In the course of writing this song I discovered that Bob Dylan cowrote the song “Wagon Wheel” and also that Darius Rucker of one of high-school-me’s favorite bands Hootie and the Blowfish did a cover of it, in addition to the one I had heard before by Old Crow Medicine Show.
I learned all that because after I wrote this song it kept nagging me that I had copied something somehow. My subconscious went to work and got me the answer, and Google confirmed it and taught me all those other details.
For artistic integrity (and/or because I’m just not taking the time this week for a big recording), I sang this one into my phone.
Here it is, my song for week 18 of #songaweek2021:
I don’t mean to be rude, I mean I never mean to be mean Some days feel no good, so no no good to keep all to myself
Hold me close like a telephone Ring me round with whispers of your love
There’s nothing we can do to change the days we left behind us Every moment’s new, and this one’s telling us we can be too
Hold me close like a telephone Ring me round with whispers of your love
There’s something to be said for everybody saying something Nice and kind of kind to help each other help each other smile
Let’s hold our world like a telephone Ring it round with whispers of our love
I’m guessing I’m not the only one who experienced that social distancing led to emotional distancing this past year. Now that more of my loved ones and myself are fully vaccinated and I’m relishing hugs again, and the world outside is greening up and springing forth, I feel an old familiar longing for closeness and affection coming back, which had been fading. That’s what was going on when I wrote this song for week 17 of #songaweek2021.
(But as with all art, what I brought to the song is in no way definitive. Much of my joy in sharing what I create is knowing it meets others in different ways. And more than once a song I wrote years ago will bring me something new when I bring it out again.)
Nobody told me I’d be sad and lonely, I wasn’t prepared for this I don’t remember how I ended up outside looking in
I think I’ll come back now Return from the somewhere else Land this weary ship I’m coming back home Don’t ask me where I was I never really knew There’s nothing much to tell I just want to come home
I was gonna change the world but the world changed without me I was gonna change the world but the world changed me
I think I’ll come back now Return from the somewhere else Land this weary ship I’m coming back home Don’t ask me where I was I never really knew There’s nothing much to tell I just want to come home
There’s pits you never might get to the bottom of There’s rivers flowing any which way but love There’s words nobody with breath ever should have said Reverberating inside your head
All is falling, falling down Falling down on the ground of God
There’s peaks you never might wish to descend from There’s roads going every direction home There’s songs of healing and joy about to be sung Vibrating on the tip of your tongue
All is rising, rising up Rising up from the ground of God
Be still children be still Breathe the breath of life Be not afraid To give it back
There’s no beginning or end to the question There’s battles around you and war within There’s hope that hits you like a bolt from the blue Obliterating what you thought you knew
All is falling, falling down Falling down on the ground of God All is rising, rising up Rising up from the ground of God
My cold got worse this past week and landed me on the couch for a couple days (not COVID-19, I got a negative test). On Monday I mostly slept, and when my daughter came home from school she told me there was a 7 pm curfew in effect.
That’s how I learned that Daunte Wright, a Black man only three years older than my 17-year-old daughter, had been killed by police in the Minneapolis suburbs. More protests. One thousand National Guard troops called in by the governor.
As the trial of George Floyd’s killer continues here in these Twin Cities.
As we keep tearing each other apart with guns across this country. (Yesterday I wrote this song. Today I recorded it. Between those two moments, eight people were killed in a mass shooting in Indianapolis.)
As the virus we’ve grown sick of fights to keep its place in the world.
This is a ragged haunted open wound of a song because that’s what I have this week. I am grateful that the sun came out today, the first sunny day in too long. And that I finally felt well enough to get out of the house. I filled bird feeders and poked around in my gardens. I still believe. In spite of everything.
“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
So another man dies at the public servants’ hands At the point of the weapons of the so-called protectors And another mother cries on the screens in our hands And weary voices rage at the racist military-industrial-congressional war machine
Yeah these things happen But these things don’t just happen
We’re under a cloud here down in the muck April is the cruelest month except for all the others Maybe our hearts are in the right place But our lungs keep breathing in these toxic fumes And we spew them out knowing not what we do And pointing our fingers and shifting the blame And the world’s on fire with a deadly virus And our country’s the sickest cause we deny it
Yeah these things happen But these things don’t just happen
These lumps of metal they make us hard Steel our nerves and rob us of compassion Our original sin keeps us weak Exposes our skin and lies about what it means Till we want to scratch it off
And the government tries and the government fails And the people go mad and the people go numb And we try to believe and we try to behave And the truth eludes us and we lose our way
These things do happen These things happen These things happen And these things don’t just happen
One thing pandemic life has taught me is how to write a song at a moment’s notice. Today my afternoon brought me an unexpected two hours to myself, so I set everything aside and started writing just a few minutes after the door closed and I was alone in the house. It’s become almost a habit now, to sit down and write till I get stuck, then take the dog for a walk and try to work out the rest of it. Which is how I finished this one.
The prompt for #songaweek2021’s week 14 is “inside there’s a fire” which was in front of me as I was writing this one, and I liked it enough to take my title from it too.
This week I have a cold so I got to use my low notes. Also I’ve upgraded my blog so I can now directly embed audio files here, rather than linking to Soundcloud. I didn’t make a video this week since I’m not feeling the greatest, wanted the recording process to be low-hassle.
Oh, maybe you can tell I’ve been hearing a lot of U2 lately thanks to my daughter having newly discovered them and playing their music pretty much exclusively all the time. I think some of Bono’s vocalizing influenced me 🙂
I’m sitting on the back steps on an April afternoon Just minding my own business, making up a little tune Nothing’s wrong In this song Sun shining and the birds are singing and the rain falls now and then Grass growing, little buds are showing on the ends of waking stems Everything Is breathing
My heart keeps beating at the bars Of this bony cage
I’m lying on my back one summer night when I was young Eyes gazing through the blackness at a million sparkling suns Up is down Lost is found Hand of another holding mine and fingers intertwined Just-blossomed lovers coming close in body and in mind So damn true So brand new
My heart is pulsing with the stars Through this eager flesh
I’m looking for the way back to the best that’s yet to come I’m jumping in the river just to find out where it runs Sink or swim I’m all in My heart perpetually starts And starts again
Julia Bloom 