The Song is the Thing by Phil Hogg (Cover Version) @martinjameskelly

Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

Phil Hogg Version
youtu.be/7rjFktcoiOo?si=_PcfcMrOM6yzTQ6-

The Song is the Thing by Phil Hogg (Cover Version)
Gospel Folk of the Dome Version

The song is the thing
Let people sing
For joy
For sorrow
For connection
Something to share
Something to pass on

Singing all life
Its ups and downs
Something to share
Something to pass on
Something to celebrate

A fado singer
Deep in thought and time
In a cave of stone
Walls that have heard it all
Singing of life
Highs and lows
You can hear the heartbeat
Echoing
Echoing, echoing

The song is the thing
Let people sing
For joy
Something to pass on
Something to love
Something to share
Something to celebrate

The song is the thing
Let people sing
Let people sing
Let people sing
Let people sing

$Songwriting Songwriting class begins the same An envelope with my name A check I slide across the desk Beside a song I’ve second-guessed We read the lines out loud and slow She asks me what I meant to show We sit with words that don’t feel right And try to turn them toward the light Sometimes I wonder as we start If something shifts inside the art If it begins with a transaction Does it lose a little fraction Of the quiet, sacred spark That first flickered in the dark? Can my song still be meaningful If it’s part of something paid for? Or is it simply what we do To help a fragile thing come through? They say a song should stand alone That truth is best when grown at home But singers train and runners fall And no one learns without a call Even healers seek a guide When doubt is heavy at their side So why should music be the one That must be born from only one? Still it lingers in my chest That small uneasiness at rest If it begins with a transaction Does it dull the first reaction? Or is payment just a frame For tending carefully a flame? Is the spark diminished there Or simply handled with more care? Maybe money isn’t sin Just the door we’re entering Some say the truest songs are free Wolves howling endlessly Or orcas calling through the sea Wind chimes stirred by mystery But wolves don’t wonder if they’re heard And whales don’t weigh a single word They sing because they have to sing Not asking what the cost might bring If it begins with a transaction Maybe that’s just human action We trade our hours, trade our skill To help each other climb a hill Maybe art is still as true When someone walks the path with you And maybe grace is not undone By how the work is finally done So I slide the envelope once more Pull out my rough draft as before And somewhere in the give and take A better song begins to wake$

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