Magnolia

If you're lonely
you might as well be clever
find your way through mazes
by laying down a thread
If you're hungry
you might as well keep smiling
maybe could find someone
wants to share their bread

Cause everything is always
or else it would be never
love weaves into the spaces
holds it all together

The stars seed us with the questions
we'll live our lives to answer
to find out who we are
My dad taught me constellations
I'm not likely to forget them
though I travel far

Cause everything is always
or else it would be never
love weaves into the spaces
holds it all together

(instrumental break on verse)

And I really hope we make it
there's just so much we haven't learned yet
spinning on this planet
looking at the stars

Cause everything is always
or else it would be never
love weaves into the spaces
holds it all together

Everything Is Always (demo)

I just love this song so much.

Testing out my new Mac and checking out GarageBand after a long time away. Recorded directly into the computer microphone, with some reverb and compression.

Terrible Love (The National)

scratch recording for band practice - acoustic version of a song I wrote on synths in 2017

What Was Revised 2022

I wrote this about a week before I had to say goodbye to Seamus on January 7, 2023. I didn't know he was sick when I wrote it (though his behavior was a little abnormal, and something in me must have known the time was close). 

Thank you to everyone who has ever loved him or cared for him. 



You can no longer hear
The words I made up for you
And you can’t really see 
The way I’m smiling at you
But you can still feel
My hand on your coat
And I trust you’ll tell me
When it’s time for you to go

Cause you’re a good boy and I love you
And though you’ll take part of me with you
I’ll do my best to keep you safe ’til then
You’re a good boy and I love you
And though you’ll take part of me with you
I would do it all over again     

How many of us humans
Throughout the course of history
Have felt what it’s like 
To love and lose your kind
While you’re here beside me     
I will pet your precious body
Watching you breathe
Taking pictures with my mind

Cause you’re a good boy and I love you
And you’re gonna take part of me with you
I’ll do my best to keep you safe 'til then
You’re a good boy and I love you
And though the hole you’ll leave will wreck me
I would do it all over again

Good Boy

The best thing about this place
is the same thing that makes it terrible
it’s the distance in between
everything

You can only be so close
moving halfway ad infinitum
while the forces of decay
pull it further away

But if there never was an absence
I guess we’d take it all for granted
and we’d likely never know
Love that can’t find its object
Love that can’t find its object
Love that can’t find its object

The best thing about this place
is the same thing that makes it terrible
it’s the distance in between
everything


The following sources and references are recognized in the making of this song:
	•	The name of my band (Jan Reed and the In Between)
	•	Duality
	•	Zeno’s paradox / asymptotes
	•	Diane Cluck
	•	Joanna Newsom
	•	Christmastime is Here 
	•	Cucurrucucú Paloma


I guess I pronounced ad infinitum wrong.... ah well.

The Distance In Between

Written and scratch-recorded on July 9, 2023. Dedicated to my compatriots on the 2023 Turtle Dove Pilgrimage.

Lyrics:
Hope to be worthy of the songs that you send me
The depth and the beauty, the things that they know
Hope to be worthy of the songs that you teach me
My brother you bless me with your love and your listening

Only one life with this beautiful body
Temper to ring out as clear as I can
Transform this dust into flickering knowing
Give to the earth when the hour it is come

There’s space if you open there’s light to step into 
The mourning doves hear you when you answer their call
And what of content can be said in this moment
I just wish to share the love that I know

The kindred will find you, they’ll sing along with you
We welcome each other to life once again
Here in the garden, along with the robins
Singing together the only song

Follow what you find 
Follow what you find 
Follow what you find to be beautiful

(A northern flicker gave me the closing refrain this morning.)

Flicker

circa 2009, poor-quality home recording of the ghost band Everybody Forever (DJ Triple Super and Knife) and their song "Dulcimer". 

Lyrics are by Rumi but distorted by Coleman Barks, don't @ me. A better translation is here: https://www.dar-al-masnavi.org/rub-0081.html 

Today, like every other day
we wake up empty and afraid
Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading

Take down the dulcimer

Let the beauty we love 
be what we do
There are hundreds of ways to 
kneel and kiss the ground

Take down the dulcimer

Dulcimer

There's plenty of time for our bones to just be bones
lying still, un-sinued and alone
but blood for now is pushing through the vessels
while we're here we might as well keep on
while we're here we might as well keep on

Plant the seeds but don't count on the rain
if it rains, still don't count on the flowers
if the flowers come, thanks the skies 
take the fruit and save the seeds for next time
take the fruit and save the seeds for next time

though we may never live to see the harvest
walk in the direction of the boundless
may our love compel us into action
may our action bless this precious world
may our action bless this precious world
may our action bless this precious world

Walk in the Direction of the Boundless (D minor scratch)

New arrangement of Spiders (aka Ten Hundred Thousand) for Holly, Jean, and TP practice

spideys in a meadow 2025-02-21 2217

Songs on the scrap pile. For actual albums and EPs, check out www.janreed.bandcamp.com. 

No messages, please.

Jan Reed

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