place.  Wearin’ Blue harkens to blues and folk dirges circa 1960s style, acoustic and harmonica, but most important, lyrics that strum a chord deep down in the soul.  Paul never just writes a blues melody, or a love song, as the introspection is always considering different perspectives.  As opposed to the common stereotype of blue being depression, here we are talking about sorrow, a concept all but lost on a satiated culture.  The real definition of blue is mystic, and fits mythos made in ancient Gaelic or perhaps Hebrew lore more then anything modern.  For these ancient traditions, the color blue was multifaceted pertaining to all the aspects of life shaped by the spirit of the color.  The Blue magic, as it is becoming pop-classified, is typically animalistic, and pertains to natural common sense for survival.  They are a less spoken of class somewhere between bards, druids, and ovates in Irish lore, taking some skill from each practice and combining them with a wild style, like a wise old hermit.  Also, the blue is somewhat literal, as the tuatha Gorm (my own ancient surname, literally means blue in Gaelic, if a reference is necessary) were renowned for running into battle painted blue.  You may recognize this from Braveheart, which casually ripped off the heritage, and portrayed it completely wrong; my family ran into battle, weapons in hand, blue and naked.  So when Kloschinsky sings “And the wind blows the wasted words that were tried, down to the poets who fought as they died, wearing blue” thinking of my family, it brought me to tears.  I can see the millions, not only of my own lineage, but any natives who stood up for their beliefs in nature, and I am right there with him.  The tragedy of all the witches and forest people, decimated by the new righteous politico religioso by any name, pick an invader; pick any paranoid reason to massacre the innocent for thousands of years.  Generation after generation throwing themselves at the great evolving armies of the world, and yet they carried on saving a multitude of natural wonders merely by living side by side with their environments.  Wearin’ Blue is an epic of much sorrow, but understand it is a victory song, redemption of sorts, as the miracle is that these old poems still exist at all.  Not all the might of all the empires that ever stood could stop the bards from singing on.  Long live the Woodlands!

Especially refreshing is Kloschinsky’s ability to mix natural metaphors of the wilderness with modern cultural problems to offer elucidation.  Songs like Woodlands, In My Mind, and Whisper of the Wild Weeds give simple explication. “Take a moment, breath the air.  It’ll keep you hangin’ on.”  It may sound silly, but the worst thing anyone can do in a bad situation is to clench up and hyperventilate.  Remembering to take the moment, to actually breath fully, to think instead of panic, is perhaps one of the biggest problems we face.  Paired with simple practical advice are the more abstract metaphors of nature, specifically elementals.  How quick are we to forget how each bit of nature is required to sustain us.  Kloschinsky sees a different world then most.  It is clear from his poetry that the natural world is not only very much alive, but that it all flows through us.  This is why Paul’s folk-flow is language piercing, adding multiple definitions to each subject, always changing perspective to consider the truth, and the honest truth is unspeakable, forever changing.

Beyond the natural world is the nature of culture.  “Have you heard the tale of the princess who was jailed in a dark dirty prison where she cried a thousand sleepless nights for the many who had died but fought bravely by her side to the end?”  The epic story in the song Seven Riders seems to reach backward through time to mystic history when kingdoms were first being built, and still touches any timeline, as one could picture a new Americas being torn apart by settlers, the princess could just as easily be a cowboy’s sweetie or a native’s beloved.  The story is a Mad Libs of every “rescue the princess” type of scenario that ever took place throughout time.  It is difficult to even find stories or poetry on this level of epic odyssey.  Paul Kloschisky’s works seem to emulate the courage of Homer’s Odyssey, especially the imagery of An Anchor from the Race, yet there is something more there as crazy dreams are allowed to seep into the storyline.  A better comparison may be an emerging James Joyce right around the time Ulysses was being written.  Ulysses was the commoner’s Odyssey.  The peregrinations of the main characters in Kloschinsky’s songs are universal in application just as the affairs found throughout Joyce, or even Dostoyevsky, as the everyday hum-drum life becomes the living natural world, and that every character in life has an equal opportunity to be the hero, the villain, or anything between.  With this sort of egoless thinking, elemental understanding, and poetic elegance, Paul Kloschinsky is an amazing story teller.  Be it poem, song or art, The Woodlands has been crafted with such deftness that one might say it was grown.  The spirit of nature is accurately recorded and translated for us in a way that provides a new take on old answers to many social ills, as coming from the environment and common sense.  Not only is it a great album, but a voice that must be heard in this climate of post-modernity mechanization madness.  All the resources are gathered around us and now we simply suffer from a lack of good resolutions to our vices.  Paul’s wisdom seems to indicate that the key to life is natural and all around, if you but take the time to notice, you will survive.  Perhaps that is the secret of blue magic that earned them the title “Immortals.”  Woodlands is a timeless album, protected by the wisdom of love for nature and life, validated with the suffering of all who cleared the way before, a blue hymnus of truth.

My Mind Howls

My mind howls at the night.

Ablaze with vibrant colors,

in conversation with ghosts,

attacked by bands of thieves,

a withdrawal into my labyrinth,

in heroic struggle with slippery beasts,

grasping women who vanish,

the urban lights a sensuous seduction.

Leading me to wander

through cold city streets,

where my hunger is unsatisfied,

and irritable from my failure

I become autistic and perplexed

and they drag me to the hospital

and put me on medicine.

My Parent’s Grief

I was too busy chasing demons

to even notice them.

The shining lights of the city

reflected on the water

like a candlelight vigil.

Then the attacks by the rabid beasts;

with the fights,

and crucifixions,

and confusion.

It was only later

in the hospital,

bound and medicated,

that I noticed -

my father’s graying hair,

my mother’s wrinkling face,

and the deep sorrow

and concern

in both their eyes;

blanketing me like

Mary at Jesus’s death.

Lost Love

Your splendor lives on in my mind tonight,

The soft glow of your face as you climbed the stairs.

No harsh lines leaped forth in the dim moonlight

Or ungraceful moves, just the curls in your hair.

We laughed and we danced and you held my hand tight,

With a bond that I thought should never end,

Soon the music ended and something so right

Was left hanging in thin air, a prayer to send.

So how was I to know you were attached,

With husband and child that both hold you dear,

All I knew is that we were perfectly matched,

My heart leapt though they say I can’t draw you near.

I didn’t know what to say or how far I’d get,

But your face drew first blood from the moment we met.

In addition to being a poet, I am also a songwriter and photographer. I won the 2007 MusicAid Award for Best Canadian Songwriter for my original song “Wearin’ Blue. Here is a music video of that song. Images by Paul Kloschinsky, iStock and Shutterstock. Used with permission. My first album, “Woodlands” is available on iTunes.