lyrics

Leaving for Florida

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On a jet plane.

I leave this week, and the barrage of emotions have pushed me to numbness. Happy? Sad? Excited? Anxious? This love has taken its toll on me.

Two bridal showers, and one to go in Florida. We’ve been especially fortunate, because friends and family have been incredibly generous. A friend will not say never, because the welcome will not end. It’s cool to love your family.

The wedding is on june 1. We thought the temple would be busier on a Saturday, and I don’t know about you, but I like having Saturdays free. Gotta get down on Friday.

Plans are well underway. invitations. Thank-yous. Photographer, dress, suit; reception, food, cake. I wonder what’s in a day.

Honeymoon’s going to be a roadtrip down Florida. Memories of my childhood in the car with my future, my now sitting beside me. The summer comes marching in with heavy boots on, kicking along the blacktop, sidewalks of A1A.

I remember how angry I was two years ago, having broken up with New York, moving to Provo in the dead of winter, having no desire to socialize, to make a lot of friends.

Is love alive?

That’s why I’m going to Florida.

My relationships have saved me. The reassurance, the encouragement; knowing when to leave me alone has confirmed that loneliness was never a problem. Happiness was never a problem. I learned early how to starve the emptiness and feed the hunger.

Living the spring of May. Loving it all.

I know when I’ll be back again.

—

Songs quoted:

John Denver, “Leaving on a Jet Plane”
Maroon 5, “This Love”
Michael W. Smith, “Friends”
Feist, “It’s Cool to Love Your Family”
Rebecca Black, “Friday”
Tori Amos, “Baker, Baker”
Patty Griffin, “Florida”
Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles, “Winter Song”
Indigo Girls, “Watershed”

I Could See All Around Me

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I’m off to bed soon. But first, a short tribute.

After Dr./Ms./Madame Secretary Rice’s speech on Thursday and thinking about what today’s holiday means, I can only go back to Patty Griffin. She’s interviewed that she pulled lines from Dr. King’s “I’ve Been up to the Mountaintop” speech to come up with this song.

Thanks to those who have enough courage to wake up and do something about their dreams.

(In case the player doesn’t work.)

“Up To The Mountain”

I went up to the mountain
Because you asked me to
Up over the clouds
To where the sky was blue
I could see all around me
Everywhere
I could see all around me
Everywhere

Sometimes I feel like
I’ve never been nothing but tired
And I’ll be walking
Till the day I expire
Sometimes I lay down
No more can I do
But then I go on again
Because you ask me to

Some days I look down
Afraid I will fall
And though the sun shines
I see nothing at all
Then I hear your sweet voice
Come and then go, come and then go
Telling me softly
You love me so

The peaceful valley
Just over the mountain
The peaceful valley
Few come to know
I may never get there
Ever in this lifetime
But sooner or later
It’s there I will go
Sooner or later
It’s there I will go

Despite Our Differences

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You guys, I do really like the Indigo Girls.

I decided to switch it up a little and return to my go-tos. I don’t think my fundamental tastes in music won’t ever change. The Girls are pretty timeless to me, like Patty. I can find a song that fits every part of my life. Their discography serves as that trusty jukebox in an old diner.

Their stuff makes me feel so nostalgic, even though this album was produced only in 2006. Their lyrics resound with me right now, and they’ve been on repeat for the past couple of days.

“Fly Away”

Fly away little bird / Any place in this open mouthed world / Begs to be fed like a bed that beckons you, but you won’t rest / Everyone’s got a need to go /Most of us stick with our row to hoe / But not you, you’re the black crow /With a straight line, and no time / For the birds of prey who wreck your nest / Twice your size steal your best / They set you on this course of your collision

I am a stop along your way
I am the words you’ll never say
I crossed the great beyond of fear
I opened my eyes and saw us there, what a view
You went there too

Fly away little bird / Find the song in you that no one’s heard / Strenghthen your wings as you sing your solo flight / Through this short life / Everyone’s got a deep regret / We try to ground ourselves to forget / But your race to the end is neck and neck / You love them, you love them not / The birds of prey who wreck your nest / Twice your size steal your best / They set you on this course of your collision

I am a stop along your way
I am the words you’ll never say
I crossed the great beyond of fear
Opened my eyes and saw us there, what a view
And you went there too

But all along your chosen path are / Window panes and sheets of glass / That you won’t see / You fly too fast / One day it will be over / Fly away little bird / The saddest song I ever heard / Was the one I wrote you in my heart / That never made it to the world

“Last Tears”

These are the last tears I’m gonna cry for you
My cryin’s through, I’m moving on
I don’t regret and won’t forget A single thing that we went through
But these are the last tears I’m gonna cry for you
You take things so much easier than I do
And you could live your life without me if you had to
And you believe that in the end it all works out right
And I might if not for you
And if you ask one which one lives just alone for love
I do
There was a time when all signs pointed to the warm south
The planets all lined up and built a new house
And everything we talked about felt like a prophecy
And when you looked at me they all came true
And if you asked which one wants to go the distance
I do
I’m gonna rack my mind one last time until I cannot think
I’m gonna dip into your memory and take a good stiff drink
And when I’m drunk on the last drop of sadness about how we went wrong
I’m gonna play this song
Make some coffee black and strong
Give thanks for healing time
And finally make up my mind

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire; Lyre, Lyricist, Your Words A Mirror Kissed

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I know I love Patty Griffin, but I’ll spare you this time to tell you about the Indigo Girls again. “Ghost” is one of the first songs of theirs I fell in love with, because of the story it tells, its haunting lyrics and how they so masterfully meld to the music. I’ll just post the lyrics here, the way they appear on their website:

there’s a letter on the desktop that i dug out of a drawer the last truce we ever came to from our adolescent war and i start to feel a fever from the warm air through the screen you come regular like seasons shadowing my dreams and the mississippi’s mighty but it starts in Minnesota at a place where you could walk across with five steps down and i guess that’s how you started like a pinprick to my heart but at this point you rush right through me and i start to drown and there’s not enough room in this world for my pain signals cross and love gets lost and time passed makes it plain of all my demon spirits i need you the most i’m in love with your ghost i’m in love with your ghost dark and dangerous like a secret that gets whispered in a hush (don’t tell a soul) when i wake the things i dreamt about you last night make me blush (don’t tell a soul) when you kiss me like a lover then you sting me like a viper i go follow to the river play your memory like the piper and i feel it like a sickness how this love is killing me but i’d walk into the fingers of your fire willingly and dance the edge of sanity i’ve never been this close in love with your ghost ooooh… unknowing captor you’ll never know how much you pierce my spirit but i can’t touch you can you hear it a cry to be free or i’m forever under lock and key as you pass through me now i see your face before me i would launch a thousand ships to bring your heart back to my island as the sand beneath me slips as i burn up in your presence and i know now how it feels to be weakened like Achilles with you always at my heels and my bitter pill to swallow is the silence that i keep that poisons me i can’t swim free the river is too deep though i’m baptized by your touch i am no worse at most in love with your ghost

***

I’ll probably continue on my thoughts about lyrics later. But for now, I have to get ready for band practice. Oh. Did I tell you that I’m in a band? Trumpet, clarinet, ukulele, and tambourine. Yeah, I know. You don’t have to say how awesome we are. We already know. I think we might actually agree on a band name tonight.