music

Turn to Love

July 11, 2016 — 1 Comment

Week 27 of #songaweek2016 was a horrific one in US news. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, shot and killed by police officers. Brent Thompson, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Smith, Lorne Ahrens, shot and killed by a sniper at a protest against Sterling’s and Castile’s treatment by police.

All seven of these men, real people, with complex lives and stories, each with a constellation of people who loved them, people who depended on them, people who knew them as the human beings they were. The ones who took their lives, I believe, didn’t see past the color of their skin or the uniforms they wore.

I spent a day trying to write a song in light of these events. Nothing was working out. Then I came across a quote from Jeff Hood, organizer of the Dallas protest, and the song almost wrote itself. Interestingly, the quote originally appeared in this article, but didn’t survive the article’s updates since July 8th, the day I read it. I had copied the text and saved it in the course of working on the song, so here it is:

[The Rev. Jeff] Hood, one of the organizers, said he spent hours searching for his wife as chaos unfolded in the streets.
“Ultimately, I spent those three hours talking to people, asking the question, ‘Why? Why? Why is this happening? The only answer I know now, and the only answer I knew then, was turn to love, we’ve got to turn to love, we’ve got to stop shooting.”

Everything is broken everything is bleeding
everyone is crying out for relief
everything is shaken everything is shattered
everyone is deeply aching for peace

turn and return eternally
internally externally
turn to love

this is nothing new, no this is just the latest
page in a story we’re weary of
where fear and hate and greed gain strength and gather speed
and take aim at the suffering body of love

give it all your heart and give it all your mind
soul, strength, voice, eyes, ears, hands and feet
be patient with your neighbor show mercy to the stranger
be brave in generosity

All Too Heavy by Jen Bluhm

July 2, 2016 — Leave a comment

Friends. I’ve been posting my song for #songaweek2016 each week here on my blog. I joined that group at the invitation of my friend and fellow singer/songwriter – but not fellow Bloom 🙂 – Jen Bluhm. This song of hers from a recent week is so good that I wanted to repost it on my blog so more people could hear it. She’s posted the lyrics on Soundcloud, so if you click on the “Soundcloud” icon at the top right corner below, you’ll go to Soundcloud where you can see the lyrics.

 

Every Moment Matters

May 31, 2016 — Leave a comment

Pierce Pettis sang, “everything matters if anything matters at all,” on his album Everything Matters. That line has always stuck with me, and it influenced my song for Week 21 of #songaweek2016. With bass and percussion by Nathan Bloom, making it an official Cabin of Love song!

Time to wash the clothes
time to scrub the sink
time to give the little seedlings
a nice long drink
time to feed the chickens
time to walk the dog
time to listen to the children
time to write for the blog

Every day of our lives doesn’t break new ground
every hour in a day won’t blow your mind
every minute of ours doesn’t make a mark
but every moment matters

Time to go to work
time to eat a snack
time to wash the dirty dishes
time to put them back
time to read a book
time to run a few miles
time to play a little music
time to rest a little while

Three hands sweeping round a face
grabbing hold of everything we’ve done
Where do they carry it?
How should we know?
It’s a mystery where we’re going
but how we love to run.

 

Blinding Noise

May 10, 2016 — Leave a comment

Here’s my song for Week 18 of #songaweek2016. I took a poem I had written last year about my fascination and frustration with the Internet, and set it to music, sort-of loud music:

No no disconnect me

from the bluster and brooding

from the bright and blare

This is a hole in my heart

This is a tunnel to somewhere

I can’t remember

and can’t get back

and cannot banish

it

will not vanish

Thoughts transfer

from brain to brain

meat brain

to silicon brain

I have cut out the middleman

skipped the paperwork.

All this high-tech transcendence

makes me dizzy

I am falling down a hole

falling down a tunnel to somewhere

I can’t remember

and can’t get back

cannot banish

it

will not vanish

Sleep baby sleep

your dreams have all been written

watch the screen

breathe easy

lullaby

LOL-a-bye.

 

Every Single Star

April 26, 2016 — 4 Comments

Stars are glowing mysteries. Science and wonder collide in those incomprehensibly giant and mind-bogglingly ancient balls of fire that appear to little you and little me as tiny points of light.

They are countless. There are more stars than humans who have ever lived. A quick Google search tells me there are maybe “1 billion trillion” or “100 octillion” stars in the observable universe.

So it seems both fitting and misguided to me that we call people who have set themselves apart, people who dazzle us from dizzying heights, stars. If you can somehow distinguish yourself from the masses around you, maybe you too can rise and become a star.

Why are stars so remarkable when there are so very many of them, each shining its light out all through the universe? For all of human existence, we’ve been staring up at stars on clear nights, lost in wonder, drawn far beyond ourselves or deep within ourselves, like our parents and grandparents and distant ancestors long before us.

But you are remarkable too. And so am I. And our neighbors, and coworkers, and everybody who calls and tries to sell us something, and all the old people sitting in the assisted living place down the street. Every politician, every middle-schooler, every complaining customer and annoying coworker, every single life.

So be you, you bright star. Shine on.

And rest in peace, Prince.

The song I wrote for week 16 of #songaweek2016 has something to do with the above thoughts, but it’s still not all untangled for me. See what you can make of it: