Learning to Sing Hearing the Music in Your Life

CHAPTER ONE Listen First When I was a kid, the punishment I disliked the most was writing sentences. My mother loved to make me record my transgressions always a minimum of five hundred timesand she even bought special spiral notebooks for me to fill up. "I will not talk back." "I will not say my dinner is yucky." "I will not say Granny's face needs ironing." No matter how many notebooks I went through, there was always another one waiting in the kitchen drawer. I'm not sure writing sentences stopped me from acting out. But it did make me afraid of writing. Still, here goes. I wanted to write this book primarily as a thank-you to all the people who have helped me become the man I am. So much has happened since American Idol, and in many ways I haven't had an opportunity to reflect. I have toured three times. I have moved twice. I've flown across the country to appear on television programs that I used to watch. I recorded a solo album. A chicken with his head cut off has nothing on me. My hope is that by writing this book, I will force myself to slow down a little and take the time to savor both the past and the present, to give myself a chance to remember what matters. I also wanted to share stories about my life in the hope that it might enable a handful of other people to feel better about themselves. I was dubbed a loser throughout most of my childhood. As a kid, I was an insult magneta nerd who loved his grandparents, who wore the wrong clothes, who liked the wrong things, who had goofy hair and glasses, who didn't smoke or drink. It made for a lonely childhood. More than a decade later, I figured out that the real reason people didn't like me was that I didn't like me. When I learned to believe in myself, to have faith and to remain stubborn in my convictions, my life changed. Once I decided I was okay, other people agreed. And those folks who didn't agree didn't matter so much anymore. My mother taught me that we all have the power to achieve our dreams. What I lacked was the courage. The people I write about in this book gave me that courage. I learned from them, and as a former teacher, I believe that lessons should be passed along. Many people think they know me from watching me on television, and in some ways they do. I like to think that what you see is basically who I am. I like to talk. I'm a terrible dancer. I love my hometown. I have freckles and oversized ears. I'm a geek. I have tried not to hide who I am or what matters to me. Growing up in a friendly Southern town, I wasn't trained for subterfuge. My mama believed in honesty and integrity, and I have endeavored to live up to her example. No person matures by himself. We have all had someone who reached down and picked us up when we couldn't manage to rise on our own. We have all been carried. I know I have been. I was blessed with a mother who is strong, smart, and filled with the sort of decency that is out of fashion these days. Her fortitude enabled me to rise above circumstances that otherwise would have crushed me. "Que sera, sera," she would sing to me every night as I drifted off to sleep. "Whatever will be, will be." Mom helped me to see that every person is like a painting. When you come into contact with another life, that individual dabs a little bit of color onto your soul. It isn't always a color you like, but even ugliness provides its own lessons. I learned this the hard way. There was no shortage of ugliness in my childhood. My daddy drank too much, and when he did, he turned to violence. Mom and I spent much of my early childhood diAiken, Clay is the author of 'Learning to Sing Hearing the Music in Your Life', published 2004 under ISBN 9781400063925 and ISBN 1400063922.