In 2015, a 26-year-old, heavyset refinery worker from Houston named Joseph Scott started uploading videos of himself pursuing his new hobby, skateboarding. Despite his late start and atypical build, his clips were a hit. He was pretty good! And he would do little narrations about why he crammed so much skateboarding into the hours between his gruelling shifts at work. About how happy it made him, how every trick was like a dream he could chase. He tagged his posts #dreamchasing.

The videos were filmed by his wife, who could be heard off camera, badgering him like a personal trainer about making his next trick and keeping his style in check. “Keep them hands down!” she would remind him, because they couldn’t abide the arm-flailing most skaters do to keep their balance while they roll away from a trick. The videos became a minor phenomenon, and he started tagging them with #handsdown and changed his username to J. Scott Handsdown.

They came to my attention when my son’s favourite pro skater, Shane O’Neill, reposted a clip of Scott’s wife barking instructions: “Nollie flip crook, with them hands down!” Shane tagged the repost #relationshipgoals. Within a few months, J. Scott was being flown out to California to skate with pros and film clips for skate website The Berrics. #Dreamchasing indeed.

Inevitably J. Scott overplayed his hand, quitting his job, trying to raise money for a company hawking Handsdown merchandise, chasing the wrong dream. But music is about memory, and we don’t have to remember every fall from grace and sad postmodern tragedy. In a song we can choose to remember those moments when people show us how to be happy, and how to love one another. 

This is a song about that.

  

Puddle Magic "Handsdown" (Spotify)

Puddle Magic "Handsdown" (YouTube)

Puddle Magic "Handsdown" (including lyrics) (Bandcamp)

Puddle Magic Chorus  (album) (iTunes)