songwriting

The Hard Way

October 1, 2022 — 1 Comment

Everybody in my house has been sick the last week, but I still managed to get a song written. Turning in a quick and easy lo-fi laptop recording this week.

Nobody told you how to let the best ones go
Nobody told you so how were you to know?
There’s some things you can only learn the hard way

She looked so good until you saw the splinters in her eyes
Well ain’t it awful but you just won’t compromise
There’s some things you’ll just have to learn the hard way

Love has seen it all
Love’s heard everything
Love loves it all
Love learned the hard way

Don’t try to count up all the ways you got it wrong
All it amounts to is the will to carry on
There’s some things you can only learn the hard way

So don’t you fear now, just take each breath for what it is
And what it is is another unexpected gift
There’s some things you’ll just have to learn the hard way

Love has seen it all
Love’s heard everything
Love loves it all
Love learned the hard way

Baby Mine

September 24, 2022 — 2 Comments

When I was a child, I discovered my baby book – a scrapbook that was sent home with my mother from the hospital, titled The Book of Baby Mine. Being a word nerd from a young age, I was struck by that grammar – “baby mine” – it felt incorrect to me. It should be “my baby” or “the baby of mine,” I thought. (I hadn’t encountered the song by the same name from Dumbo yet, which might be where that title came from.)

Now, years later, being a parent whose first baby recently moved out of the nest – “baby mine” makes a whole lot more sense that has nothing to do with grammar.

You were so sweet you were so bright
You were so deer in my headlights
I helped you out, gathered you in
Held you gently against my skin

Baby mine I love you all the time
Baby mine you’re always in my mind

You are my joy born from pain
You’re the deep happiness I named
You are the laughter kissing my tears
My life restarted when you got here

Baby mine I love you all the time
Baby mine you’re always in my mind

Sleep well darling wherever you are
And know I’m close, though it feels far
I’ll sing for you all night long
These are the words, this is the song:

Baby mine I love you all the time
Baby mine you’re always in my mind

The Road the Day the Ground the Clouds

September 17, 2022 — 2 Comments

At last, my #songaweek2022 group used a photo for a prompt instead of a word or phrase. This felt like a game-changer to me in terms of connecting with a prompt for inspiration. I think the photo was of the Great Wall of China, but I thought of a road, then of the song from The Hobbit that starts, “the road goes ever on and on. . . ” and I went from there.

I felt like deliberately slowing down in the writing and playing of this song, and so I did.

If you listen closely and/or with headphones you might be able to hear the crickets singing along outside the open window.

The road goes ever on
And over it a song
That if you hear will draw you near
to where you never know where you might go

The day lies before you
And with it much to do
But there’s a song that draws you on
To where you always know you’re going home

The ground carries your load
The clouds catch evening’s glow
They’re changing you, and changed by you
Till everything will never be the same

The Way of Wonder

September 8, 2022 — 1 Comment

Life continues to be a bit crazy around here as we moved our oldest to college last week and two of us go back to school here at home (middle school lunch lady and high school sophomore). I mean not here at *home* but in our hometown. I mean not actually our town but the next one over, which is only a few blocks away. But I digress.

All that to say I’m still not back to finishing a song every week. This one was started last week and wrapped up and roughly recorded this week. Not one of my favorites but it’s just good to write again!

Here on the water in the middle of the land
You can hear the wind, it’s whispering through the wings of birds above you
And here in the forest surrounded by the trees
You can feel the pulse of all the being things around you
Ooooh. . . . and that’s called home

Deep in the hollows of your heavy heart
There is still a song reverberating in this moment
Lapsing synapses at the back of your brain
Keep trying all the ways they know to tell the story how it goes
Ooooh . . . . and that’s called life

And you
You will be well
You will find wisdom in the way of wonder

Hopeful Face of the Human Kind

August 20, 2022 — 4 Comments

Through my childhood and teenage years, my family moved around a lot. While our home address changed often, our favorite vacation place was the ocean, and we went there many times, up and down the Atlantic seaboard. One year when my brother and I were teenagers, my dad wrote a poem inspired by watching us run ahead of him, away from him, along the beach, where our smaller selves used to cling to his hand and struggle to keep up.

Now I’m the parent, and this is the last summer before my oldest moves out of my house and into a college dorm room (two weeks from today!). It’s been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for all of us, and in one of the more angsty moments recently, she said to me, “my life is falling apart!” Which is a hard truth about growing up – the life you know is shrinking, fading, becoming the life you knew – to make way for the bigger life you are stepping into.

This is a song for Luthien, with footage from a video Nathan took of our kids enjoying the Ocean City, New Jersey surf on our vacation this summer. To quote the boardwalk souvenir shop we browsed later that day, “happiness comes in waves!”

You got a lot of something, I hope you take it with you
But bring it on back here sometimes, I’m gonna miss you child
Life as you know it’s falling apart without a doubt but
What you don’t know is out there for you to go and find

You were born for this
You were made for these times
You’re the hopeful face
Of the human kind

You gotta look ahead now, don’t worry I’m behind you
Loving you like I always have and always will
Life is the thing you make it so make the thing you want to
Take the scenic route, blaze a happy trail

You were born for this
You were made for these times
You’re the hopeful face
Of the human kind

You were born for this
You were made for these times
You’re the hopeful face
Of the human kind