There are different types of songs I guess. This is one of those songs that you hear playing in your head which you assume will annoy people, but you write it down anyway, just in case it matters somehow. In general, I try not to judge songs too much since their meaning changes to me over time. Lots of songs which I once thought were dumb started to seem important to me in hindsight.
Hold it together & fight through the mud You will find him there. Close your eyes tightly the fingers you feel A spider through your hair.
Hands on my head will you steady me, steady me There’s too much I’ve seen. I only thought things would be wonderful I didn’t know he could be mean.
I loved a dream. I loved a dream.
Hands on my head could you steady me, steady me Show me who I am. Winds on my mind they are blowing me, blowing me Blowing me round in circles again.
Sometimes I feel like I could do so many things Running fast & far. Finding myself in another place, other place Who took me here? Who drove the car?
I loved a dream. I loved a dream.
Hands on my head could you steady me, steady me Guide me through the dark? Keep touching me til I’m ready so ready then Let my mind restart.
Scanning my eyes through another town other town Always gray and blue Searching again for the boldest man, oldest man He will be you.
Forces of air are you trying to speak to me Why do you blow on my mind? Help me to be just one person, the same person All of the time.
I have been wearing yellow tinted glasses today, which makes it a bit easier to find words to express myself.
This is one of many songs I have written about protective spirits, the sorts that follow a person around. In this case, they are spirits of the air. They help a person to avoid danger, but if the emotional connection to them grows too strong then a feeling of detachment from life can take hold. Because they are spirits of freedom & escape. Not spirits of building a nest within this world.
Although they do provide friendship to some extent, if a person is trying to resolve loneliness, fire spirits would be a better choice. Because they warm the heart & make it easier to connect to others.
Still, I love spirits of the air. They are always around us and never far away.
Step softly now.
See their hooded eyes.
Keep us close at hand-
You may need our quick advice
But everybody’s watching you- they got a lot to say.
Just keep their words within a jar- we’ll open it one day.
After all, life was never meant to be your home.
Life was never nothing but the road you chose to take.
Step softly now.
Feel the hidden hand.
Through the bushes it extends to you
The outline of a man
Then he says hide! duck! back up against the van where he can’t see you!
Crawl over to the shadows where we’re waiting, for we may be the only ones who need you.
After all, life was never meant to be your home.
Life was never nothing but the road you chose to take.
And how do you feel now, standing on your own?
Like a column made of fire?
A feeling that you could be quite alone.
Move quickly now- don’t believe you have a friend
They just like to watch you trip and fall- they’ll push you down again.
So quickly crawl back into the alleyway where he won’t see you
Back up against the tree and we will be there- perhaps we are the only ones who need you.
After all, life was never meant to be your home.
Life was never nothing but the road you chose to take.
I have to include a random picture here for practical purposes. (Otherwise, Facebook attaches a photo I hate to my posts when I try to share them.) This is me at Blenko- a place where they make glass in West Virginia. It is one of my favorite things about the state.
Originally the chorus was “I feel you growing like a lamp behind me,” but then I got paranoid that lamp could have some alternate sexual meaning, as 90% of words seem to, so I changed it to Light, just to be safe. No one will read anything seedy into pure, disembodied Light.
Open the shade- I know what is coming
The stars, the sky, the moon- they are all watching
Kidneys hurt- too hard to stand
Hello floor- it’s me again.
Down on the floor- I see him beside
His golden eyes- they shine they guide.
He can’t touch; he can’t do nothing to save.
Those are the rules and he is just a slave.
Give it just a little more time- I’ll know you’ll save me.
Though you are not my man and I’m not your baby.
Give it just a little more time- I know you’ll find me.
I feel you growing like a lamp behind me.
He is silent, he is strong and standing in his square
A pane of glass between us and his body made of air
Sometimes I will slump down on that glass and I will breath him
Till I’m weak and I am crying from believing that I need him.
He says- Stand up on your legs. Oh, no, no, no- I am too weak
And if I don’t crumble like a slut who will be there for me?
Because half of all these days I can’t remember who I am
I just look around and grab onto the first hand that I can.
Give it just a little more time, I’ll know you’ll save me
Though you are not my man and I’m not your baby
Give you just a little more time, I know you’ll find me
I feel you drawing like a light behind me.
When God is your witness please say you will vouch for me
No no not to say that I was good, nor that I tried to be
But please tell him that my leaves reached up like arms towards his sky
Tell him that my roots would suck so hard they made the earth grow dry.
Give it just a little more time, I’ll know you’ll save me
Though you are not my man and I’m not your baby
Give you just a little more time I know you’ll find me
I feel you drawing like a light behind me.
Oh dear… I wish I knew how to record more than one vocal track so I could have the sound of twins singing the chorus, but when you are a non-stem female musician, you just have to do the best you can & keep walking forward.
His eyes were blue, his eyes were pale The absence of a fire. Where the wind blew, there they went The absence of desire.
Peppermint, a hint of life Something pure and true. All around you like a kite There his blue eyes flew.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
His fingers were so thin and yet He held your little hand. He walked with you upon the beach A heart drawn in the sand.
The sky was flying like a flag Had you seen that flag before? A gust of wind opening a door.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
You stood upon the beach with him the gavel was put down. With rings upon your finger now The absence of a sound.
A piece of lace blew in the wind It was tied to a pole. The wind was blowing to the east The place where fairies go.
A piece of lace, a secret place No one knows where it ends. But all along he held your hand Just like a pair of twins.
This song was inspired by the zodiac sign of Libra. As I mentioned before, whenever I am feeling down I choose a sign of the zodiac to connect with and quickly it will cheer me up. I chose Libra, because it is the astrological ruler of lace, one of my favorite things.
It is probably dangerous to spell out for the world a list of your favorite things, but I will do so anyway and hope for the best. As I said, one of them is lace. I like to include a piece of lace in every song. It is a nice escape from my everyday life, which doesn’t feel lacy. My regular life is cornbread baked in a cast iron pan, so heavy I can barely lift it. But I dream of lace and one day I will buy a piece to keep forever.
So, at any rate, this is a list of my favorite things, but please keep in mind that by virtue of them being my favorite things I am also drawn to their opposites and to things which hit them at odd angles.
All hills, no thrills. Hurricane, where I lived before moving to Charleston. Hills change a lot of things, and it has taken me a few years to get used to them.
Thoughts are made of air. Behind thoughts lies ether. Ether is the space which thoughts occupy; the realm in which you are thinking. And this is where I sometimes feel off, as though my reality is located in a place not quite relevant to me.
While thoughts need to be clear, rational and honest to have value, ether is subjective. You could say it is faith or imagination infused by a feeling. You begin with a subjective feeling, a sense, that life is this sort of thing, and then that feeling becomes the terrain over which all your thoughts must travel.
Perhaps, for example, you have the sense that life is a dismal affair and the world more or less a machine. In this case, your ether has a gray metallic cast, and all your thoughts must make their way through that grim landscape. Or you feel as though the world is full of love and unicorns (even though you might not literally believe that). Once again, you will only be able to harbor thoughts that can survive in this bubblegum hued environment. In this pink world, the possibility of your husband wanting to kill you becomes unthinkable, and all evidence in favor of this hypotheses drops from your mind. This does not, however, make it impossible for your husband to follow through with his deadly plan.
Hence, why it is difficult to judge which flavors of ether are better and which are worse. It all depends on the person and the place.
Let’s say, for example, you are an atheist, a materialist, and this is the backdrop for your thinking, the etheric world your thoughts inhabit. (Keeping in mind, however, that ether is not so much your stated beliefs as the climate these beliefs inhabit. There could be an atheist with a empty cast, who feels the world is void of meaning. There could be an atheist with an angry cast whose rage at parental figures has turned into a war on religion. Or there could be an atheist with a milky brown cast, who is so enamored with nature that he has no interest in spiritual abstractions.)
So let’s say you are an atheist with a metallic gray cast, drawn to mechanical thoughts and seeing life as a rational affair. Although spiritual things seem like fairy tales to you, you hold no animus towards those who believe in them. This could be a fine etheric location for a engineer or scientist to set up shop, helping them to stay focused on their life’s work and perform it in a logical manner. While for someone else-like a warrior- this form of ether could be debilitating, stripping from them the passion and sense of glory one needs to lay down one’s own life.
The value, then, of any given frame of mind is relative to what that person needs to contend with and accomplish. The rose colored glasses that might compliment a pre-school teacher could be deadly for a police officer.
And now I am wondering what my point is… I think my point is- maybe- that when you interact with people, you don’t just have a tendency to share their thoughts, you get drawn into the same mindspace as them. This happens to me when I use Facebook. Even though I disagree with people, eventually the disagreement draws me into thinking about the same things as them. Their take on life starts to refocus my own, creating a sense of disconnection from self.
I guess I am honest with people to the extent of meaning what I say, but not honest to the point of sharing what I actually care about. The things which can be shared do not interest me, and the things which interest me cannot be shared. Or perhaps that is just the dark lens through which I view life.
Me, a couple years ago, unable to smile as Saturn- the planet of restriction and gloom- crossed over my horizon. There was a time in which I had few opportunities to leave the holler, the little crevasse in which I lived, and this photo may have been taken to celebrate one of those moments.
Moving into a new home last year was an adjustment for me. For starters, all new places feel unbearably cootie filled to me, especially if they have been previously inhabited, and since this house is 111 years old, it is has been inhabited many times. (Including JFK, at least for a day. And considering that he was a sex addict said to have sex multiple times a day, I like to think he may have done so in our house as well. Probably the guest bathroom, as was his custom when visiting a new place.)
Also, as much as I admire the down to earthiness of West Virginia culture, it can make me feel claustrophobic at times. Truthfully, the culture of every place I have lived eventually makes me feel the need to escape. The sun shiny cultures make you stupid, the icy ones freeze your heart, the airiness of the West Coast leads you to make bad choices, the human density of cities makes your head go up your ass, etc. I can’t help wanting to be the opposite of the world around me, no matter what that world is like. Otherwise it can feel hard to breathe. Although I like like people a lot as individuals, I have a hard time dealing with them once they have turned into giant globs sharing the same thoughts and perspectives.
At any rate, the point is that when I first moved here the home and world around me felt foreign and oppressive, so I compensated by making my home a symbol of airiness and flight. Painting the walls sky blue and covering them with airplanes and butterflies, clouds, stars, and lightening bolts.
But now it has gotten to be too much and my whole world feels as though it is empty and blowing around in the air. It is time to redecorate my home to make it feel like the heaviest, stuffiest place in the world. Every symbol of air must be replaced with a pumpkin or a bear. Everything white must be painted brown. Everything high must be placed on the ground.
Of course, last time I made my home as earthy as I could it made me feel stuck, depressed and flat, as though I was being pressed beneath a heavy book. However, it turns out that was also the time Saturn was passing over my horizon, which makes everyone feel as though their life is a dry and burdensome drudge. Maybe this time the impact of earth will be quite excellent. I will let you know. 🙂
I painted this bookcase with some leftover ocher paint to be earthier. I think ocher and brown are the essence of earth. As are dogs. If you look carefully, you can also see some of my favorite collectibles in this photo, such as blenko water bottles and fiesta ware. The books in the bookcase are ones I would be embarrassed to be associated with (and the ones I read the most) which is why they must be kept upstairs. I would like eventually to have a case of books downstairs which have been purely selected for their pomposity.
Back in the day, there was one Greek philosopher who believed everything is made of fire, one who believed everything is made of air, one who believed everything is made of water, and one who believed everything is made of earth. The one who believed everything is made of fire also believed that change and impermanence are the true nature of life (a common belief today as well). The one who believed everything is made of earth believed that nothing ever changes and that permanence is the true nature of life.
Perhaps there is one layer of life which is constantly in flux, and perhaps this layer tends to grab our attention because of its unpredictable, dramatic, and anxiety-producing nature. But beneath that, isn’t there also something so constant and steady, so soft and reassuring, that it is easy for us to forget it is even there?
This song is about that realm of comfort that lies beneath the more teetering aspects of our lives- the element of Earth!!
