Getting ready to move from Boston to New York after summer semester finals, I couldn't help but write. Never mind if I had to set aside my eight-page summer reading list for a few days; this, my first full song in months, just HAD to be written -- after all, the most incredible period of my life so far was about to come to an end.

To everyone who made the past 15 months the amazing time it was -- 
- classmates, collaborators, hangout buddies, and professors at Berklee; 
- the MIT Musical Theater Guild;
- the Paulist Center musicians and the rest of the community there;
- the Boston College Mass Filipino choir and community;
- the team behind The Cabaret Series;
- my housemates, including those who moved out before I did;
- family and friends in the US and from around the world, who visited while I was here; 
- and Richard C., Bianca G., Bill C., and most especially Mikee, who don't fall into any of these categories but without whom my Boston experience would have been incomplete: 

I can never thank you enough. As excited as I am about what lies ahead, I'm going to miss you all. Keep in touch, okay? Take care, be good, and -- this song's for you. :)

============================= 

PASSING THROUGH
Words, music, piano & vocals
by Paulo K Tirol  
        
I wonder, is this happening too soon,
Like a sunset in the middle of a summer afternoon?
I almost wish the days would slow their stride,
But then I know I must move on. And besides --

I knew the tides would change,
New winds would blow,
The road would bend,
And the time would come to go.   
This I know:
At each moment in our lives, one thing is true --   
That we’re always only passing through.

But I knew, too:
A drop is all it takes to make a ripple,
A spark is all you need to start a flame,
A moment's all it takes to plant a memory.
So with every passing through,
Though the hours we spend are few,  
We’ll never be the same.

I’ve treasured every grain of hourglass sand,
Cherished every circle of that ceaseless second hand.
I've reveled in each touch, each word, each scene,
And loved the gift this passing through has been.

Though tides have changed,
Though new winds blow,
Though roads diverge,
The memories overflow.
And I grow
Knowing minute after minute, one thing is true:
That we’re always only passing through.

Always only passing...

Passing Through (P. K. Tirol)

Beautiful Surprise
Words and Music by Paulo K Tiról
Sung by Joseph Legaspi

Beautiful Surprise

Words by Josh Blakesley and Marc Byrd
Music by Sarah Hart and Josh Blakesley
Sung by Joseph Legaspi

Published by OCP

Beautiful Is Your Love

Joseph's Lullaby

The idea for this song entered my head during a music therapy class at Berklee three years ago, midway through a discussion about the marginalization of persons with disabilities.

A few weeks ago, in my anger, sadness and frustration at the hateful rhetoric back home about LGBT rights, here in the United States about immigrants and non-Christians, and all over the world about refugees, I found the fuel I needed to finish the song.

Thank you to Leo Paolo Leal for infusing the piece with his talent and wonderful energy, and to Jeremy Stanton and Gianpaolo Eleria for being my cheerleaders as I worked on this.

I hope you all like it. We've all been outsiders, each in our own right, after all.

=====================================

GOD OF OUTSIDERS
Words & Music by Paulo K Tiról

I want to be near You,
Yet I want to walk away
When voices surround me
And I can’t help but hear them say
I’m less than human,
Deformed, defiled,
Unworthy, unfit to be a Child of God.
I want to know, O God --

Am I too strange?
Am I too wrong?
Am I too broken
To ever belong?
...
When over the voices,
Clear as can be,
I hear the God of outsiders
Calling to me.

I want to remember
Your commandment was to love.
It’s hard to remember
When there are those who lift their hands to their God above
And draw their lines,
And write their rules,
And build their walls,
Shutting out the sick, the sinful,
Blocking out the poor, the foreign,
Keeping out the lonely, weak and small.
But can they recall --

Those who had nothing,
Those who were shunned,
Those who were different,
And most frowned upon
Were those you held closest?
So why can’t they see
You are the God of outsiders --
Outsiders like me?

God of outsiders,
As I am, will you let me serve You?
As I am, will you let me follow You?
All I want is to love You, Who made me as I am,
In Your Holy image.

I’m never too strange,
Never too flawed,
Never too broken
To face You, O God,
And live as Your witness
Unwaveringly.
You are the God of outsiders,
The God of love and outsiders,
The very God of outsiders
Embracing me.

Vocals by Leo Paolo Leal
Piano by Paulo K Tiról
+amDg / February 28, 2016

God of Outsiders feat. Leo Paolo Leal (P. K. Tiról)

For a while now, I'd been wanting to write a "home away from home" kind of song, inspired by my own experience and the experiences of Filipino friends who have found love abroad with non-Filipinos. But early on, finding inspiration was a struggle. My initial idea, a list song about an American significant other getting into Pinoy culture by doing things such as making spaghetti with ketchup and hotdogs -- because, yes, non-Pinoys, we do that! -- cute as it was, felt pretty generic and unexciting to me. 

But as soon as the image of a couple flying back from the Philippines after a one-month vacation there popped into my head, things just flowed. The letter in the title is fictional, but I could have very well written it on the flight back to the East Coast after the first time Jeremy traveled to Manila with me in 2014. 

With this song, I hit two birds with one stone: one new song for "On This Side of the World", my song cycle inspired by the Filipino immigrant experience in the United States -- and a much-needed feel-good one, at that, after "Sunday Afternoon"! -- as well as a first anniversary gift to Jeremy, my home away from home.

=============================================

FROM A LETTER WRITTEN SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC
BETWEEN HAWAII AND CALIFORNIA
Words & Music by Paulo K Tiról

Hey,
I’m glad you finally got to sleep.
We’ve another seven hours till we land at JFK.
Hey,
while you’re catching up on sleep,
I’m scribbling you a note with things I’d rather write than say.
Starting with flying: you hate it, I know.
And we could’ve been flying from a week or so
in Barcelona, Paris, or Rome --
but you’d said: “Let’s summer back home.”

And so,
though you don’t enjoy the sun,
you spent whole afternoons beside me, lying by the sea.
And though
it wasn’t quite your sense of fun,
you scrambled through the schedule I had crammed so crazily,
never implying that you wish you hadn’t come.
You must have been dying as you pinballed from
the endless meet-ups and traffic jams
to learning centigrade and kilograms.
But still, you kept saying: “It’s so great to be home!”

Home,
where you ached from the twenty-hour flight,
and were stared at for being white,
where the billboards would screw up the view,
and pronouncing a name is hard too.
Home,
where the savory dishes are sweet,
and the weather’s all rainstorms and sweltering heat,
where the crowd on the train’s spilling out of its doors,
and a stop sign is something a driver ignores.
If you’d chosen someone whose home was closer to yours,
you’d have it simpler, I suppose.
But the trouble is, you chose

me.
It’s still ringing in my ear,
how you asked me as we taxied, “Are you gonna be okay?”
And how you said,
“Let’s fly home again next year,
and I think that when we do, we should plan a longer stay.”
Sure, I’d been crying; goodbyes are always tough.
But there’s no denying: your love is enough
and that’s why
I’ll always love the place where I was born,
but when we’ve landed in the morning
and our summer’s through,
I’ll be home. 
Yes, I’ll be home,
because home is you.


For Jeremy
May 30, 2016

From A Letter Written Somewhere Over The Pacific Between Hawaii And California (P. K. Tiról)

Good Night Dear Heart (by Dan Forrest, copyright Hinshaw Music) performed by The Westminster Williamson Voices, Westminster Choir College of Rider University, James Jordan, Conductor, Corey Everly, piano. As heard in Teaching Music through Performance (GIA Publications), and GIA choralworks CD, "Hole In The Sky". 

Good Night Dear Heart (Westminster Williamson Voices)

SATB Balanced-Mix rehearsal tracks for Dan Forrest's Jubilate Deo (published by Hinshaw Music). DOWNLOADS ENABLED. Part-dominant and part-only mixes also available in separate playlists. All rehearsal track mixes are also available on Youtube, with the printed music in the videos. FULL PERFORMANCE (instead of digital orchestra)will be available on Youtube and iTunes. 

3 Ta Cao Chang De Yang REHEARSAL TRACK (SATB Balanced)

LIGHT OF THE HOME
From the song cycle On This Side of the World
Words & music by Paulo K Tiról 

Lead vocals: Lora Nicolas & Joanne Javien
Backup vocals: Joanne Javien, Joseph Legáspi & Paulo K Tiról
Piano: Bob Kelly

[Ilaw ng tahanan.]
Light of the home: that’s the woman’s role where I’m from. 
[Ilaw ng tahanan.] 
Light of the home: that’s what I was told I’d become
when my turn came to be a woman.
And now that I’m a woman…

Day after day, I work in a house where the mother’s never near.
She’s always on a schedule, on the phone, out the door
in the rush of her busy career,
while I’m pushing a stroller, and helping with homework,
and cradling her kids when they cry.
She’s got better things to do -- and that’s why

I’m the light [ilaw] of the home in her place [ilaw ng tahanan], 
day and night [ilaw], by some heavenly grace [ilaw ng tahanan].
I’m treated real well and the pay’s more than fine
so I’m lighting her home -- instead of mine.

Day after day, I care for a husband whose wife is never there.
She’s always at the gym, off to shop, out to brunch, 
having drinks with some friend somewhere,
while I tend to the bedpan, the diet, the meds, and 
the heart of a man set to die. 
She’s not that kind of woman -- and so I

am the light [ilaw] of the home in her place [ilaw ng tahanan],
paid to fight [ilaw] for the man she can’t face [ilaw ng tahanan].
I’ve mastered the role and I know every line, 
but as I’m lighting her home, who’s lighting mine?
Who’s lighting mine?   

Isn’t it a blessing how we’re needed by these women?
That we can make a living being what we’re meant to be?

Not when you’re suppressing how it hurts to see these women.
If my children and my husband were steps away from me,
could I choose to not be a mother?
Could I choose to not be a wife?

Well, couldn’t you choose to not live a life so far away?

\Was it ever a choice to stay?

[You’re the light of your home even now,
burning bright the only way you know how.
You’re certain they see you’d no choice but to go,
and you’re sure there’s a way to be light in your own home someday… 
At least, you tell yourself so.]

Day after day, I dream of a house 
where the mother
where the wife
is never there.


July 15, 2018

Light of the Home feat. Lora Nicolas & Joanne Javien (P. K. Tiról)

Wonderfully Made
Words and Music by Paulo K Tiról
Sung by Joseph Legaspi

I've seen ev'ry tear that you've cried.
The fears and the failures you struggle to hide.
The worthiness doubted beneath all that pride.
The visions and dreams left behind.

I know your remorse and regret.
The secrets and stories you ache to forget.
So many people you'd die to be yet

I choose you, I choose you.
Do you know why I choose you?
I choose you.

If only you could see yourself the way that I do,
And know yourself the way I know you
Then you'd love yourself
As somebody who is wonderfully made.
Wonderfully made are you.

When you were first formed I was there
I've counted each step and each strand of your hair
How precious you are and yet so unaware 
That no treasure could ever compare

With all of your bruises and stains
I call you beloved that never will change
The mountains may crumble but this will remain:

I choose you, I choose you.
Do you know why I choose you?
I choose you.

Forever and ever I choose you.
Just as you are, I choose you.
Again and again, I choose you.

Wonderfully made,
Wonderfully made,
Wonderfully made are you.

Wonderfully Made

josephlegaspi

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