love songs

Perennial

June 1, 2022 — Leave a comment

Here’s a fun song I started last week. Nice to just finish it up and get it posted early this week because it’s a big busy week in my family’s life. Firstborn graduating from high school! And a party shall ensue! And I shall plan and produce it! (with appropriate help of course).

It’s an extra bit fun to post this on the first day of Pride Month because I wrote it to be gender/orientation-inclusive. Love is love!

Feels so good to want you when I know I’m gonna get you
All to myself
It hardly seems believable that someone like you lets me have you
All to myself

Don’t you know you’re truly beautiful
Shining brightly in my eyes
Darling aren’t we just enough of a
Good thing that keeps coming back

There’s things I’m gonna whisper when you bring your fine self closer
Aw, to myself
I’ve got some sweet ideas and I didn’t want to keep them
All to myself

Don’t you know you’re truly beautiful
Shining brightly in my eyes
Darling aren’t we just enough of a
Good thing that keeps coming back

I like the way you like the way I hold you when you hold me
Close to yourself

So if you’re going my way then I’ll keep on going your way
All by myself
Except you’re welcome here beside me anytime and always
Here, by my self

Don’t you know you’re truly beautiful
Shining brightly in my eyes
Darling aren’t we just enough of a
Good thing that keeps coming back

Won’t You Come Home Antonio

May 29, 2018 — Leave a comment

The idea for this song came somewhat randomly to me a couple weeks ago, so I made a quick recording of the tune which became the chorus. I also had this name, “Bill Bailey,” connected to it in my mind, as in “won’t you come home Bill Bailey?” and it seemed vaguely familiar. Sure enough, my subconscious was aware of this old jazz standard written in 1902, even though when I pulled it up to listen I didn’t recognize it at all – and the tune idea I had was different.

The suggested theme for week 21 of #songaweek2018 was “apology,” so “won’t you come home” seemed like a good place to start. I initially sang the song “won’t you come home sweet darlin'” – but then thought a specific name would make it feel more real and folksy. Of course I wasn’t going to use “Bill Bailey,” so I went searching for three-syllable male* names. An “o” in the second syllable to round out the assonance in “won’t you come home” would be a major bonus. “Antonio” held on as my favorite even though I have to roll the last two syllables together to make it fit; and a very helpful group of my Facebook friends weighed in with a hefty list of actual three-syllable names when I requested it.

It was fun writing the song in a way that you can’t really tell who needs to apologize here, or what happened. A bit of open-ended fiction the listener can fill out as they please.

Oh, also recently I really enjoyed hearing this rebroadcast of a This American Life episode (#339, Act One) I remember hearing the first time. Usually I skip the rebroadcasts but I really like this one, about writing breakup songs. So I was thinking about that too when I wrote this.

Won’t you come home
Won’t you come home
Won’t you come home Antonio
Won’t you come home
Won’t you come home
Won’t you come on home now

I got beers in the fridge
I got tears in my eyes
And a heaping helping of humble pie
If you come back tonight I got some presence for you
I’m gonna stay by your stay by your
stay by your stay by your side

Won’t you come home . . .

You might think you got me figured just because you’re my man
but I think you better try to understand
I might be crying on the outside
But I’m crying on the inside,
crying on the inside too

Won’t you come home . . .

I don’t want to leave you I don’t want to lose you
I just want to stay here and love you
I could probably fall in love with the whole wide world
But I want to get specific,
I want to get specific with you

 

*There are plenty of three-syllable female or gender-neutral names I might have used instead, but since the song later refers to “my man” and “man” needs to rhyme with “understand,” this time I wanted a male name.

Teeny Tiny Little Bit in Love With You

May 1, 2018 — Leave a comment

Well, at last – a happy simple song! Guess I was feeling a little drunk on spring which has finally come, in full force, to my part of the northland – and remembering the spring I met Nathan and how it felt to fall so hard in love.

Just a quick rough recording on my phone, made while facing the new sheetrock in the kitchen so I could enjoy a little natural reverb.

I don’t need to say much more about this song (for week 17 of #songaweek2018), except that tomorrow my beloved and I celebrate twenty years of marriage, and I’m thankful to be able to say, I’m still a teeny tiny little bit in love with him.

Oh, and yesterday we played it with our band and it was an instant success! I’m excited to perform this one.

There’s word going round about a woman you know
They say she’s trying to hide what she can’t help but show
so I looked her up and sat her down for a talk
But she couldn’t sit still so then we went for a walk
And the spring in her step and the thrill in her veins
And your name on an endless looping track in her brain
Told me everything I needed, yes the rumors are true
I’m just a teeny tiny little bit in love with you

She said she’d meet you tomorrow, tonight or right now
Don’t matter where or why, or what or how
It’s mainly just the who that she cares about
And you know that’s you, you’re the one who makes her shout
To the flowers and trees, to the birds and butterflies
About how you make her feel like she just opened her eyes
On a world bright with beauty and this radical truth
I’m just a teeny tiny little bit in love with you

I like to think of her and you in closer quarters
I like to think you’re thinking of that too
I hope that you and she could find a place to loiter
I hope you’re hoping for that same thing too

Well I suppose I’ll have to come down from this natural high
nothing lasts forever but the wondering why
but you could come with me on my hike back down
to my everyday life in an everyday town
And hold my hand and own my heart
and share with me a house and a car
Cause while it ebbs and it flows, this current stays true
I’m just a teeny tiny little bit in love with you

Like They Do In Cartoons

March 13, 2018 — Leave a comment

I decided to go with the suggested theme for my song this week, which was “cartoons.” I think I had just as much fun making the video as I did writing the song this time. I wrote the song first, then scanned public domain cartoon titles for any I thought might contain some of the images included in the song. Loved what I found for the “eyelashes” line! Couldn’t find any bouquets of balloons though – only wanted to spend so much time on the project.

Lest anyone imagine I’ve somehow managed to actually keep the thrill alive for twenty years so that I really do feel my heart leaping into my chest every time my beloved walks into the room – no, that’s not true. Not literally, not even metaphorically like it was when we were first together. *But* it’s totally true cartoonishly – like, if I were to make a caricature of my feelings for my husband – the joy of sharing everyday life after all these years and still having fun together – it might look something like that.

(I could also make, as part of that same cartoon, a scene where smoke blows out of my ears and I breathe fire at him – because sometimes I feel like that too! – but I was going for sweetness and light here, which is just as real and where I prefer to focus most days.)

Here’s my song for week ten of #songaweek2018:

It’s been a long time since our first kiss
But we’re still holding each other
We’re not as cute as when we were kids
But that don’t mean the show’s over
Let’s dance around let’s jump over the moon
You know, like they do in cartoons

My heart leaps out of my chest when you walk in the room
And my eyelashes grow thirteen feet
And they sweep sweep sweep
For you

Most days are not any big to-do
But honey I’m so glad you’re here with me
We take a walk, we play a tune
We contemplate life’s countless mysteries
Let’s float away on bouquets of balloons
You know, like they do in cartoons

So on we go towards our setting sun
Awake, alive and happy together
This love is so good because it’s true
You know, like the heart of cartoons

I Choose You (Election Year or Not)

May 3, 2016 — 2 Comments

A long time ago in Copenhagan, I walked out on my husband.

We were young, and hadn’t been married more than a couple years. We were traveling with his best friend, and I don’t need to bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, I was insecure, he was insensitive, and I felt angry and desperate. So I said some things I don’t remember in our little hotel room and stalked out, not sure where I was going or if I would come back.

I made it to the lobby, where I sat with a book and waited while I imagined him imagining the worst.

The next thing I can remember is the three of us – Nathan, Chris and me – happily sharing a pizza at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant walking distance from our hotel.

That wasn’t the first or the last huge fight we had, but it’s one of few moments that stands out for both of us as larger than life, a bold dot on our timeline where everything could have gone very differently.

Marriage is one of the absolute most difficult endeavors any soul can undertake. Parenting is another, and it compounds every stress fracture in a marriage. Somehow, through grit and grace and multiple layers of privilege and support (I connect with so much of what Mrs. Frugalwoods wrote about her own privilege in this post), Nathan and I have arrived at yet another yearly celebration of our wedding, now eighteen years ago.

It takes two to keep a relationship alive, two people who choose one another over and over again, and I am grateful that through a constellation of factors much larger than my wisdom, I ended up with Nathan, who continues to choose me, just as I continue choosing him.

Here’s my song for week 17 of #songaweek2016:

Now that we’re eighteen I guess we’re old enough to vote

But I don’t need a secret ballot, I want the whole world to know

I choose you

I choose you

Each moment and always

election year or not I choose you

There’s always been other fish in the sea, sometimes they catch my attention

but you are the only one I want to cast my lot with

I choose you

I choose you

Each moment and always

election year or not I choose you

Let’s be president of one another’s hearts

Let’s take precedent over all others

there must be fifty ways we could split apart

but only one life we can share

So let’s go four more years and then forty times forevermore

So many miles we’ve gone together and the road goes ever on

I choose you

I choose you

Each moment and always

election year or not I choose you