Better Be Quiet Now
Brad Mehldau
Time Out Ten
For this item you need to be able to stop for ten minutes.
We are often moving on to the next job, the next meeting, scrolling down social media, taking the next call ......'Time Out Ten' asks you to stop for ten minutes and listen to a particular piece of music; to find a time when you won't be interrupted, when you can put in/on your headphones and chill out. Ten minutes isn't long.
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What a great track title from Brad Mehldau's forthcoming album Ride Into The Sun due out at the end of August. This song, composed by Elliott Smith, is actually about a romantic break-up where the singer still has a long way to go distancing from their lost love, but for our ten-minute break, let's just concentrate on the title and Brad Mehldau's playing. It is not always easy to find somewhere quiet, but worth it just to stop for breath.
'Shrin yoku' is an idea in Japan that means ‘forest bathing’, or enjoying the calm and quiet of being in a forest. It is another way of taking time out ten if you have trees nearby ...
The forest is a special kind of still.
In the quiet of the trees.
I breathe deep as roots.
My mood grows as bright
as the light
that streams through leaves.
My thoughts open like buds.
I let my worries rest on softest moss.
The forest is a special kind of still
and in the quiet of the trees
I become
a special kind of me.
Kate Wakeling from
A Dinosaur at the Bus Stop (Otter-Barry Books)
© Sandy Brown Jazz 2025.7