Faith and doubt

Don’t Go

March 11, 2022 — 1 Comment

I generated several song ideas this week and none of them would take. Then yesterday (Thursday) I sat at the piano and this one came out in one session.

There’s a lot of influences here. The most obvious – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The other things here are ruminations I’ve had from that news. Questions about when and how violence is justified. Fear about nuclear devastation. Jesus’s agony in Gethsemane the night before he was crucified. A hope and plea for renewed connections across the lines we’ve let divide us – and facing the important truth that we all have something to bring to the table, even as we are all part of the problem.

The title line, “don’t go,” is a call for us to be present for one another. There are so many ways we can check out, be distracted or busy, write people off, ignore the deep call of our own soul – and miss what really matters for much of our lives.

Who lets the madmen decide how the world turns around?
Who gives them permission to push big red buttons and blow up our home?
Now I’m sorry cause sometimes I keep to myself
The things that need speaking out loud

Couldn’t you be with me just for one last tortured night?
I need you to see me and help me believe there’s some sense in it all
Now I’m bleeding and nobody knows what to do
Oh can’t you just wait for one hour?

Don’t go
You’re the last light for someone tonight
Hold on
We are better when we come together

Who’s going to save us from what feels inevitable?
Why do we tell stories where everything comes out alright in the end?
Now I’m certain that nothing is written in stone
And you never know what’s to come

Don’t go . . .

I’ll keep on singing cause that’s what I know how to do
And I need you to be you and let your life speak what you know to be true
We’re all healers and heartbreakers in our own ways
Destroyers and makers of worlds

Don’t go . . .

Darkest Deepest Lovely Light

March 4, 2022 — 3 Comments

Ah, here is a song whose writing has brought me deep and (velvety starry-night) dark joy. Made extra special with Nathan’s impromptu joining in on harmonica and vocals (and production support on audio and film recording).

For Week 9 #songaweek2022, whose prompt was “wheels in motion.” I started the song apart from the prompt but drew on it to generate the second verse.

Here comes the sunshine
Here comes the springtime
Here I go again trying to find the words to say it all

I hear the birds sing
I see the snow flow
I taste the afternoon, swallowing it slowly as I go

Nothing ever held me like you do
Nothing feels the way I feel because of you
You’re the one who keeps me coming back to life
You’re the darkest deepest lovely light

Wheels in motion
Waves on the ocean
Blood and breath and bones making up the music as we go

Moon watching over
Winter retreating
A wondrous gift is given, how silently, how silently it comes

Nothing ever held me like you do
Nothing feels the way I feel because of you
You’re the one who keeps me coming back to life
You’re the darkest deepest lovely light

You Look Like a Song

February 5, 2022 — 3 Comments

I’ve just started working a day job again after several years of not. It’s part-time but it’s every weekday, and this past week was my first full week on the job, so I planned certain pockets of the day for songwriting and hoped for the best. My first songwriting session felt like treading molasses. Several little starts into something that bogged down and went nowhere.

It would have been fine to not come up with a song this week, giving myself extra bandwidth to absorb new responsibilities, but thankfully another session turned up something more promising and then I was able to finish the song in one more session and record it the next day. So that Wednesday night the whole weekly songwriting/recording/posting process (except writing this blog post) was complete!

The tune came first on this one, and my first lyrics turned out to be throwaway but good stepping stones. I was picturing rollicking sailors hoisting beers and saying “never” a lot. Here are some of my actual first draft lyrics:

Oh you never gave in and you never gave out / And you never considered the cost / It was better back then but you never did doubt . . . You were older than the stars / You were dancing with the light . . . You were running with the bulls / You were dancing with the fools . . . Paint a girl on your back and another up front / On your chest for the whole world to see

Yup, lyric writing can be a wild and goofy ride.

Eventually I turned to an older lyric idea I’d never finished, and worked it to fit this tune. That was verse one, and then the #songaweek2022 Week 5 prompt “used to think it was” got me into the second verse. Then some fun with words for the last verse.

You look like a song and you sound like sunshine
You touch me like gentle perfume
You smell like the rain and you fall like fire
You taste like the silvery moon

You are how I know there’s more
than the way I know the world

I used to think it was impossible
To feel this light and free
Then I left second-guessing and never went back
And the rest is history

This is what I know for now
So it’s what I sing about

Run away with me love on the tip of your tongue
Through a trail of residual starlight
It’s an elegant joke, it’s irrelevant smoke
It’s a nursery rhyme crossed with a bar fight

It’s as clear as broken bells
All this nothing much to tell

Us For Now (A Sort of Fairy Tale)

February 2, 2022 — 2 Comments

This was one of those weeks (Week 4 #songaweek2022) when I used the prompt (“we win”) and it actually helped me get started on the song (thus the whole first verse with soldiers and a battle).

Playing with the wording of classic fairy tale beginning and ending phrases (“once in a while upon a time” and “happily ever after it all”) led me to write the whole song with a fairy tale kind of feel to it.

The first line of the parting couplet came to me in the middle of the night and felt right for this song (“that moment between letting go and hitting the ground”).

One thought, after I had already posted the song – I would change the wording in the last chorus to “this isn’t a story for you to tell on your own.” I noticed that there’s interior rhyme in the other two choruses (“this isn’t a BATtle you HAVE to worry about” and “this isn’t a SEcret you NEED to keep to yourself”) – so I wanted it in the last one too (“this isn’t a STORy FOR you . . . “). Which interestingly enough was my first draft of that line anyway. Hats off to the subconscious!

Oh, also I went with this “comic mono” filter in iMovie to add to the fairy tale feel. Not always a fan of the comic filters but it felt right here.

Once in a while upon a time
Brave little soldiers stand in a line
Armed to the teeth, hearts in their throats
Earth’s firm enigma under their boots

This isn’t a battle you have to worry about
We’re all on the same side and we win

Small ones are sleeping deep in the woods
Tall trees are dreaming over their heads
Fungus is feeding on all we forgot
Water is reaching slowly through rock

This isn’t a secret you need to keep to yourself
We’re all on the outside looking in

Now is the moment, here is the place
True is the smile creasing my face
I’ve struggled and suffered and still I recall
Happily ever after it all

This isn’t a story that you must [for you to] tell on your own
We’re all here deciding how it ends

That moment between letting go and hitting the ground
That’s what we call life, that’s us for now

Somebody Loves You

January 20, 2022 — Leave a comment

The crooners sang “you’re nobody till somebody loves you,” and that can sound really quite heartless when you think about it.

But I’ve been thinking about other things lately, things that have influenced the writing of this song.

“Nothing stands alone” is this year’s topic for Richard Rohr’s daily meditations, which I read most days.

“We are all in this together. We are all in this alone,” sang Pierce Pettis in “Just Like Jim Brown.”

Every morning I roll out of bed and spend about 45 minutes doing exercises for a slightly arthritic knee, while listening to James Finley’s “Turning to the Mystics” podcast. Probably most of the reason I listen is for Finley’s voice and presence, and I know that things he’s said and ways he’s said them have contributed to this song.

The music came from a melody and chord progression I had rejected on my way to writing “Remember December.” I liked it enough to save the idea for future reference, and this week that musical idea and the #songaweek2022 weekly prompt (“standing in the doorway”) gave me enough to go on to pull this song together.

Frustrating technical difficulties with sharing this video here, but if you click on it you should be able to watch normally. It is more than a gray screen!

There must be something I could say to you
There must be something more that I could do
After all we’re all in this alone
Standing in the doorway leaving home

Somebody
Somebody
Somebody loves you

You’ve got the freedom and you’ve got the right
So go on and be the one to shine the light
After all we’re all a little scared
Standing at the bottom of the stairs

Somebody . . . loves you

And you’re not going anywhere without that love

After all we’re nothing on our own
Everything keeps breathing through our bones

Somebody . . . loves you