Songs

Life is the Way You Make It

April 29, 2024 — 2 Comments

This year I started a new songwriting routine – I take my coffee and my laptop into my tiny basement studio, and work on songwriting for 30-40 minutes before I leave for work at 7 am. I’m not writing and recording and posting a song a week like I used to, but a surprising amount of writing is actually happening. I recently did a batch recording session of four songs I wrote in March and April, and today I uploaded one to my Youtube channel. More to come as time allows!

This one was written for my daughter.

Beautiful girl don’t be afraid of this world
This solid ground that keeps on spinning you around
In spite of what you might be told you should know
Nobody ever gets everything figured out

Life is the way you make it
Love is a road, I hope you take it
Wherever it keeps leading your courageous heart

Bold brilliant woman you break through like the dawn
Lighting the room with your inventive energy
Calming your anxious thoughts with your steadfast soul
Finding the words that tell the truth and set you free

Life is the way you make it
Love is a road, I hope you take it
Wherever it keeps leading your courageous heart

Climb on amazing human precious and tough
Don’t let them tell you it’s all over when you fall
You’ve learned the ropes so you know one’s not enough
To meet all the challenges and joys up on the wall

Life is the way you make it
Love is a road, I hope you take it
Wherever it keeps leading your courageous heart

Seventy and Sunny

March 2, 2024 — 7 Comments

I’ve been easing my way into 2024. Here we are in March and I’m sharing a song I wrote for my mom’s surprise birthday party in January (her actual birthday is in Feburary). But why not draw out the celebration for such a lovely human? I could tell that the monumental number felt a bit frightening to her, so this song was partly to remind her that seventy and sunny, which she now is, is just about as delightful as it gets. (Although I’m quite sure she’ll go on to fill every number beyond with joy!)

My Nathan learned to play ukulele just for this song, and the vocal harmonies he came up with are so sweet. I love the sunny Beach Boys vibe.

Oh hallelujah hello
how does your garden grow?
with joy and peace and elbow grease
And tender loving care

Seventy and sunny
Blue skies in your eyes
Through the darkest cold
Your heart of gold
Ever shines a gentle light of love

Oh celebration so sweet
Oh happy dancing feet
Every day a holiday
whipped cream with a cherry

Seventy and sunny
Blue skies in your eyes
Through the darkest cold
Your heart of gold
Ever shines a gentle light of love

Oh you bring us home
You bring us back to life

Oh wow you wonderful one
Two is so much fun
But three and four
and then some more
Is such a feast to share

Seventy and sunny
Blue skies in your eyes
Through the darkest cold
Your heart of gold
Ever shines a gentle light of love

24 Trippel

January 4, 2024 — Leave a comment

My life partner/bandmate/audio engineer extraordinaire Nathan likes to give unique names to our music albums. With our Americana band The Foragers, we just this week released a three-song album on our Soundcloud page, and I think it turned out pretty good!

Have a listen if you like –

If I Go On / In Western Lands Beneath the Sun

December 16, 2023 — Leave a comment

Here is my last song for #songaweek2023. This year I slowed my songwriting pace from weekly to monthly, and it has felt right. Next year I will probably continue with this pace.

The first part of this song drew inspiration from some painful news my faith community received last week, that our 15-year-old church’s founding pastor is moving on to a new church call. When you’re part of a good thing that’s become an anchor of peace in your life, it’s hard to lose its leader and wonder what comes next, and if you have the fortitude to keep going now.

This personal grief comes amid the deeper, wider sorrows spreading from two wars in the news and the insistent vague consciousness of suffering all over everywhere and everywhen. It’s December and it’s raining as I write this (a localized pain of global warming here in Minnesota where it should be snowing), and in this northern land we’ve been swiftly plodding towards the longest night. So it feels like the dark is never far.

I couldn’t write a hopeful part for this song, but I turned to a song that Sam Gamgee sang in The Return of the King. So once again, thank you Mr. Tolkien. In the lyrics posted below the video, Tolkien’s words are set in quotation marks, and I am happy to give him the last word in this last song of 2023.

If I go on then why can’t you?
Can I believe the words you said
The songs you sang
The hope you spoke
The better day you thought you saw?
And if I fall then have I failed?
Can I be down and still be true
True to you
The you I knew
When you knew all would come out right?

“In western lands beneath the Sun

the flowers may rise in Spring,

the trees may bud, the waters run, 

the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe ’tis cloudless night 

and swaying beeches bear 

the Elven-stars as jewels white

amid their branching hair.”

The day is dark the night is long
It’s stolen land I’m standing on
From hand to hand
From name to name
We pass it down, we shift the blame
The water’s wide, I can’t cross o’er,
The day is bruised the night so sore
I’ll dig my den
and lay me down,
bear my heart to the wounded ground

“Though here at journey’s end I lie

in darkness buried deep,

beyond all towers strong and high, 

beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun

and Stars for ever dwell:

I will not say the Day is done,

nor bid the Stars farewell.”