Marriage

Let Love

July 31, 2018 — 2 Comments

H.G. Wells wrote more than sci-fi novels. I’ve been working my way through a free Kindle book I downloaded that contains 27 of his works, and the book I just finished reading is a novel called The Secret Places of the Heart. It’s about an Englishman in charge of the government’s fuel commission who feels like he’s lost his edge and goes to see a psychiatrist, who proposes they both take a holiday and go on a road trip together.

Sir Richmond, the patient, proceeds to fall in love with a woman he meets along the way, after having discussed with the psychiatrist his loveless marriage and his strained relationship with his current mistress. Archaeological ruins are visited and utopian dreams for society are discussed, and infatuation for the newly-discovered woman sneaks up on Sir Richmond and puts him into a restless half-dreaming state where he considers love.

The suggested theme for week 30 of #songaweek2018 was “love,” so as I finished reading this nearly-100-year-old novel, I decided to draw from it for my song. It being a work in the public domain, I really could let Wells be the main lyricist. I was especially drawn to this idea that love can create love, that love is not just a fleeting emotion but an active choice, a force that can work for our good if we make a place for it; that can cultivate love in us when our good intentions, or youthful infatuations, fail.

Below are the direct quotes from which I wrote the song, and after that the song itself.

“Love was music and power. If he had loved enough he need never have drifted away from his wife. Love would have created love, would have tolerated and taught and inspired. Where there is perfect love there is neither greed nor impatience. . .

“‘Flimsy creatures,’ he whispered. ‘Uncertain health. Uncertain strength. A will that comes and goes. Moods of baseness. Moods of utter beastliness . . . Love like April sunshine. April? . . .’

“. . . there is something about human beings – not just the everyday stuff of them, but something that appears intermittently – as though a light shone through something translucent. If I believe in any divinity at all it is a divinity revealed to me by other people – and even by myself in my own heart. . .

“It’s only through love that the God can reach over from one human being to another. All real love is a divine thing, a reassurance, a release of courage.”

Let love make love
Trust love to hold on
Love is music
Love is power
Love tolerates, teaches, inspires

Flimsy creatures
A will that comes and goes
Love like April sunshine
April snow

Let love make love . . .
Love is patient and generous

Uncertain health
Uncertain strength
Love like April sunshine
April rain

Let love make love . . .
Divine, a reassurance

Moods of baseness
Moods of utter beastliness
Love like April sunshine
April mud

Let love make love . . .
Love releases courage

Another Spring

July 17, 2018 — Leave a comment

“Sex” is the suggested theme for this current week, 29, of #songaweek2018 (the song I’m working on writing this week). Wouldn’t you know I already hit that theme for week 28! Not that I meant to. I didn’t even mean to use week 28’s actual theme, “anniversary.” But it does seem to all relate.

I started with two lines I had saved as a random idea earlier this year (in the spring, of course). And just let it unfold from there.

A little glossary in case you need it – “hygge” is one of those newly-discovered old ideas that’s been all the rage in recent years, especially in the winter. And “alohomora” is a spell in Harry Potter books that opens things (the “unlocking charm” according to Harry Potter Wiki).

I didn’t want to take the time and effort to film myself recording this week, so I dug up a “strange little newsreel” on publicdomainreview.org. For added entertainment value, go watch it at their site with the original audio intact.

Let’s go at it now with another spring
Pull the earth closer, waken everything
Let the water fall, let the pollen fly
Let the stars get in our eyes

We’ve been keeping our happiness on ice
Frozen fantasies of life
Numbing out with chocolate and wine
Excusing it as hygge, hygge, hygge, who?

Let’s go at it now with another spring
Pull the earth closer, waken everything
Let the water fall, let the pollen fly
Let the stars get in our eyes

Throw the covers off boats and motorcycles
Dodge the dropping icicles
Everything feels magical
Hello, alohomora, more and more and more-a

Let’s go at it now with another spring
Pull the earth closer, waken everything
Let the water fall, let the pollen fly
Let the stars get in our eyes

We’ll dance ourselves dizzy
Under the rising moon
We’ll sing hallelujah,
La la la la la la, la la la la la

Let’s go at it now with another spring
Pull the earth closer, waken everything
Let the water fall, let the pollen fly
Let the stars get in our eyes

 

Yes You

May 22, 2018 — 3 Comments

This song for week 20 of #songaweek2018 probably feels a little cheated. “I really have a lot of potential,” I can hear it whining, “but you barely gave me anything to work with! You didn’t even try me on piano, which would probably sound a whole lot better than that jangly guitar you insist on strumming monotonously. And really, with all the technology you had to work with, you chose to record me late one night sitting in front of your old laptop?”

Well, yes. It was a busy week and my first day of songwriting was pretty much a failure. Some scattered good ideas but nothing was coming together.

Then the next day, I was walking to pick up my son from school in the intoxicating May sunshine, and it occurred to me that even though our sun is just average in brightness and size compared to other stars, it matters immeasurably more to me than any other sun possibly could. Not because it’s the brightest or best, but because it’s home to me.

Which, of course, is a very tidy metaphor for marriage, which made for a much-better-flowing songwriting session the next day, where after a couple hours I had a mostly-complete song. As another songwriter in our #songaweek group noted recently – and I have also found to be true – if a song doesn’t mostly come together in one session, it’s usually not worth going back to for a second attempt.

So by the time I got through my failed attempt and then spent another day writing this one – all the while attending to the everyday stuff which really heats up this time of year as school winds down and there are numerous concerts and activities on the calendar – the arranging and recording process had to be streamlined, meaning pretty much eliminated entirely.

But that’s okay. Unlike the writing process, if a song’s arrangement doesn’t come together right away, that can be worth going back to, and I probably will with this one.

Once again (as in “Angel”), this song takes inspiration from the reading I’ve done in astrophysics, specifically and most recently Carlo Rovelli’s Reality is Not What it Seems. The suggested theme for the week was “future,” which did get some space here.

I wake in your light
I sleep in your glow
And all the day through your love keeps me warm
Let these moments spread out
Through the hours and days
Of our lives

There’s billions and billions of brillianter stars
But the one that shines brightest for me by far
Is the one that I’ve built my whole world around
And that’s you, yes, you.

Everything’s moving
Life is a dance
We are particles weaving a field
With the speed of the light
from the fire that we stoke
With our love

There’s billions and billions of brillianter stars
But the one that shines brightest for me by far
Is the one that I’ve built my whole world around
And that’s you, yes, you.

There are days when the clouds
Hide your face in the gray
And I’m cold and I can’t feel you at all
And there’s nothing to say
And there’s nothing to do
But hold on

There’s billions and billions of brillianter stars
But the one that shines brightest for me by far
Is the one that I’ve built my whole world around
And that’s you, yes, you.

I know lovers must part
And even planets and stars
All eventually expire
But the shimmering waves
from the love that we’ve made
Journey on

There’s billions and billions of brillianter stars
But the one that shines brightest for me by far
Is the one that I’ve built my whole world around
And that’s you, yes, you.

Teeny Tiny Little Bit in Love With You

May 1, 2018 — Leave a comment

Well, at last – a happy simple song! Guess I was feeling a little drunk on spring which has finally come, in full force, to my part of the northland – and remembering the spring I met Nathan and how it felt to fall so hard in love.

Just a quick rough recording on my phone, made while facing the new sheetrock in the kitchen so I could enjoy a little natural reverb.

I don’t need to say much more about this song (for week 17 of #songaweek2018), except that tomorrow my beloved and I celebrate twenty years of marriage, and I’m thankful to be able to say, I’m still a teeny tiny little bit in love with him.

Oh, and yesterday we played it with our band and it was an instant success! I’m excited to perform this one.

There’s word going round about a woman you know
They say she’s trying to hide what she can’t help but show
so I looked her up and sat her down for a talk
But she couldn’t sit still so then we went for a walk
And the spring in her step and the thrill in her veins
And your name on an endless looping track in her brain
Told me everything I needed, yes the rumors are true
I’m just a teeny tiny little bit in love with you

She said she’d meet you tomorrow, tonight or right now
Don’t matter where or why, or what or how
It’s mainly just the who that she cares about
And you know that’s you, you’re the one who makes her shout
To the flowers and trees, to the birds and butterflies
About how you make her feel like she just opened her eyes
On a world bright with beauty and this radical truth
I’m just a teeny tiny little bit in love with you

I like to think of her and you in closer quarters
I like to think you’re thinking of that too
I hope that you and she could find a place to loiter
I hope you’re hoping for that same thing too

Well I suppose I’ll have to come down from this natural high
nothing lasts forever but the wondering why
but you could come with me on my hike back down
to my everyday life in an everyday town
And hold my hand and own my heart
and share with me a house and a car
Cause while it ebbs and it flows, this current stays true
I’m just a teeny tiny little bit in love with you

Like They Do In Cartoons

March 13, 2018 — Leave a comment

I decided to go with the suggested theme for my song this week, which was “cartoons.” I think I had just as much fun making the video as I did writing the song this time. I wrote the song first, then scanned public domain cartoon titles for any I thought might contain some of the images included in the song. Loved what I found for the “eyelashes” line! Couldn’t find any bouquets of balloons though – only wanted to spend so much time on the project.

Lest anyone imagine I’ve somehow managed to actually keep the thrill alive for twenty years so that I really do feel my heart leaping into my chest every time my beloved walks into the room – no, that’s not true. Not literally, not even metaphorically like it was when we were first together. *But* it’s totally true cartoonishly – like, if I were to make a caricature of my feelings for my husband – the joy of sharing everyday life after all these years and still having fun together – it might look something like that.

(I could also make, as part of that same cartoon, a scene where smoke blows out of my ears and I breathe fire at him – because sometimes I feel like that too! – but I was going for sweetness and light here, which is just as real and where I prefer to focus most days.)

Here’s my song for week ten of #songaweek2018:

It’s been a long time since our first kiss
But we’re still holding each other
We’re not as cute as when we were kids
But that don’t mean the show’s over
Let’s dance around let’s jump over the moon
You know, like they do in cartoons

My heart leaps out of my chest when you walk in the room
And my eyelashes grow thirteen feet
And they sweep sweep sweep
For you

Most days are not any big to-do
But honey I’m so glad you’re here with me
We take a walk, we play a tune
We contemplate life’s countless mysteries
Let’s float away on bouquets of balloons
You know, like they do in cartoons

So on we go towards our setting sun
Awake, alive and happy together
This love is so good because it’s true
You know, like the heart of cartoons