Week 25 #songaweek2021
A tiny song idea I had when the birds woke me up at 4:25 AM a few days ago. No more time to develop it this week but wanted to try it as a round maybe.

4:25

I was on vacation with my family during weeks 27 and 28 of #songaweek2021, but I could not pass up the chance to make a little tune with their themes ("I Love Lulu" and "Biggest Octopus Ever") when I saw them after I got back. My kiddo's name is Luthien and sometimes I call her Lulu. AND she loves octopuses and got to see her first one IRL at the Omaha  Zoo on our vacation. (This is not that one, it's a sculpture at the same zoo.) One day she hopes to touch one (we all enjoyed reading The Soul of An Octopus by Sy Montgomery in which people get up close with octopuses. And yes it's "octopuses" not "octopi.")

Description longer than song - yikes!

I love Lulu
And one of these days
I’ll find a way
For her to feast her eyes and fingers
On the biggest octopus ever!
I love Lulu . . .

I Love Lulu

Week 37 #songaweek2021. Prompt "No one but you."

Thought I was doing alright, holding on to no one
But you changed my mind
You were funny and bright, calm and easygoing
Exuberantly kind

And that day fast became
The best day of my life       
Until the very next day	
That was the best day yet
And so on and so forth until these days became
The best years of our lives

We’re a couple of kids spinning round in circles
Until we fall down
We’re a rhinoceros and a bird always 
Hanging around

Each day we could make
The best day of our lives
Until the very next day
We get to go again
And so on and so forth until these days become
The best years of our lives

Let’s take a bicycle ride and a paddle trip down 
The Mississip 
Let’s have a basket of fries and an India pale ale 
bright bitter delish

This could be the one
The best day of our lives
Until the very next day
Who knows what happens then?

No One. But You

Week 7 #songaweek2022. A rough laptop recording with the ambient noise of my son watching videos in the next room :)

C			Em
Shatters and shimmers
Am			F
Shards and shivers
C		  A
Fractals of free-flowing
F		G
Fantastic freak-showing
F			G			C
When the kaleidoscope dreams

Em		Am	Em	  Am
Just a shake and a twist
Em		F		  G
And a new world exists
	   Em		  Dm/F	G
In the blink of a twinkling eye
Em		Am	Em		Am
Then it shifts and it’s gone
Em	    F			G
In the mesmeric yawn
	    F			G			C
Of the when the kaleidoscope dreams

Colorful collisions
Evolving visions
Gorgeous geometry 
Pretty like poetry
When the kaleidoscope dreams

When the Kaleidoscope Dreams

Week 17 #songaweek2022. I also made a guitar version - https://youtu.be/9ooT2jrLK7Q

The whole world’s gone mad like it always was
Like it means to be forever
It’s the way we roll
Through the cosmic night 
Oh we spin and we spin all day 

When I was generous 
I could believe we could help each other out of disgrace
Since I got cynical
I can’t even see your hand in front of my face

Let’s lay off the news for a little while
I don’t need to know the latest
Leave me in the dark
Underneath this rock
Let me just catch my breath today

When I was envious
I couldn’t see all the beauty right in front of my eyes
Now that I’m out of time 
I find I believe we all can shine in the same sky 

Come stand with me under the canopy
Of a thousand points of light
Breaking through the dark
Of the threadbare night
Till it’s bright with the newborn day

It wouldn’t be good for me 
And I couldn’t if I tried to keep my life all to myself
So spill it out willingly 
Flowers will grow up from the dirt where it fell

When I Was Generous

Week 32 of #songaweek2016. Image is "The Three Ages of Woman" by Gustav Klimt (public domain).

Fertile soil brittle seed
Tender shoot luscious fruit
Fading flower falling leaves
Grieving ground resting roots 

This is happening
These seasons turning to years
These years laying down marks
Uneraseable 
Furrows plowed in flesh
Memories scattered like stars on the night sky of my mind

Every age may touch me 
None will keep its grasp on me
I go on I go on I go on and on
Till I lay me down at last
In the great one’s arms

Fertile Soil Brittle Seed

Week 37 of #songaweek2016. With Nathan Bloom on bass. Photo is “Minneapolis on Mississippi River” by Jdkoenig, public domain.

There's a joke about the long drawn-out Minnesota goodbye - that you never just leave, it's a gradual process. I'm feeling homesick after leaving Minnesota three years ago so I made the joke into a sad song.

the yellow truck filled up its belly
and now we're on the road
and the rain starts on the windshield
across the plains we're making good time
running for the west
we'll sleep tonight in a halfway hotel

i'm going away, the mountains are calling me
going away, and your river rolls on
I never knew quite how to say a
Minnesota goodbye

here the sun shines nearly every day
winter's just a cool breeze
and the canyons open deep spaces in my heart
your prairies never sang so loud
your big woods kept their distance
and your lakes just held their peace

the years have passed in golden moments
here in paradise
but I wish you all were here
and now your river has been whispering
in my dreams of late
or maybe the mountains are helping me to hear

I'm so far away, the mountains will always call
so far away, but now your river calls back
I never knew quite how to say a
Minnesota goodbye

no river, no mountain, no golden sun paradise
can hold me like the people who love me 

we're so far away, and mountains keep calling us
so far away, and rivers call back
we'll never be better at saying these
Minnesota goodbyes

Minnesota Goodbye

Video and lyrics here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0WqABuSnzU
Week 15 #songaweek2018. Suggested theme - "angels." Rest in peace my dear friend Troy. The visions of William Blake. This persistent winter. And my middle-aged angst.
Luthien Bloom on cello. Sound editing by Nathan Bloom.

CoL@home

Angel

Rough demo of a song I wrote in January 2019. Finally feeling well enough to sing and record again, after a long annoying cold.

A					F#m
come back here to the world you left
	D		A
a thousand years ago
A					F#m
come back here to the sun and wind
	D		    E
and ice and heat and snow

	F#m		D
And I’ll be your lullaby
F#m		E		 A
I’ll break my heart over you

I cried hot tears for a hundred years
the night your star burned out
I lost my way looking for your light
tearing worlds apart

Come close, let me sing to you
I’ll break my heart over you

Bridge: hold vocal note on C#
F#m F#m9/E /D 
Amaj7/C#m D

I see you when my eyes are closed
I hear you in my sleep
I feel you when we are far apart
as deep calls out to deep

in wave after wave
i'll break my heart over you

2019 get-em-all-recorded project

I'll Break My Heart Over You demo

With special guest Dishwasher providing its gurgling sound of mundanity at the very end.
Capo 2
	G				 Bm
If I believed the world had need
	Em		    C
Of another sad song
	Em			C
I’d go on like this, go on like this
	G			  D
till we’re all bored to tears
		G				Bm
But I believe the world don’t need
	Em			C
A thing I have to give
		Em			C
And that the meaning of life
	 G	 D
Is to live

	Am	     D	
It’s all right here
Em				C
Right where nobody’s looking
	Am	   D		G
The beautiful mundane

Remember when, see it again
Tell a better story
The living truth
That changes everything 
It was a long time ago
Until we saw the light
And felt the warmth
And held each other close

Instrumental - Em	C	G	D  (2x)

I still believe in falling leaves
And transient twilight
And shards of broken dreams 
The waves of time smooth and reshape

It’s all right here
And you and me’d best be looking
The beautiful mundane

Beautiful Mundane

Em/G   Em (up to C) 	Am7	     Bm7		
Heart,  heart, turn your pockets out
Heart, heart, show me up your sleeve

Em	Am	Bm	Em

			     D
Weren’t you unbreakable?
			   G
Weren’t you my rock?
			   D
Weren’t you the truth
		C
the truest blue
				      Bm
true blue through and through?

Heart, heart look me in the eyes
heart, heart, tell me what you mean by this

Weren’t you unbreakable . . .

Heart, heart, lay me down to sleep
Heart, heart, pray the lord my soul to keep

Heart Heart

You’re my favorite with a capital F
You’re the kind of lover that it hurts to hold on to
When you look at me that way the blood drains out of my brain
And floods my desiccated heart like acid rain
You’re my favorite with a capital F
Thought we were oh so right but now it all just feels so wrong

Well your love starts with an all-time LO
I got in so deep that I can barely see the light
You had fun, I fell hard, laid out in this abyss
Is it just me who’s seeing stars every time we kiss?
Yes your love starts with an all-time LO
I can’t understand how you can keep letting me down

You’re the crush that suffocates me
The sweetest bitter pill
Made me feel like I was special
But I’m just another girl to you

How can you hold me while you let me go?
I can’t believe what I already know
It’s so cliche, so very by the book
I bit down hard on your indifferent hook
I didn’t need a bicycle but how I love a worm

You're My Favorite

I actually went with the #songaweek2019 theme for this week! Got a little overambitious, taught myself chords on my daughter's ukulele and pulled out my grandmother's lap steel - played and recorded with both for the first time today. Beginner's mind :) 
Painting is Young Girl with a Bird by Berthe Morisot (public domain)

Goodbye Felicia, goodbye
I’m not sorry to see you go
It’s not that you’re leaving [like you're dying], it’s just that it’s high time for you
to spread your wings and fly away

When they look at me, talk at me like that
You wake up in alarm
With your quivers and shivers, your fears and your tears [your panic attacks]
your pain in the pit of my heart
You shake and you shrink till I can hardly think
Oh Felicia, it’s time to fly.

Goodbye Felicia, goodbye
I’m not sorry to see you go
It’s not that you’re leaving, it’s just that it’s high time for you
to spread your wings and fly away

Felicia, who scared you so?
Felicia, what do you know?
It’s the hardest thing but Felicia
I’m letting you go

Goodbye Felicia, goodbye
I’m not sorry to see you go
It’s not that you’re leaving, it’s just that it’s high time for you
to spread your wings and fly away

I’ve got to walk this road
Nobody else can go
But I'll keep one eye to the limitless sky
Goodbye, Felicia, goodbye

Goodbye Felicia, goodbye
I’m not sorry to see you go
It’s not that you’re leaving, it’s just that it’s high time for you
to spread your wings and fly away

Goodbye Felicia

Week 5 #songaweek2020. Photo by Micah Bloom.

Speak without a word
Make yourself heard
Little bird
You are only everything
Joy of the spring
Music on wings
Oh sing little bird

Laugh at this cold world
bury your pearls
Little squirrel
You are part of it all
Winter through fall
sunshine and squall
So small little squirrel
	
Ease your mind in moonlit dreams
Till the morning sunlight streams 

Dance, rooted and free
reach out and breathe
lovely tree
You are happy right here
Year after year
Wind in your hair
So fair lovely tree

Feel, listen and be
Walk out and see
You with me
We are home in this place
Day after day
Finding our way
oh stay you with me

Somewhere there’s a star tonight
Pulsing out its final light

At Least For Now

Week 10, #songaweek2020. Photo by cloud.shepherd - https://flic.kr/p/wojHsj, Creative Commons licensed. And here's a version from Nik Newark with added instrumentation - https://soundcloud.com/nik-newark/come-home-julia-tindall-bloom 

When it feels like you can’t do anything right								
and you would cut your hand off 
just to spite your fist
When all you know is everything’s gone wrong
you try to keep your head up 
you’re fighting to exist

Come over here child
Come home to me
Come on back now baby
Come home to me

When you hold out just to watch it burn down
and everything is ash now
dust to dust
When you’ve waited all your life to make it
and everybody’s gone now
dust to dust

When you were quite sure you knew just where things stood
and then they just lay down
and died

Come Home

Week 39 #songaweek2020. I really did wake up with this poem ("What did it take . . . shine") in my head, and the other lyrics were stream-of-consciousness afterwards. 

I woke up
With a poem in my head
A deep contented sigh from my soul
Only music
Only thought
Only underlying everything 
Only ever while we sing

What did it take? 
What sun was it that breathed on your skin?
Shine.

Poem In My Head

Week 40 #songaweek2020. Photo is church, pandemic-style (Facebook Live kitchen-table worship  with my pastor). Partially inspired by Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 

The closer you come to the mirror
The further you feel from yourself
You’re facing the facts
But there’s more to the story 
You’re something like what they see
And nothing short of you

The harder you hold out for meaning
The smaller it shrinks from your grasp
when did it ever make sense
In the cold hard light of you?

Come
Weary one
I will give you rest

The longer you live with your secret
The louder it lies in the dark
And cries to be heard
And held to the light

The deeper you dig down for treasure
the stranger the strain on your soul
When will you ever have
Enough?

Come
Heavy-laden one
I will give you rest

Come
Every last least one
I will give you rest

Rest

Week 4 #songaweek2021. Photo is from a walk with my kids on a woodsy bluff trail overlooking downtown Saint Paul. Feeling very "meh" about this song and life in general today so just made a quick phone recording to git 'er done for another week :)

I’m walking on winter’s water
Skating on thick ice
No fear of drowning
In this frozen paradise

I’m standing in silent snow light
under a full moon
shadows of tree branches
brush the drifts with deep dark hues

Januaerial view
icicle dreams come true

I’m listening to birds and breezes
in the winter woods
bright songs and deep sighs
whispering a world of good

i’m sleeping through winter’s long night
warmed with gentle fire,
soft quilts and old stories
of worlds beyond my cozy shire

Januaerial View

Week 5 #songaweek2021. Approaching 23 years of marriage with the man in the photo, I take a moment to bask in the surprising goodness of the present moment. (Also thanks to Nathan Bloom, the very same man, for audio editing help!)

Sweetest of lovers, dearest of friends
I’m going to love you till the very end
mountains and minefields, we’ve made it through
Nothing and no one holds me like you do

where were we when the miracle happened?
how did we get here? 

nothing is certain, except that nothing’s certain
love breaks you open and sometimes that just hurts
still here we are and here we want to stay
we’ve held on for years but we only live today

so here’s to the future and all that’s yet to be
here’s to the past and its wealth of memories
here is the present, it’s all we have to give
here is our life, it’s the one we want to live

The Miracle

Week 8 #songaweek2021. 
by Julia Tindall Bloom, Laurie & David Easterling © 2/24/2021, Saint Paul, MN, and Oak Ridge, TN. 
Photo is a fairy house my daughter built on the banks of the Mississippi River summer 2019.

Please change your mind 
Don’t leave me behind
I was desperate to say
But I left it unsaid
The words wailed in my head
You’re leaving today  

May you never be sad enough to give up
Or too busy to explore the unknown
Remember no matter how far you go
You can always make your way home

I’ve been waiting so long 
To sing my own song
Can’t stay in this place
Stretch my wings and try
To see where I can fly
Cast off my old ways

May you never be sad enough to give up
Or too busy to explore the unknown
Remember no matter how far you go
You can always make your way home

The road is always there
Time may not be fair
The same road that leads away
Leads back home someday

May you never be sad enough to give up
Or too busy to explore the unknown
Remember no matter how far you go
You can always make your way home

Make Your Way Home (cowrite with Laurie and David Easterling)

Half of folk pop duo Cabin of Love. One-quarter of Americana band The Foragers.

Julia Bloom

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