Hi, guys & girls.

So you want to know about me? Where shall I begin? Let's me see....

"It all began a long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and...."

Oops! Sorry, wrong story.

My name is Jimmy. I am a Chinese-Australian. Though I was born in Hong Kong, I have lived in Melbourne as long as I can remember. I was not even 2 years old when I arrived on these shores.

Yes, yes. I know. I always get amused look when I tell them my family name. "Joe" is not a Chinese name, but you can blame it on some dumb authorities for misspelling our family name. Anyway, I am stuck with it.

I spend my spare time, writing a website on mythology, called Timeless Myths, where I retell mythology from Greek, Roman, Norse and Celtic literature. There is also a section devoted to the legends of King Arthur and his knights.

Because I have been unemployed for over 6 months, I had to do government-funded program. There was a limited choice of what programs that I could choose, but I thought that the Creative Music Production looked very interesting, which I joined in September 2002, under the direction of James Hollands.

I had really thought that I would only be assisting with recording, setting up equipment and making the cover for the CD. When James told us that I was to write at least one song for the album, I thought "Oh, God! What on earth did I get myself into now?"

The sort of music that I like to listen to, include songs from U2, Crowded House, Icehouse, Midnight Oil, Police, and lots of other songs from other artists that I can't remember. I like listening to music, but I don't know how to distinguish or catagorise music by their styles (ie. rock, pop, R&B, etc). I supposed some are rock, and some of them maybe pop or R&B. I guess I don't like country and heavy metal music (sorry, I don't mean to offend anyone). Anyway, I like listening to music, but I have never given any thought to writing a song of my own.

Of all those who took part in the program with me, I would have to say that I am the least musical person in our small team. I have never sung before, and whatever musical instruments (mostly guitar) I had learned in high school, I have completely forgotten how to play...in any case, I was dreadful.

James was saying that anyone and everyone could write a song, but of course, my stubborn head kept chanting: "This can't be done, this can't be done." I almost proved James that he was wrong about songwriting, because I could clearly see that he was getting more and more frustrated with me after 5 or 6 weeks of songwriting.

I struggled with learning the concept of writing a song. My biggest problem was finding inspiration of what I want to write about and then filling the lines. Not only that, I have to write something that appeal to everyone; something that they can relate to. It had taken me weeks of scribbling all sorts of rubbish, before I decided what the theme of the song, and another few weeks before I had something written down that made sense. I suppose that writing a website on mythology, helped me to some extent with my song writing. And no, I didn't write any song about mythology.

I had decided to write a song about friendship. Since we live in a world where we can keep in contact with friend through the Internet, such as email and chatrooms, I got this inspiration about one special friend from Spain, whom I keep in contact through letters and postcards. The song is called You Changed My Life.

Again, I don't know whether my song is rock, soft rock or pop. But that's not really important, I'd guess. I've got one song on the album, and that's an achievement, in itself. Who knows, I may even have another song before the project ends. (Not likely, but anything is possible.)

Luckily for you, I didn't sing when we recorded my song. *grin* James Hollands wrote the music and sung this song for me. So I hope that you have patience with my song and enjoy the rest of the album.

Ciao,

  – Jimmy