Carry

Carry
(song lyrics) by Tori Amos

Love, hold my hand, help me see with the dawn
that those that have left are not gone

But they carry on as stars looking down
as Nature's Sons and Daughters of the Heavens

You will not ever be forgotten by me
In the precession of the mighty stars

Your name is sung and tattooed on my heart
here I will carry you forever

You have touched my life
so that now cathedrals of sound are singing

The waves have come to walk with you
to where you will live in the Land of Youth

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace like a river
attendeth my way
When sorrows
like sea billows roll.
Whatever my lot
Thou has taught me to say
It is well
It is well with my soul.

Spafford

Good Friday

What language shall I borrow
to thank Thee dearest friend?
For this Thy dying sorrow
Thy pity without end.
O, make me Thine forever
and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never,
outlive my love to Thee.

Carry

lyrics by Tori Amos
from Night of Hunters


Love hold my hand
Help me see you with the dawn
That those who have left
Are not gone

But they carry on
As stars looking down
As nature's sons
And daughters of the heavens

You will not ever be forgotten by me
In the procession of the mighty stars
Your name is sung and tattooed now on my heart
Here I will carry, carry, carry you forever

You have touched my life so that now
Cathedrals of sound are singing
The waves have come to walk with you
To where you will live in the land of you

I will carry you forever

(Thinking of Louie 2/14/84 to 2/23/11)

Where Have All the Protest Songs Gone?

I've been thinking about this long before I read a review in yesterday's Plain Dealer about a book called "33 Revolutions." The author Dorian Lynskey wrote, " I began this book intending to write a history of a still vital form of music. I finished it wondering if I had instead compsed a eulogy."

I am word person, a lyric listener. The sole reason I love certain songs are for their meaningful lyrics. My daughter gave me satellite radio for Christmas. I figured I would hear all kinds of new music and new brilliant lyrics - but, not so much. I started wondering why twentysomething artists are not commenting on the state of our country or the world anymore. Certainly there are enough reasons to protest!

I grew up in the 60's and 70's when, yes, we had our share of bubble-gum pop, but also evocative, mind-changing lyrics that impacted who I became in some ways. We had Neil Young singing four dead in Ohio, songs like "He Ain't Heavy, He's my Brother", Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, Don't block the hall. For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled. There's a battle outside and it's ragin'. It'll soon shake your walls for the times, they are a-changin."
Other songs like "Eve of Destruction" and "For What It's Worth." I could go on and on.

Now I hear one of the recent top songs is "Just the Way You Are." Didn't Billy Joel write that a few decades ago?
When I see your face there's not a thing that I would change, 'cause you're amazing just the way you are." Brilliant, huh?

Another popular one says, "You're so delicious, you're so soft, sweet on the tip of my tongue. You taste like sunlight and strawberry bubble gum."

Even the music is boring. I call them silly little ditties. There's even one called "The Giant Turd Song" but I'll let you imagine the lyrics.

The "Just the Way You Are" rip-off is an artist named Bruno Mars. In the PD review a critic from The New Yorker named Sasha Jones said in her critique of Bruno, that most current pop stars seem oblivious to the times in which they live.

So I did a web search for more recent protest songs. Guess who was doing them in the 2000's? Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Tom Waits... sound familiar?
I looked for some younger artists and there were a few: Pink and her "Dear Mr. President" - What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street? Who do you pray for at night before you sleep? What do you feel when you look in the mirror?

Greenday's "American Idiot" - Don't want to be an American idiot, one nation controlled by the media, information age of hysteria.

John Mayer's "Waiting for the World to Change" apparently his protest against the apathy of his contemporaries in song writing. Now if we had the power to bring neighbors home from war, they would have never missed a Christmas, no more ribbons on the door."

There were a few more - Pearl Jam, Lenny Kravitz, Eminem, Arcade Fire, but can you think of a current song that is going to stand the test of time like the ones written in the passionate time of the 60's and 70's? We are in two on-going wars, we have lived through a disastrous economy, we have poverty and hunger, celebrity worship and disease - doesn't anyone have anything to say? I am around a considerable amount of twentysomethings and I don't hear anything.

Where have all the protest songs gone?

Subdivision

song lyrics by Ani DiFranco

White people are so scared of black people,
they bulldoze out to the country and put up houses
on little loop-de-loop streets,
while America gets its heart cut right out of its chest,
the Berlin wall still runs down main street
separating east side from west, and nothing
is stirring, not even a mouse, in the boarded up stores
and the broken down houses, so they hang colorful banners
off all the street lamps just to prove they got manners.
No mercy, no sense and
I wonder what it will take for my city to rise.
First we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes.
The ghosts of old buildings are haunting parking lots
in the city of good neighbors that history forgot.
I remember the first time I saw someone lying on the cold street,
I thought "I just can't walk past you, this just can't be true."
But I learned by example to just keep moving my feet.
It's amazing the things that we all learn to do.
So we're led by denial like lambs to the slaughter,
serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water
and the old farmroad's a four-lane that leads to the mall
and my dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall.
And I wonder what it will take for my country to rise.
First we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes
'til nation's last taker succumbs to one last dumb decision
and America the beautiful is just one big subdivision.

Better

These are the lyrics to the song my son and I danced to at his wedding. I had played the song for him years ago and he remembered and chose it for our special moment - and it was perfect.

by Toby Lightman

He'll be enough to make you cry
He'll be enough to open your eyes
to all the little things that make this world better.
He'll give you love you never knew.
He'll give his heart only to you
and he'll make your life better.

So when he comes to you in the middle of the night
cause he's scared to be alone in the dark
you'll tell him everything is gonna be alright
'cause I will be your light, I will be your night
I will be that star in the sky who watches over you.

You'll tell him everything you know.
You'll tell him - oh, the places you'll go
so you can be a good man and make this world better.
You'll give him all the love you have
even when he makes you so mad,
keep in mind that he made your life better.

So when he comes to you and he's so confused
because he wants to give his heart to another,
you'll tell him everything is gonna be just fine.

And when the years are going by too fast
and he's growing up to be big and strong,
know his love for you will last,
even when he doesn't say it to your face
even when you have to put him in his place,
know that he's a love that nothing in this
world can ever replace.

Heal the World - Michael Jackson

Holy Week

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee dearest friend
for this thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me mine forever and should I fainting be
Lord, let me never,never outlive my love to Thee.

(anon, from the hymn O Sacred Head Now Wounded.)

Across the Universe - Lennon and McCartney

Words are flowing out like
endless rain into a paper cup,
they slither while they pass,
they slip away across the universe.
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy
are drifting through my opened mind
possessing and caressing me, Jai Guru deva om
nothing's gonna change my world.

Images of broken light which dance before me like million eyes
they call me on and on across the universe.
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box,
they tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe.

Sounds of laughter, shades of earth are ringing through my opened ears
inciting and inviting me, limitless undying love which shines around me
like a millions suns and calls me on and on across the universe.
Jai guru deva om, nothing's gonna change my world.

Sometimes a Beatles song comes on my ipod (on shuffle) and I have to appreciate them all over again. Jai Guru deva translates to "I give thanks to the heavenly teacher."
I painted the Abby Road scene on my basement wall.You can click to enlarge, but it looks better small :) Unless you come to my house to see it in person!

Marc Cohn - The Power of Music and Lyrics - Part 2

On February 7th I wrote about the power of music and lyrics, and this week I saw it in action. My son and I went to see Marc Cohn (of "Walking in Memphis" fame) perform at the Kent Stage. Cohn has been a favorite of mine since the early 90's. He's a seasoned performer, making you feel like he's in your living room chatting with you. Some artists are better to see in concert like James Taylor and Marc Cohn. Their personas, the soulful beauty of the voices,and their musicianship are stunning in person. If you've never heard Marc - try to find a You Tube live performance (when he's bald).

At the end of the concert Marc and three others performed (for the first and only time) a deeply moving rendition of the Crosby, Stills, Nash song "Ohio" as we sat in an old movie theater about a half of a mile from where four students senselessly died. I graduated from Kent State and the story of May 4, 1970 still chokes me up.

One of the many things I have always loved about my 28 year-old son is that he appreciates, and is touched, by all types of music. He lets himself feel the music and the lyrics and that has brought me much joy. I admire him now as a man still allowing himself to be emotional at times. Since his teen years we have shared concerts and songs with each other, and it is, of course, very special to me. One of my dearest memories from his childhood is my little boy sitting in front of the stereo, clutching his stuffed "Fievel" from the movie "American Tale", listening to the orchestral soundtrack and crying his eyes out remembering the emotional parts of the movie (when Fievel was in danger!) The music spoke to him. I knew then that music would be an integral part of his life, as it has been in mine.

And so, the power of music and lyrics extends to bonding moments between mother and son - as I hope it always will. Sometime I'll write about the song he and I will dance to at his wedding this summer :) sniff.

Glitter in the Air

If you missed Pink's performance of "Glitter in the Air" at the Grammy's - the one where she's mostly naked, hanging in the air in a swath of material, singing upside down and dripping wet - well, you missed it.
It made me buy her CD and I decided I really like the lyrics of the song - something probably no one heard during that performance - even me, the emo music junkie, the lyric freak - since I was standing in front of the TV with my mouth gaping open.

Have you ever fed a lover with just your hands?
Closed your eyes and trusted, just trusted.
Have you ever thrown a fistful of glitter in the air?
Have you ever looked fear in the face
and said, "I just don't care?"
It's only half past the point of no return,
the tip of the iceberg,
the sun before the burn,
the thunder before the lightning,
and the breath before the phrase.
Have you ever felt this way?
Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone?
Your whole life waiting on the ring to prove you're not alone?
Have you ever been touched so gently you had to cry?
Have you ever invited a stranger to come inside?
Have you ever wished for an endless night?
Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled that rope tight?
Have you ever held your breath and asked yourself
will it ever get better than tonight?

The Power of Music and Lyrics

I have sung in choirs and choruses, at weddings and as a church soloist all my life. I've been transported to heaven singing Brahm's German Requiem. I've been honored to sing at weddings of people I don't know. All my life I've had the privilege of choosing songs that were meaningful to me to share with a congregation. But I don't listen to these songs in my car, walking with my ipod, or at home. I exclusively listen to music for lyrics that evoke a certain emotion in me. It's a habit I've had for almost twenty years since a single CD changed me. It was a time when I was experiencing every negative emotion humanly possible, and sometimes no emotion at all. Although it was a tumultuous and frightening time, it also gave me a rush of something new, something swiftly approaching, a nascent hope and a release from the monotony of a former life. Sometimes I listen to those songs just to experience that rush again. Or the one song that still makes me flinch.

There were two CDs that connected to my very soul. One was Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes. With piano sounds and lyrics I'd never heard before, it gave me permission to be angry (which I desperately needed), to scream, to make me feel alive again. I believe I started writing poetry because her lyrics were poetry to me. On the way home from divorce court I loudly sang along with the song "Little Earthquakes" - give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.
The song "Crucify" asked - why do we crucify ourselves everyday? I crucify myself and nothing I do is good enough for you.
"Tear in Your Hand" said - you don't know the power you have with that tear in your hand.
She sang to me - she's been everybody else's girl, maybe one day she'll be her own.
And - sometimes I hear my voice and it's been HERE - silent all these years.
And - these precious things - let them bleed, let them wash away....

Then, the underrated Kenny Loggins made a CD called Leap of Faith, and I thought he was in my brain. It seemed he was feeling the same things I was:
And if I have to make up my mind, maybe now is the time to decide. Every minute makes it harder on me. Why must it be now or never?

Then in "Leap of Faith" he sang - Once in a life you can find the time to see. Then you get to take it down, turn around, temporary sanity. And then the mountain disappears without a trace - and all it took was a sudden leap of faith.

He sang to his daughter in "The Real Thing" - I did it for you and the boys, because love should teach you joy, and not the imitation that your mama and daddy tried to show you. I did it for you and for me and because I still believe there's only one thing you can never give up on and that's the real thing you need in love.


And I played that song for people to try to explain why my life had fallen apart. At the end of that song he sings:
Everybody's got a boat upon the ocean, but not everybody's sailing out to sea. Is there someone there for me? I'm ready to believe...

AND SO - the last song of that album is called "Too Early for the Sun." It was a few years before I could relate to that one:
You're too early for the stars, too early for the wind
too early for my heart to open up again
but when I see you I just laugh, and I believe
I'm right where I'm supposed to be.
I have never known a life like this except in my dreams
one kiss and I arose anew, now I am alive
I have survived.

And so - after seasons of pain and anger, healing and forgiveness - this was our first dance in my living room. This was our first dance as husband and wife. This is our dance every July 6th in our living room. The album Leap of Faith came full circle in my life - how appropriate.

These songs, these lyrics had a powerful effect on me. Some of them changed me, grew me, and healed me. I will always be grateful that these artists sang their truths because they made me understand my own truth. Music still does that for me.

Christmas 2009

Break forth O beauteous heavenly light
and usher in the morning.
Ye shepherds shrink not with afright
but hear the angels warnings.
This child now weak in infancy
our confidence and joy shall be.
The power of satan breaking.
our peace eternal making.

Johann Rist

In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan.
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.
Snow had fallen , snow on snow, snow on snow.
In the bleak midwinter long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain.
Heaven and earth flee away when he comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed.
The Lord God almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there.
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air.
But his mother Mary, in her maiden bliss
worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would give a lamb.
If I were a wise man I would do my part.
Yet, what can I give him?
Give my heart.

Christina Rossetti

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


I heard the bells on Christmas day
their old familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet the words repeat
of peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,
the belfries of all Christendom
had rolled along the unbroken song
of peace on earth , good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way
the world revolved from night to day,
a voice, a chime, a chant sublime
of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth," I said.
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
the wrong shall fail, the right prevail
with peace on earth, good will to men."

Facebook, My First Kiss and the Beatles

Are you on it? I'm starting to love this phenomenon. I have had dinner with three high school friends so far and we've renewed our friendships. It probably wouldn't have happened without Facebook. But just this morning I discovered something that I'm sure I never would have known if not for this social networking site.

One of my dearest childhood friends lost her father last night. In expressing my sadness I saw one of her other friends was the first boy who ever kissed me. I was probably in 7th grade. If I remember correctly we had a mostly telephone relationship because he didn't live very close. He was just a boy I met at a party and never heard from again. I requested his "friendship" and looked at his info page. Then I saw that we had two mutual friends. He is a cousin to my daughter's best friend and he apparently worked with my future daughter-in-law's sister.

That is just so random and weird to me. Mind you, it's been almost 40 years since that first kiss! I remember it was dark and there was a song playing over and over. If you ever visit my basement you will see a mural of The Beatles. You will notice the lyrics to "Let It Be" written above it. That was the song.

The Real Thing

On my walk yesterday, my ipod on shuffle, the song "The Real Thing" by Kenny Loggins came on. It's a song from his album "Leap of Faith" from 1991. It was his divorce/starting life over album and it was a lifeline for me. I still cry at "The Real Thing".

I did it for you and the boys
because love should teach you joy
and not the imitation
that your mama and daddy tried to show you
I did it for you and for me
and because I still believe
there is one thing you can never
give up and never compromise on
and it's the real thing
you need in love.

I still cry for my children's broken home. But both of my children chose to rise above all that went wrong. They each chose the high road of forgiveness and love, not anger and resentment. For this, I will always admire them.

Now my son is engaged and I see my dream for him coming true. I believe with all my hear that my kids will do it right because I have seen them learn from their parents' mistakes.

The end of "The Real Thing" says:

Everybody's got a boat out on the ocean
but not everybody's sailing out to sea
and is there someone there for me?
I'm ready to believe.

I chose to believe and there was somebody out there for me - and now I've got The Real Thing.

Prone to Wander

This morning I sang a solo in church. It was an arrangement of one of my very favorite hymns - "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". Besides the lovely melody I sing it for these lyrics:

Prone to wander Lord I feel it.
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart, O take and seal it.
Seal it for Your courts above.

That's the life of faith in a nutshell. We are prone to leaving, prone to messing it up, imperfect and human, but God still loves us and is able to seal our hearts for Him in eternity.

The Hand Song

This song is as powerful of an Easter song as I can imagine. I would sing it in church but I don't think I'd make it through. It is by the now defunct group Nickel Creek - Sara Watkins, Sean Watkins, Chris Thile)

The boy only wanted to give mother something

and all of her roses had bloomed.

Looking at him as he came rushing in

without knowing her roses were doomed.
All she could see were some thorns buried deep

and tears that he criedas she tended his wounds.

And she knew it was love, it was what she could understand.

He was showing his love and that 's how he hurt his hands.

He still remembers that night as a child on his mother's knee.

She held him close as she opened her bible

and quietly started to read.

Then seeing a picture of Jesus he cried out -

Mama! He's got scars just like me.

And he knew it was love. It was what he could understand.

He was showing his love and that's how he hurt his hands.

Now the boy is grown and moved out on his own

when Uncle Sam comes along.

A foreign affair but our young men are there

and luck had his number drawn.

It wasn't that long til our soldier was gone,

he gave to a friend what he learned from the cross.

But they knew it was love. It was what they could understand.

He was showing his love - and that's how he hurt his hands.