This past summer into early fall I reread The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I’ve been making music for several of the songs from those books. This one was sung (the words at least) by Legolas in The Return of the King. I’m no elven musician but I enjoyed putting some music to J.R.R. Tolkien’s lyrics.
Last week Nathan and I spent a couple days in Duluth and I took several what I like to call “still videos” of beautiful Lake Superior. I used one of them for this song’s backdrop. Minnesota’s inland sea calls to me, so I try to visit Duluth at least once a year (this last time I decided maybe I should go every season).
To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying, The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying. West, west away, the round sun is falling. Grey ship, grey ship, do you hear them calling, The voices of my people that have gone before me? I will leave, I will leave the woods that bore me; For our days are ending and our years failing. I will pass the wide waters lonely sailing. Long are the waves on the Last Shore falling, Sweet are the voices in the Lost Isle calling, In Eressëa, in Elvenhome that no man can discover, Where the leaves fall not: land of my people for ever!
I’ve found a wealth of song lyrics in my summer reading, specifically The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. So my August song is made from yet another Bilbo Baggins invention (who in turn is a J.R.R. Tolkien invention).
Upon the hearth the fire is red, Beneath the roof there is a bed; But not yet weary are our feet, Still round the corner we may meet A sudden tree or standing stone That none have seen but we alone. Tree and flower and leaf and grass, Let them pass! Let them pass! Hill and water under sky, Pass them by! Pass them by!
Still round the corner there may wait A new road or a secret gate, And though we pass them by today, Tomorrow we may come this way And take the hidden paths that run Towards the Moon or to the Sun. Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe, Let them go! Let them go! Sand and stone and pool and dell, Fare you well! Fare you well!
Home is behind, the world ahead, And there are many paths to tread Through shadows to the edge of night, Until the stars are all alight. Then world behind and home ahead, We’ll wander back to home and bed. Mist and twilight, cloud and shade, Away shall fade! Away shall fade! Fire and lamp, and meat and bread, And then to bed! And then to bed!
I have actually written a song each of the last three weeks but didn’t get around to putting them on the blog each week. So here’s a catchup post.
Week 41: An acquaintance was in ICU with COVID the week before I wrote this song. Her husband left her phone with her at the hospital, hoping she would wake and call him. He texted me Sunday afternoon that she had finally woken up and called. I was so touched thinking about that moment, and it (along with the week’s prompt of “too soon”) inspired this song.
Sunday afternoon she woke up Rolled her body over Picked up the phone and called to talk to him
Not a moment too soon This is the right time No turning back now Everything unwinds
In the dusky light I heard them Lovely hungry birds in Trees where my hands had laid their table out
Not a moment too soon . . .
You there staring at the mirror Shedding weary tears for the years that have turned and walked out of your life
Not a moment too soon . . .
Human you’ve been waiting too hard
Breathe now, feel your body slow down Feel the trees below ground Reaching their roots to feed their leafy crowns
Not a moment comes too soon This is the right time No turning back now Everything unwinds
Week 42: A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, published in 1918. The video features a ceramic candleholder made by my talented niece Eva.
I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle, Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless, Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain; A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quit utterly. This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily, Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber.
Week 43: Do you name your cars? We do. Our oldest car (randomly dubbed Joe Bryanson by my then-nine-year-old son) deserved a special tribute this week because poor Joe has been through a lot, including getting mugged last week. Bonus track is a voice memo my co-pilot Nathan sent me today, I think he’s working on his own ballad for Joe. You’ll have to watch the video to see/hear the bonus track and maybe understand the depths of Joe’s despair.
I started out in Colorado in the mountains carrying a treasure of a woman to a job she didn’t love She left me in the foothills with a Big crack in my windshield and I Sat there being hopeful I could still be of some use
I am Joe Bryanson I’ve been around the block Mile after mile I have run I don’t drink much, I’ve got a hitch I’m such a dream to park Count on me to get the job done
A couple came from Loveland and they Laid their money down and made Me their one and only And got that big crack fixed And then a few years later we Drove across the Great Plains and they Parked me in a driveway in a City on the river
I am Joe Bryanson . . .
Soon enough I had to share that Driveway with a minivan and Then they turned me over to a Newly licensed kid They kicked me to the curb because they Went and bought a third car that they Plugged in like a toaster And babied like a baby
I am Joe Bryanson . . . But that kid became a treasure of a woman And she played my radio loud On her drive to her first job that she just loved And I felt so young again
But life out on the street, well it’s no Asphalt bed of ease, I’ve had my Mirror cracked, my side swiped, I’ve been Robbed of precious metals I’m getting near three hundred thousand Miles and I don’t know just how much Farther they might let me go But I just keep on truckin’
I launched several songs this week but landed none. Determined to turn something in for week 40 of #songaweek2022, as I’ve been a bit more hit or miss this year but was currently on a four-week roll, I turned to my stockpile of public domain poems and found this tiny treasure. It’s not much but it’s “This Much and More”:
If my lover were a comet Hung in air, I would braid my leaping body In his hair.
Yea, if they buried him ten leagues Beneath the loam, My fingers they would learn to dig And I’d plunge home!
This song started early last week as a guitar chord progression and a melody I just kept humming. Lots of lyric ideas that I didn’t like that first day or two. Then finally it started to come together lyrically. The bridge was inspired by Poem I, 16 from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, which I’m currently reading:
Because once someone dared to want you, I know that we, too, may want you.
When gold is in the mountain and we’ve ravaged the depths till we’ve given up digging,
it will be brough forth into day by the river that mines the silences of stone.
Even when we don’t desire it, God is ripening.
Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Joanna Macy
Initially the recurring line was “your own life,” but as I was writing and singing I found I preferred “your one life,” because I like to remember the connectedness of all life; and also I’m influenced by that immortal line from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day” – “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”
The video features photos from my mother’s garden, a happy place for all who enter.
Little self relax for now Take it easy, take it slow There’s nothing you can do about The way some people think they know The way that you should live your one life
Breathe in deep, breathe out free You’re a part of everything In every wave on every sea The same love song’s reverberating Through it all and in your one life
Make some room for something new to bloom
You keep looking back behind Trying to make some sense of things that Happened in another time But there’s no way of bringing back The days you’ve spent with your one life
Here is where you find yourself Now is when you get to be The one unlike anyone else The one who’s got the sense to see The light that dawns on your one life
Make some room for something new to bloom
Oh, the river that flows and mines the silence of stone Seeds grow up with the weeds and God is what they become Make some room for something new to bloom
Giant ego take a break Wildflowers are underfoot It’s not up to you to make The world do all the good it should It’s quite enough to live your one life
Julia Bloom 