And great…… it seems like the sounds gets weird at the higher parts but I still have zero idea how microphones & recording devices work. They are so complicated. Of course I should try to figure out how they work, but it seems so complex that there is really no hope of ever making progress in that realm. And so boring I could possibly die. I must be resigned to my fate and continue on. Just realize it sounds better in person & make adjustments in your imagination. Thanks!
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
I saw the people form a long thin line They surrounded me in a circle; I did not want to die I saw a dark spot move across the sky Her message was so clear to me: goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
They built their village in the northern woods This is not my home, one day I’ll leave for good I cooked my food beneath a veil of stars This is not my home, I said with quivering arms.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
They crossed the river in a long thin line Their clothes were stacked upon their heads, piled so high They held each other’s hands with long thin arms Though I leave this place, I will remember you as fallen stars.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song.
*
I wrote this song a couple years ago when I was redecorating my apartment in the hopes that it would magically transform my life into a more exciting one. Since I had already tried every other decorating style I could think of- and my exciting life had not yet manifested- I decided to use reverse psychology on the universe and make my home impersonal and sterile, like a business office. I ‘decluttered,’ removed pictures from the wall, and replaced cutesy soap dishes with industrial ones. I tried to make everything as white and empty as possible. I decided to stop writing songs, to make the void even greater.
And it did make me feel empty. I always get this particular sad feeling after decluttering. ‘Decluttering’ is a popular movement at the moment- supposedly all aspects of your life will improve when you release unnecessary possessions- but I am more or less an opponent of it. Without possessions to weigh us down, our minds become untethered. I learned this the hard way, having given away my possessions many times. When I left one husband and married another, I placed everything I owned, clothing and all, into one duffle bag. I didn’t even have different clothes for summer and winter, just a pair of green shorts and yellow pants that I wore both in snow and extreme humidity. Plus a pink polo shirt with green frogs on it.
Sometimes I still find it challenging to deal with the responsibility of material possessions, but that is life. It is better to be crushed alive by heaviness than to go insane from extreme lightness. Isn’t it?
At any rate, this song is an expression of the ache I felt after turning my home into a business office.
There are 3 stages a person passes through on the road to spiritual glory.
The White Stage: At this stage, a person develops discipline and character by following rules & seeking to please an authority figure. This could be a child obeying a parent, a student obeying a teacher, a Christian obeying God, etc.
The Black Stage: At this stage, a person is thrust into the battle of life. Following rules and pleasing authority figures will no longer ensure a victory. People are forced to step outside moral codes and do what nature demands to survive.
The Gold Stage: If a person makes it through the black and the white, they will reach the gold stage and wear the crown of wisdom. To wear this crown, a person must be both powerful & benevolent and know how to balance the ideals of heaven with the realities of earth.
This song is about the second stage, the black stage- the world of knights.
It seems that, for a while now, the color white has been trying to take over the (human) world. White walls, open space floor plans, buddhism, yoga, kale smoothie detoxes… when will the reign of white ever end?
At the time I wrote this song I was completely swept up into the color white, trying to wear, eat, and decorate with it exclusively. White can be refreshing and protective, but geez, it can also be such a cold color, disconnecting you from everything warm and earthy.
I wrote this song in Nashville… moving to Nashville after living in L.A. was something of a culture shock. In L.A. I didn’t have a car or even know how to tune my own guitar- asking strangers for rides or tunings wasn’t a big deal, because after all, we’re all one, man! I could even walk around wearing antennae on my head, and although it did make me stick out a little, it didn’t create a division- people would just ask why I was wearing antennae on my head and then proceed to share their own alien abduction stories. But in Nashville everything was colder, heavier, more serious. Conformity was the chief value, for people and music, and anything different was cast in a dark and sketchy light. To conform was to be clean, intelligent, wholesome, loving.
And conformity begins with clothes, which is why I had trouble right off the bat. For reasons I can’t remember, I was determined to wear only white clothes (in addition to eating only white foods and living in an all-white apartment). But especially on a limited budge, white clothes were not always easy to come by, and I sometimes ended up wearing things that were definitely white, but not altogether clothes- like Christmas decorations and tablecloths, for example.
Why didn’t I just try to make life easy on myself by fitting in?
I wrote this song while living in Nashville, where it always seemed so dark and cold, maybe because I only went out at night. To make matters worse, I tried to wear only white and silver clothes and eat only white foods… why??? I don’t know what I was thinking, but I do know it cast a cold and lonely feeling over my time there. Just thinking back on it gives me the shivers.