When the dust settles, when the smoke clears When you and I are all gone from here Will there be songs left for someone to sing When you and I are all gone from here? When you and I are all gone from here?
Do not rush Hush, hush You are free deep down free Wind is breathing in your soul
Here is joy steel-toed joy Patience too embracing you Music courses through your veins
My eldest child turned 18 this past week, so naturally my song for the week needed to be for her. Her dad Nathan and I took a walk together that we used for a cowriting session, which we extended when we returned home, and within a couple hours we had this very country song. Fun to have Nathan on the lead vocals this time. He wanted a song that expressed both loss and gain, grief and pride. I think we got it!
For better and worse she’s always been my girl Ever since we met she’s been my world But things have been changing for a long long time Now I look back and I can see the signs Something’s going on that I can’t ignore She ain’t gonna be my baby anymore
She’s tall and proud and lovely as can be She’s all dressed up but I know it’s not for me There’s a spring in her step and a charge in the air She flashes a smile and tosses her hair She grabs the keys and walks out the door She ain’t gonna be my baby anymore
There goes my baby There goes my girl There she goes shaking My whole wide world I just want to hold her but I know she can’t stay She’s gonna leave and I won’t stand in her way Where she’s headed I don’t know for sure But she ain’t gonna be my baby anymore
I’m looking at her but she’s looking beyond me Out where the big blue sky meets the sea She’s got stars in her eyes, I’ve got a lump in my throat She’s ready for the tide to carry her boat And I’m crying a river back here on the shore She ain’t gonna be my baby anymore
There goes my baby . . .
She’s shaking me awake from my sweet dreams The sun is rising and she wants me to see I never loved her more than I do tonight I’m keeping it together with all my might And I’m picking my heart up off the floor She ain’t gonna be my baby anymore
Sometimes I write a song just to help me process an idea or event. That’s the case with this one.
My daughter and I visited Reconciliation Park in Mankato, Minnesota, this past week, and these words “forgive everyone everything” were inscribed there. I felt them to be difficult and freeing, beautiful and irritating, controversial and common-sensical. In Mankato, in 1862, 38 Dakota men were publicly hanged by the United States government in the wake of the US-Dakota Conflict. This memorial and these words were placed here by native and white community members together, and you can read more about it here.
The last photo in the video is the tea tag I just happened to have with me as I was writing this song on Thursday.
Hate is a hard road Rutted and narrow Twisting and dragging on and on Love is a river and when you flow with her you find yourself right where you belong
Forgive everyone everything
You didn’t start this You cannot end it But you can hold on to what is good And wave it like wheat fields And feel it like fireflies Glowing like starlight in the woods
Forgive everyone everything
Breathe it in deeply Breathe it out freely Sing it like sunshine after rain
I put off songwriting till Saturday morning for week 34 of #songaweek2021. The deadline to submit is Saturday night. After a band rehearsal in the afternoon I recruited my husband and bandmate Nathan to play along and we got-‘er-done for another week. Don’t look too hard for meaning in this one. But we had some fun!
I’m gonna go outside and listen to the news All the tweets and chatter and the cock-a-doodle-doos There’s a thousand stories In my own back yard
There’s no time like the present and there’s no place quite like this And if you feel you’d like it well I’d like to feel your kiss And just a few more things We could try after dark
We’re on a great big rock that keeps on rolling round the sun Just when we think it’s over well it’s only just begun It’s the most fantastic way To see the stars
This week’s song came together from so many influences. Here’s a non-exhaustive list:
Peace, please, peace.
Afghani woman on BBC Newshour, 13 August 2021
Won’t you knock down all the walls that we built stable? / Tip them over and restore them to sturdy dinner tables
Nate Crary, Messy Mass liturgy, “Only By Our Lonesome” song
“Once There Was” – a song and an album by Carrellee. It’s really only that phrase that influenced the line in my song, “once there never was.” Just playing with words.
“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” by Pete Seeger
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . .
Jesus, Matthew 5:3
You think you know all the right things to tell a fool like me But I won’t hear you at all as long as this wall stands where a table should be
I am not so sure what we’re fighting for Where have all the poor in spirit gone?
Once there never was all that we tell ourselves there was back then Now is right where we are and right where we can begin to be again
I am not so sure what we’re fighting for Where have all the poor in spirit gone?
“Peace, please, peace . . .”
We are stars and mud, spirit and spit fire and flood, brawn and brain Ours are oceans unknown, deserts that patiently await the rain
I am not so sure what we’re fighting for Where have all the poor in spirit gone?
Julia Bloom 