Everybody in my house has been sick the last week, but I still managed to get a song written. Turning in a quick and easy lo-fi laptop recording this week.
Nobody told you how to let the best ones go Nobody told you so how were you to know? There’s some things you can only learn the hard way
She looked so good until you saw the splinters in her eyes Well ain’t it awful but you just won’t compromise There’s some things you’ll just have to learn the hard way
Love has seen it all Love’s heard everything Love loves it all Love learned the hard way
Don’t try to count up all the ways you got it wrong All it amounts to is the will to carry on There’s some things you can only learn the hard way
So don’t you fear now, just take each breath for what it is And what it is is another unexpected gift There’s some things you’ll just have to learn the hard way
Love has seen it all Love’s heard everything Love loves it all Love learned the hard way
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
Life continues to be a bit crazy around here as we moved our oldest to college last week and two of us go back to school here at home (middle school lunch lady and high school sophomore). I mean not here at *home* but in our hometown. I mean not actually our town but the next one over, which is only a few blocks away. But I digress.
All that to say I’m still not back to finishing a song every week. This one was started last week and wrapped up and roughly recorded this week. Not one of my favorites but it’s just good to write again!
Here on the water in the middle of the land You can hear the wind, it’s whispering through the wings of birds above you And here in the forest surrounded by the trees You can feel the pulse of all the being things around you Ooooh. . . . and that’s called home
Deep in the hollows of your heavy heart There is still a song reverberating in this moment Lapsing synapses at the back of your brain Keep trying all the ways they know to tell the story how it goes Ooooh . . . . and that’s called life
And you You will be well You will find wisdom in the way of wonder
Here’s a song exploring the balance of individual freedom with community responsibility. The first lines came to me soon after I heard the news that Roe v. Wade had been overturned. They might just as easily have come from the mouth of an anti-masker a couple years ago. The next lines are a reminder that I have changed my opinion multiple times in my life and I’m likely to do it again – so I’m learning to hold less militantly to any position, and trying to pay closer attention and care to the people around me.
The prompt for this week 31 of #songaweek2022 was “armed and dangerous,” which brought to my mind the awful number of gun fatalities we’ve had right here in my city just this summer, not to mention the wider world.
The first lines of the little bridge at the end (“the rains come down and the floods go up”) came from a song I learned in Sunday School many years ago – about the wise man who built his house on a rock and the foolish one who built his house on the sand (thus the “sands of time” line for my further allusionary pleasure). I’m thinking here about actual flooding and wildfires, resulting from our foolish refusal to build sustainable systems that acknowledge our limits and our need to care for ourselves and our planet.
More than ever, I’m convinced that the way forward is the way of love – not blind sentiment but thoughtful, engaging, respectful and compassionate care for whoever I find myself facing, physically or virtually or however else, at the present moment.
Here’s something I read this week that I immediately cut and pasted in my notes, said by Valarie Kaur – “Listening does not grant the other side legitimacy. It grants them humanity—and preserves our own.”
I would probably do what they want me to But since they took away my right to choose I feel uneasy
So many things I used to rail against Now they kind of make some sense I take it easy
Think for yourself but please don’t stop there Think about everybody else
I’ve been trying hard to hear the truth But with all these voices shouting the news It isn’t easy
And the heat sets in and the tempers rise And the guns come out and somebody dies It’s far too easy
Think for yourself but please don’t stop there Think about everybody else
And the rains come down and the floods go up As we race against the sands of time And the fires burn and the tanks roll in And the wide world weeps and the hearts of humans break
Think for yourself but please don’t stop there Think about everybody else
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
Julia Bloom 