A Key Part
Cliff Hocker is a journalist, singer and composer who lives in Richmond VA. He also enjoys gardening and photography.
Self-portrait. Cliff Hocker
Cliff sent a photograph of snowy camellias to illustrate his "A Key Part" song. The imagery is beautiful but ominous.
Camellias in the Snow, Cliff Hocker
When we heard Cliff’s voice, we understood what "singing your heart out" means. A self-avowed amateur, Cliff has a voice that’s striking in its complete lack of affectation: its earnest simplicity and humility. He says he "sings the best he can." His lyrics, likewise, are written without calculating the relative cleverness of metaphors.
His “delicate attention” lyric is a key part of this song. With “delicate attention,” we ease tiny sprouts from containers and carefully transplant them into the earth. Such close attention applied to anything is the clarity of pure being and love.
"Each one, a key part of a greater whole," is the song’s key point and the rejoinder is ‘teach a green heart how good-will grows." These and other lyrics are key to cultivating balanced lives and systems on what Cliff calls a "bleeding globe." Let’s take it, he sings, into “our healing hands.”
