Another last-day-of-the-month posting of my monthly song! This means my summer is keeping me busy with lots of fun and very little time home alone to write or record. But I got the song written last week and recorded today in some snatched moments.
You might recognize some of the influences in this song. One, repeated smoky days here in Minnesota from Canadian wildfires. On one of these days I was struck with how I could actually stare at the orange sun through the smoke with no ill effects on my eyes – and that’s a second influence – that U2 song. Three, the flooding in New England and specifically the destruction to downtown Montpelier, Vermont – we had just visited a friend there last summer, beautiful little city – and this summer, in my friend’s words, the town is totaled. Four, my love of gardening, one of the things I’ve been happily busy with this summer.
Even if this is all there ever is I’m happy to be here now This present moment so generous And a big bright world all around
Stay alive with me Take your time to breathe Think your big ideas Then toss them out like seeds and see what they become
Storms raging and the floods rise higher We’re afraid of what’s to come World burning and the smoke spreads wider Now we can all stare at the sun
Stay alive with me Take your time to breathe Think your big ideas Then toss them out like seeds and see what they become
Heart and hand and soul and skin are we Dust of stars beyond our reach Flowers of the field, dry dancing bones Broken brilliant wondrous ones
Day keeps dawning and the night grows darker We wake and sleep and dream and live Memories soften and hope grows harder We never know it like it is
Stay alive with me Take your time to breathe Think your big ideas Then toss them out like seeds and see what they become
In a very real sense we are shipwrecked passengers on a doomed planet. Yet even in a shipwreck, human decencies and human values do not necessarily vanish, and we must make the most of them. We shall go down, but let it be in a manner to which we may look forward as worthy of our dignity.
The suggested theme for week 36 of #songaweek2018 was “strength.” I wasn’t trying to use it when I started writing my song. I started with a couple lines I had jotted down in a flash of inspiration a couple weeks before: “the first thing I can think of is the last I want to talk about / how whenever you walk in the room it turns me inside out.”
A favorite part of the writing process for me is feeling partially in control, and partially along for the ride as I work on (with?) a song and it takes its shape. I thought this was going to be some sort of love song, but it became more of a hope-in-humanity song.
It wasn’t till I was working on the third verse, at the line “so your heart won’t sink,” and I was thinking through the next line which became “even if we’re bound to drown” that I remembered the Norbert Weiner quote I had copied and pasted into my notes for later meditation. I pulled it up and let it guide me through the end of the song.
And so, I came around to singing about strength after all. The strength of being kind and decent human beings even if and when all seems lost. Our future – individually, as a species, as a planet – is and has always been uncertain, clouded in possible catastrophes. I hope we humans can be wise and motivated enough to do the good we know to do regarding environmental degradation, military oppression, human rights violations, racism, etc., etc. – all the problems clearly leading to a bleaker future.
And at the same time, I hope we can be good and decent people in our everyday interactions with each other and all living things, that we could take each moment as a gift and seek to live it as a blessing, no matter where we seem to be headed, no matter how grim the outlook.
I think a musical influence on this song is Patty Griffin’s “One Big Love,” which I had been listening to as covered by Emmylou Harris on her album Red Dirt Girl not long before I wrote it. And which is one of my all-time favorite albums, in case I haven’t mentioned it before! Oh, wait, I guess I have. Oh yeah, more than once.
As per usual these busy days of late, I would have loved to give this song more recording attention. But at least I was able to give it the writing attention it deserved. Maybe the future will hold enough space for a better recording.
The first thing I can think of
Is the last I want to talk about
How the ghosts of old romances
Can turn me inside out
I can’t recant my faith in
The way we used to be
Young and foolish
Starry-eyed and free
But it’s alright now
It’s okay
We’re alright now
For another day
You’ll never hear me disagree
That there’s no time like today
To do the good you know to do
And give your love away
Cause when you let it flow you’ll find
There’s more where that came from
Like a winding river
Like the shining sun
Down in the hollows of my heart
A thousand love songs ring
We’ll never finish everything we start
But we have our whole lives to sing
So tell me all your troubles
And I’ll pour you a drink
Something stiff and bitter
so your heart won’t sink
and even if we’re bound to drown
we can still be true and kind
One brilliant second
On the face of time
Julia Bloom 