winter

February Breakup

February 28, 2023 — 3 Comments

I’m squeezing in my song for February on the last day of this shortest longest month. It’s a breakup song and if you, like me, have ever lived up north from October through February, I think you’ll know what I’m getting at here. Played on a backup guitar because my beautiful Lucinda Taylor is undergoing repairs (three cracks from a previous winter’s cold spell reopened this year – I have learned my lesson and will keep her in her case with a regularly-moistened dampit in the winter!).

You and me I think we’re through
I think I’ve had enough of you
So take yourself somewhere else
They might just welcome you in hell

Oh, just go

You looked so good months ago
Pristine, glistening starlit glow
But lately you’re just cold hard light
And you don’t keep me warm at night

Oh, just go

No one here wants you around

I’m sick of wearing all these clothes
And losing feeling in my toes
Can’t wait to bare my arms and legs
When you’re finally gone away

Oh, just go

No one here wants you around

You had your time, now move along
I’m done with you and this song

Remember December

December 16, 2021 — 4 Comments

For funsies.

Hey Mr. Snowman, welcome aboard
You’ve joined a wonderful world
But I gotta warn you, there’s things you don’t know
Because your brain is made of snow

Remember December is not the only kind of month
With its crystalline cold
There’s others coming that you won’t like so much

Your small creator is fickle and young
And prone to temper tantrums
So man you’d better make every moment
count for something before you go

Remember December is not the only kind of month
With its crystalline cold
There’s others coming that you won’t like so much

Sweet little birds will peck out your eyes
Don’t take it personally
We’ve all got problems in our lives
As I am sure you’ll come to see

Beware of dogs and thirteen-year-olds
They’re unpredictable dolts
They might befoul you or decapitate
But they can’t take your luminous soul

Remember December is not the only kind of month
With its crystalline cold
There’s others coming that you won’t like so much

Cold Night In (Lovely Lost Cause)

December 18, 2018 — Leave a comment

Week 50! This is one of those songs where the suggested theme (from #songaweek2018) actually caused the song to be written. I wouldn’t have gone this direction at all if it weren’t for the suggested word, “metal.”

Not much I want to say about this song – I think we’ve all been here from time to time and know something about it. The cycle of love, the journey of living well. The bridge (“thieves break in and steal . . .”) comes from Matthew 6:19-20, that little passage about storing up treasures in heaven rather than earth. I interpret that not as sacred versus secular; but cosmic, big-hearted wisdom versus short-sighted, me-and-mine foolishness.

My heart’s made of metal
invincible steel
that’s why when you hold me
there’s nothing to feel

It’s a cold night in
It’s a lovely lost cause

I swam in the ocean
I crawled up on land
but there’s no harder journey
than the one to your hand

It’s a cold night in
It’s a lovely lost cause

Thieves break in and steal
Moth and rust corrupt

Come light your best fire
to melt me all down
I’m sick and I’m tired
But I’m coming around

On this cold night in
For this lovely lost cause

Decembrance

December 11, 2018 — 2 Comments

In the season of shortest days and darkest nights, I like to write songs like this. Winter can be a soul-sucking time of year, or from another perspective, it can be a time to slow down, pull in, lay low, and breathe.

As I was writing this song for week 49 of #songaweek2018, I was aware of the following influences: the feeling of an Irish blessing we sang in choir when I was in college; Handel’s Messiah (I love the way the word “comfortably” is sung in “Comfort Ye My People,” so I did it too); and the Christmas song “Oh Holy Night” which is referenced in “harmonies and holy nights.”

And still, on my mind throughout the year and now more poignantly as the year draws to a close, my Grammy, whose health continues to decline as we await her departure into deepest rest.

Slow dance of the winter, deep sleep of the snow
Clear light of the night sky keep you as you go
Soft blanket of crystal, beasts nestled below
Still evergreen branches, lone call of the crow
All of the fragile ones have flown

Winds wending through treetops comfortably sigh
Rivers rest, insects hide
Memories and melodies murmur in your mind
Harmonies and holy nights hold us all through time
All through the night beyond our sight

Save Your Sadness for a Sunny Day

April 3, 2018 — 2 Comments

I feel a little like a cheater. And a lot like privileged. I spent Easter Sunday afternoon stretched out in the sun on my brother-in-law’s deck in Denver. No jacket, bare feet. I got a sunburn, so I guess there’s some justice for you.

But now, I’m dutifully back in Saint Paul, under gray skies, watching snow pile up outside, thankful for a few sunny days stolen in Colorado, where some of my March-in-Minnesota melancholy did indeed melt away.

My inspiration for writing this song (for week 13 of #songaweek2018) was taking a walk on a gray day, thinking about the cliche “save it for a rainy day” – and how that doesn’t make much sense here where gray/snowy/rainy days can be so common, so maybe it’s better to save up something for a sunny day – and since lots of gray days can bring on sadness for me, maybe I could save up that sadness, push off the full feeling of it till a sunny day when I could let it all hang out and see it melt away. (I think I sort of inverted the idea of the Jayhawks’ song “Save it for a Rainy Day”!)

Save your sadness for a sunny day
Hang your heartache out in the breezy blue
Let the melancholy melt away
Lift your lamentation off your chest

Whiteout
Hard-nosed ice
Steely sleet
Driving rain

Save your sadness for a sunny day
Hang your heartache out in the breezy blue
Let the melancholy melt away
Lift your lamentation off your chest

Gray skies
Paralyze
Heavy light
Leaden limbs

Save your sadness for a sunny day
Hang your heartache out in the breezy blue
Let the melancholy melt away
Lift your lamentation off your chest

Birds sing
Anyway
Branches reach
Treetops sway