Covenant isn’t a particularly cool thing to write about in terms of love songs. But I guess what I want people to hear is that it’s possible to be so connected to another person that the cost of our mortality is actually outweighed by the beauty of that connection. Like a scale model of the Gospel.

We tend to naturally conceptualize love as a currency. Something that can be given or exchanged; something we can run out of. But to understand what we feel for each other is in fact drawn from an eternal current of creation is to understand that love is something we cannot ever deplete. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, never fails.

Bury Me Deeper

This is a song for anyone who has had to navigate grief or unexpected loss. 

While nearly every song I write has a least a trace of this, South of West is more pointedly about the disembodying, displacing state of actively walking through it, as well as the strange and ironic feelings of blame for events totally outside of our control. I wrote this song in the summer of 2020, but the distinct sense in that season was the short, dark days of winter.

South Of West

I'm holding out for something conquest
Leave my body on the shore
I'm lighting beacons in the darkness
Waiting what I'm waiting for

Has the water reached my throat yet?
Still I feel you in the air
Has it always hurt just like this?
The edge of dying and born again
I've broken everything I've sworn

I give you my heart
Now till the end of time
I'm covered in lies
I'm burning like stars
Don't let me fall
Love of the ancient light
Song of the morning
Light of the dawn

Truth is breathing in the distance
Autumn wind over the plain
Come to prophesy an instant
Cold will cover everything

I would shake you if I could now
I'm just as foolish as I know
The counterweight to blindness
I see the hell I'm living in
I deserve to lose it all

Now Till The End Of Time

I am afraid
Of all the things I can't save
I wake to your face
And I know

This is my place
You are my fate
No height can take
How we've loved

So bury me deeper
Bury me deeper, my love

Love has no time
It's flowing like the river, as it passes through our hands
Your heart and mine
Echo through the canyon on the wind as they collide

So bury me deeper 'till you cannot find
Where the edge of my soul bleeds to yours
Press into my arms like the roots of the pines
Growing deeper to carry the earth

I don't know how I found you in the scope of my life
We were young and we didn't stand a chance
But we're the rocks and the creatures and the dust in the light
And our love is as old as the earth
Our love is as old as the earth

So bury me deeper

I am afraid
Of all the things I can't save
I see your face
And I know

All I've Ever Known

Catch the moment just after
Past what can be saved
And see the empires crumble
I hope the time will come late
I have seen darkness gather
I have seen darkness fade
Sometimes the end doesn't matter
So just remember what stays

I tore the threads from the fabric
I wore the edges to frays
And still I know that I loved her
And still I have no complaints
When we kissed in the winter
I think we knew right away
I see the first of September
I see the tears on her face

When I'm falling apart

It was the wall past the doorway
The days after he died
Where she kept all her words
While she kept us alive
You're born and died a thousand over
Just don't get lost in the time
I know that it isn't over
I know it isn't all right

When we're falling apart

I hope my life will let you see it
Hope my cracks don't make you stumble
In all the days I've lost to pace the ground
Between my fortunes and my fears
I tore my garment, haste my freedom
But all my strength can't break the tether
Somewhere the Kingdom's like a father
And he's running to his child

When you're falling apart, I will love you the same
When you're falling apart, I will love you the same

Falling Apart

Wear It On My Heart

So Far Gone

Oh My Love

Deep as ages coming
And the desert falls away beneath the Eastern sky
I don't know why we're running
A couple years have gone and I can feel the end of time

But it's all I've ever known
Deep as hearts can ever go
We're all following a light that we may never know
But we can't un-taste a truth or turn around

I think we nearly lost it
The point of all this in the pages we have kept so long
When all along it's moving
The word was with him and he breathed us into all we are
If there's a chance in hell, I don't know now
It's the only place I've ever seen us put ourselves

But it's all I've ever known
Deep as hearts can ever go
We're all following a light that we may never know
But we can't un-taste a truth or turn around

What could change this time even if you come
'Cause the battle's lost and I've lost my home
Years have gone and I can feel the the end of time

What could change this time even if you come
'Cause the battle's lost and I've lost my home
Years have gone and all I feel is the end of time

But it's all I've ever known
Deep as hearts can ever go
I'm still following a light that I may never know
But I don't think I can let this go, not now

I'm a songwriter from Boulder, CO.  This is basically my musical diary--a place to post works in progress and new ideas.  I hope you like the things!

josephcutshall

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