Very limited time to write this week but I was feeling inspired in the afternoon I allotted myself today to write and record this song. For spring, for Easter, for love and life . . .
Pick up your questions and put down your weapons And don’t be afraid anymore There’s something to see here if you care to be here Don’t be afraid anymore
Oh . . . love’s alive
The birds are returning, the babies are learning Don’t despair today The cold ice is breaking the warm earth is waking Don’t despair today
Oh . . love’s alive
Share with your neighbor, welcome the stranger Believe you have enough Give yourself mercy, be patient dear person Believe you are enough
Last night I turned off the news and played classical music while I made dinner. Sometimes no words, only music, is exactly what I need. This week, #songaweek2021 week 12, I wanted to make my own wordless music with the instrument I feel most proficient at, my voice. I used a black screen for the video so if you are so inclined, you may want to put the video on full screen – let your screen go black and feel the music. This is my cry of a song for this young year already freighted with so much grief.
Every year for Good Friday my church puts out a call to artists to choose one of the seven last words of Christ and share something based on the particular last words they chose. For now our church is doing everything online – mostly Facebook Live – including the upcoming Good Friday service. I was getting ready to sign up for “Into your hands I commend my spirit,” and started writing the words to this song, before I realized our family’s plan to go camping that weekend will negate my ability to do any livestreaming that day.
Still, I liked what I had started and decided to go ahead and make it my song for week 11 of #songaweek2021.
Every winter I think I’m dying Come the spring I feel like trying Trying again In the summer I know I’m living Go to fall it all starts giving Giving out, gone On and on and on and on
Chasing down the speed of light Face pressed up to window staring out of my existence Back against the wall of furious insistence Into your hands Into your hands I commend my spirit
Every night’s an invitation To a sweet obliteration Of all that I think I should be In the morning I remember Dreams that fade like dying embers Light as dry leaves Leaving, left, and lost
Chasing down the speed of light Face pressed up to window staring out of my existence Back against the wall of furious insistence Into your hands Into your hands I commend my spirit
“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do” randomly popped into my head this week, along with a tune. So I followed it out and wrote this song for week 10 of #songaweek2021. Recorded on a rainy day in March in my basement studio, the perfect kind of day to spend in a basement studio!
“A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do” That’s what you said but i don’t think it’s true Somebody somewhere’s been lying to you All your living life
Drop what you’re fighting and give me your hand Let’s just relax for now Follow me down where the waves meet the land You’ve been waiting all your life somehow
“The bigger they are the harder they fall” But that don’t seem right cause I’m feeling so small I don’t know if you can hear me at all All my living life
It’s never been easy for me to explain Let’s just go somewhere new Follow me hard like a runaway train I’ve been waiting all of my life too
Out of the frying pan into the fire Let’s just keep breathing now Over the limit and under the wire We’ve been broken open anyhow
Something about you, something about me Something about the wind in the trees Nothing much out of the ordinary All our living lives
Come with me, run with me, under the sun Let’s just embrace the day Follow me close and I’ll try to keep up Life is for the living anyway
We’ve been in a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sort of mood around the house lately – Nathan and I just finished watching the fabulous Runnin Down a Dream documentary with our 17-year-old Luthien who is deep into schooling herself in the history of rock and roll, especially 90s music. (You can watch that documentary free at the Crackle link I attached to it!)
All that to say, I owe a good deal of the sound of this song to Tom and the band. The song itself came together surprisingly quickly; it felt as if I’d been carrying around this nebulous muck that got heavier over the winter, and somehow getting myself inside the head of the thing that was messing around in my head turned into this incredibly freeing, actually joyful-feeling rock song about aging and decay and everything as I know it falling apart.
Oh and Nathan added a plethora of guitar tracks, drums and bass (and he sang!) which certainly added to the joy for both of us in making this song! This is what being 45 feels like today, and I’m quite alright with it.
You’ve got sparkle, you’ve got spunk You’ve got apocalyptic piles of pixie punk I’m gonna dumb you down and lay you low You won’t believe what hit you but I think you’ll know
Take it easy, it’s just a matter of time Don’t take it personally, I’m gonna mess with your mind
Now you’re older, you think you’re so smart You’re just a rusted cage around a broken-down heart I’m gonna chill your bones and haunt your dreams With ghosts of chances and washed-up schemes
Take it easy, it’s just a matter of time Don’t take it personally, I’m gonna mess with your mind
You could turn back but why would you want to? Nothing to see but visions of what might have been
So what you got now? What you gonna do With whatever is left, is left up to you I’ll keep right on rolling like I always do And for a little while I might remember you
Take it easy, it’s just a matter of time Don’t take it personally, I’m gonna mess with your mind Take it easy, it’s just a matter of time Don’t take it personally, nobody said I was kind
Julia Bloom 