Tag Archives: Songs

When a song isn’t “just a song”

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Music speaks to our inner being in many ways. Melody and rhythm can get our body moving, increase our pulse, or help us relax. Music with lyrics can do the same thing, but the added dimension of words with the music impacts our thoughts and feelings on a different level. What poetry does without music; song lyrics achieve in combination with it. It is much like poetry in this way, with music stated rather than implied. Countless stories exist about songs that opened doors for people or affected them in some way.

I like the Beatles. Their music and lyrics always provide me with a feeling or thought I didn’t have the last time. It is particularly uplifting to me. Others may feel differently, or other artists may provide that same feeling to them. Yet, for me – I always return to the Beatles for inspiration or comfort.

My parents have both recently passed away. My father in 2019, and my mother last December. Both parents wished to be cremated, so my brother, sister and I abided by their wishes. When my father passed, we made no arrangements to inter his ashes, as we had to quickly make plans to relocate my mother closer to me as a primary care giver. My Dad’s ashes traveled with us approximately 800 miles from their home and sat on my mother’s bedside table. My mother, despite my best efforts, did not take especially well to the relocation. Then the COVID pandemic interrupted our lives. Far from her “home”, she was not her happiest self and tended to sleep a lot. This continued after restrictions to visitation were lifted. Ultimately, she passed peacefully in her sleep, a manner that I am confident was her deepest desire.

We held a brief family-centered service so that the immediate family could all say their goodbyes. But after her cremation we were faced with what to do with her ashes and my father’s ashes. After a bit of reflection, I thought it would be a good idea to bring them back to the community that had been their home and inter them in the church that had been their extended family. I made contact with the church, and after several months of discussions, planning and delayed communications, we finally arranged a memorial and interment service for my parents. It is actually today, as I write this, in approximately 3 hours.

As I prepared to make the 800-mile drive from my house to our destination, I was going over the mental checklist, setting the GPS, and turned on the radio in my car. I often listen to a certain satellite radio service that carries “The Beatles Channel” (18). They have a regular feature entitled, “My Fab Four,” that features fans or other musicians, actors, etc. listing and deejaying their personal list of four favorite Beatles songs. This feature was just beginning, as I pulled out of my driveway onto my street. The featured deejay talked about the first song in his list being on the first Beatles album he had heard. The song was “Two of Us” from the Let it Be album.

Two of Us, by Paul McCartney/John Lennon

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone’s hard-earned pay
You and me, Sunday driving
Not arriving, on our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

Two of us sending postcards
Writing letters on my wall
You and me burning matches
Lifting latches, on our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

You and I have memories
Longer than the road
That stretches out ahead

Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo in the sun
You and me chasing paper
Getting nowhere
On our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

You and I have memories
Longer than the road
That stretches out ahead

Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo in the sun
You and me, chasing paper
Getting nowhere
On our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

We’re going home

You better believe it
Goodbye

The lyrics spoke to me in that moment. Two of us….On our way home…We’re going home. Now, granted this is The Beatles channel and chances are good that I would have heard the song sometime during the day. Yet, hearing it the MOMENT I left my house on a journey returning my parents to their resting place and their home. There was something otherworldly about it. Neither of my parents cared much for the Beatles, but they were musicians and understood the messages that music can convey. I believe that I was being spoken to by spiritual forces conveying their approval at what I was doing. Fast forward to the end of my trip. I stopped at a town 20 miles from my hotel destination to grab a fast-food dinner. I received my order at the drive-thru and was returning to the interstate – I switched on the radio to the Beatles Channel. “Two of Us” was just starting to play…again, the timing of that moment was simply supernatural.

Sometimes a song isn’t just a song. Sometimes it is a moment of revelation or confirmation. To me, this was as if my parents spoke to me, telling me this was what they wanted. They are home.

Music is the universal language of mankind. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thanks for reading.

Is she

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It is hollow sounding
once struck-
then resonant, tones
that lean and carry
into the next.

Suppressed by pedal
at breathing points,
only to fly in phrasing
and surround-
taking us in.

Suppose we were
to stay, encompassed by
the echo, inside the billow
of the melody
improvised.

How would we know?
After the first note
we breathe its air-
sway in a joined jive
inside the song.

Even led among
the staves, turning
and taking our time
for crescendos
and kisses.

A new song

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I’m sorry, I don’t have a poem today
the fairy-dust magic will not have it’s way.
The dawning is fell
and I don’t take it well
when barbarized don’t cultivate.

I’m sorry, I can’t have a poem today,
the trampled impatiens are flattened and splayed
from steps that were cold-
no words take ahold
to mend it, describe or portray.

I’m sorry, I won’t have a poem today,
the world is too quiet, and I’m led astray
to ponder the pain
of our powerless reign,
while the children go outside and play.

I’m sorry, I shan’t have a poem today
it’s broken and crying, I can’t make it sway.
Perhaps on the morrow
a finch or a sparrow
will sing a new song and allay.

Bird, bees, flowers, trees

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The bird that spreads it’s wings to fly
aloft in winds and lullabyes
will often finds a hiding place
with little bustle, subtle grace.

The bee at work, no time to spare-
buzzing, fluttering, from here to there
to stigmas moist with other fare
but not a sound to make aware-

The flower blossomed, spread in view
with pink and yellow, vibrant hues –
and undulating sun and dew
confessed in morning light, anew.

And ever green, the pine tree stands
accepting flight with steady hands.
Each bough abets, make no mistake
and comforts those who stay awake.

double

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There is little left
of thread that ties and undulates
through fabric’d whys.
The whats have gone the wayside now
with time – the when –
don’t ask me how.

This never was infinite string
-ain’t what it used to be,
this thing that stitched my words
in canvas, starched and mended-
just as December ended.

So, with anew, fresh double cloth
the patterns swirl
without the gloss and keep me warm
in thoughts subdued
of music,
sweet – the words are true.

A Brilliant Light

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image

A darkness dwells, just out of sight,
among these brilliant, twinkling lights

and through the house all decked with green
a shadow stalks the verdant scene-

A dimness to the Advent host
pursuing room-to-room to boast

a victory not fought or won,
yet hides in fear, a braggart shunned.

And words of cheer and light revealed
keep gloominess at bay, concealed.

Joyeux Noel thus shared among
us brings to darkness- light- along.

So sing we all in towns and homes
a Christmas song in merry tones,

persuading those from shadows dim
to brilliant light and life with Him.

*********************
Writing a Christmas poem is difficult because the themes are so familiar. The difference between light and dark has been on my mind lately, and it seemed a fitting Christmas thought. My hope is to continue writing in 2015, and that you will continue to read.

I attached a clip below sharing Steven Curtis Chapman’s arrangement of O Come O Come Emmanuel, a text which resonates with this poem, but a different melody than typically associated with the song.

Best wishes this holiday season, Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous new year.

Under the strentberry tree

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Come, and go wand’ring for churier times,
away from the riptin and rinants, their crime,
the villor and vagell in all their retorts,
The jumb-poling penguity, wanstier sort.

Observe the small paregallow sat on a twig,
that tweets a small tune, with a purintly squig.
Clasp hold my hand without chuberous thought,
and pick up the footspeed, with clip and with clought.

And when we have reached, with flooks and with guills,
the strentberry tree with its tassles and twills,
we’ll lay in the greenier grassles that wave
and meekestly coddle the songs that we saved.

Singing through tassles, and loring through twills
with our hands embraced tightly, and our giggles that thrill
the logus with all its galand and its hue.
Your grin and my smilishness, baylishly soothed.

Come and let’s wander a churier time,
clasp my hand, coddle and purintly rhyme.

*********************************

Should you be wondering “what does purintly mean,” I used a random nonsense word generator to help me with the words for this poem. The innocence conveyed by the silliness of the word choices was my goal. I often search for the greenier grassles that wave, just to have some quiet time, under a strentberry tree.

words of note

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An aubergine sound
and a hollow bitter wind,
that portends of a sadness, lately then,
after the reign of summer’s end
and autumnal color,
red and yellow and their kin.

When joy is moved indoors to stand
the test of winter’s blunting hand,
bound with the melodies to hum
within your heart, with flute and drum.

Seeking clear, in midnight skies, between
the snowfall, when angels fly;
and you, among the ones that seek and pray,
wishing upon the stars to stay
awake and listen to the songs you sing
with words of note for every little, living thing.

Then rest your head and fall asleep
in dark and as lovely as woods are deep,
and echos of your song on air,
warm the bitterness to fair.

late summer canon

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I see them gathered
-the yellow susans –
day after day
on the hillside;
struggling to meet the morning sun
-petals flung down
as stretched limbs-
thrusting their faces
toward heaven,
at midday
their arms raised
in praise to a merciful deity,
and in evening
– their buds nodding en masse-
attuned to the canons
of their ancestors.