At last, my #songaweek2022 group used a photo for a prompt instead of a word or phrase. This felt like a game-changer to me in terms of connecting with a prompt for inspiration. I think the photo was of the Great Wall of China, but I thought of a road, then of the song from The Hobbit that starts, “the road goes ever on and on. . . ” and I went from there.
I felt like deliberately slowing down in the writing and playing of this song, and so I did.
If you listen closely and/or with headphones you might be able to hear the crickets singing along outside the open window.
The road goes ever on And over it a song That if you hear will draw you near to where you never know where you might go
The day lies before you And with it much to do But there’s a song that draws you on To where you always know you’re going home
The ground carries your load The clouds catch evening’s glow They’re changing you, and changed by you Till everything will never be the same
Short and sweet (or bittersweet?) this week – an old poem by Charles Kingsley that lent itself very well to a folk song vibe.
When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down; Creep home, and take your place there, The spent and maimed among: God grant you find one face there, You loved when all was young.
Last week, after the mass shooting in Buffalo and before the one in Uvalde, my (Lutheran) church confirmed three teenagers including my daughter. A foundational part of Lutheran theology, our pastor said that day, is that we are all “simultaneously saint and sinner.” At the end of the liturgy, we stood and responded together:
Do you renounce the devil and all forces that defy God? We renounce them. Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God? We renounce them. Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God? We renounce them.
Our pastor reminded us of these words again after Uvalde. I had a different song started this week but in the dreadful light of these events and with this faith to guide me, this is the one I needed to write.
When you can’t pretend that all is well but you can’t believe that it’s all wrong Hold on Hold on
When you can’t believe humanity But you can’t pretend you’re innocent Let go Let go
We renounce the evil in the heart of us We believe the healing comes from all of us Hold on Let go
When we have no words for what we’ve done But we understand intimately Let go Let go
When we feel the night is all there is But we know the dawn always comes Hold on Hold on
We renounce the evil in the heart of us We believe the healing comes from all of us Hold on Let go
Some good time is what you need to listen to this song because it’s a bit long (just over five and a half minutes, that is not pop music hit material!). And like many weeks, I wish I had more time to add some more instrumentation, especially for this song, because I think it would have made it more interesting listening.
Instead I turned to Rockwell Kent for some beautiful artwork to linger with as the song plays.
Not much I have to say about the writing process for this one, except maybe that I did enjoy the process as it unfolded, yup, in good time. I started early in the week with the musical idea, got a few lyrics going, but couldn’t get much traction in that first session. Let it brew in the back of my mind for a day, did some more writing, took a walk, added a bit, started a different song out of frustration, came back to this one, and eventually ended up with something I feel good about.
Emily Dickinson wrote “there’s a certain slant of light,” which I first heard in a Vigilantes of Love song called “Certain Slant of Light” (from which one of my favorite song lyrics of all time comes – “Tell me your deep, dark secret / Hey, and I will tell you mine / Oh, is that your deep, dark secret? / Oh well, never mind”).
So I owe part of this song to Emily Dickinson and Bill Mallonee. And part to all the birds who’ve been waking me at 4:30 in the morning with their sweet songs. And many more parts to many more lives. Everything’s connected.
Oh the truth we trade for money Oh the lies we speak for love Oh the happiness remembered When the birds come back There’s a lot to tell our children and it costs us all we are Oh we stutter and we stumble We expand and crack
In good time, in good time It comes out right somehow In good time, in good time It all comes true in the end In good time
There’s a comfort comes in darkness There’s a certain slant of light There’s a patient tender sadness That can bear no name And you hold it like a baby And you breathe it like a prayer And you keep it like a practice That transforms your pain
That’s the title of this song because that was the line it was built around. I liked the inner rhyme of it, which I used as a form factor for the three lyrically different choruses.
I’ve been chipping away at writing this one for several weeks, and this week, Week 17 of #songaweek2022, the prompt of “couldn’t if I tried” actually helped me to finish the song.
Must give credit to H.G. Wells for the last verse. I’m pretty sure I’ve quoted this same passage of his novel Mr. Britling Sees It Through previously in this blog, and I know I included similar lines in another song I wrote. It’s just good! And feels especially timely right now. Wells was writing about World War I (“the war to end all wars”), and here we are a century later hearing “World War Three” tossed around on the news.
“War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and now—I am not dreaming—it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through. . . “
H.G. Wells, Mr. Britling Sees It Through
The whole world’s gone mad like it always was Like it means to be forever It’s the way we roll Through the cosmic night Oh we spin and we spin all day
When I was generous I could believe we could help each other out of disgrace Since I got cynical I can’t even see your hand in front of my face
Let’s lay off the news for a little while I don’t need to know the latest Leave me in the dark Underneath this rock Let me just catch my breath today
When I was envious I couldn’t see all the beauty right in front of my eyes Now that I’m out of time I find I believe we all can shine in the same sky
Come stand with me under the canopy Of a thousand points of light Breaking through the dark Of the threadbare night Till it’s bright with the newborn day
It wouldn’t be good for me And I couldn’t if I tried to keep my life all to myself So spill it out willingly Flowers will grow up from the dirt where it fell
Julia Bloom 