May You Be At Peace - April 12th, 2012.
“I just don’t feel at peace with anybody.”

Walking through her house in the early days, there was a big poster on her wall that said "You are loved.  All is well."  I remember realizing the note on the bathroom mirror saying “I love you” was written to herself.  Reminders mean you need to be reminded.  I wrote this to reflect on the moments, sitting in stillness with her, I felt her attain that state she feels so elusive.  I hope one day the poster comes down and her sticky notes say nothing more than “pick up milk.”  Then she’ll be at peace.




May You Be At Peace

Odi Et Amo - May 14th, 2012
"I love you."  (Dec., 2011)  "I hate you." (later in Dec., 2011)

Catullus wrote the first half of the lyrics for his ex-girlfriend two thousand years ago.  It's part of a series of poems describing his "initial euphoria, doubts, separation, and his wrenching sense of loss."  This melody, as part of this suite of songs for my old companion, just deals with the wrenching bit.
I feel exiled; like a man banished from home, though torn by war and conflict and poverty of spirit she's still home.

Odi Et Amo

Dead Ringer - June 21, 2012

"My relationship with you is like my relationship with life and God.  It feels all wrong and it frightens me."

Met her at a fundraiser for a school I was working at.  She was there with her sister and came over to talk to me for a while.  

There's a story, maybe a myth, about how when lead poisoning was so pervasive people were often buried alive because they appeared dead, then they'd come to in their caskets.  So  they used to tie strings around their wrists attached to bells hung in the trees, and hired a guy to wait all night and listen for them.  Hence the terms dead ringer and graveyard shift.  

She told me once "I know the universe loves me - I can see it in your eyes the way you look at me."  Maybe her relationship with life and God doesn't feel all wrong and frighten her anymore.  But if it does, ring that bell, sweetie; the universe is waiting. 

Dead Ringer

She’s so Pretty to me - May 24th, 2012.
"When these braces come off I'll have teeth like a movie star!"

Oh, honey, your snaggle-toothed smile used to light up my whole boulevard.
  
When we first started dating I’d occasionally take her out for dinners and look over my menu at her.  She was so beautiful I couldn’t concentrate.  Then we’d walk past all the shops in the Hydrostone; it was a thrill to see our reflection in the windows.  I couldn’t believe she was on my arm.  
	I never lost that euphoric feeling; it's still there.  This song is just about that joy you feel at the beginning of a love affair.  I am so grateful I had a chance to love someone so much it never went away.

She's So Pretty (incomplete demo)

Summerville Lullaby - April 7th, 2012.

 “If I’d had you as a father I wouldn’t be as fucked up as I am.”  

	She told me that in a rare moment of vulnerability.  Seeing where she grew up, the fields she played in, the road she walked to get candy, made a great impression upon me.  Talking about her relationship with her dad and all she felt she missed out on did too.  As I came to know her I found  emotionally she was a very, very hurt, scared little girl who desperately wanted love.
We were sitting on the bed together one night and I said “You’re just a big baby, aren’t you?”  She said “Yes I am.”  I realized what she needed.
   
I reached over, one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders, pulled her into my lap and rocked her back and forth.  She laid her head on my shoulder and held on to me tight like a child.
I wish her father had said these words to her. 

This is for Jim and his big baby girl Paula.

Summerville Lullaby

Dark Passenger - March 26th, 2012.
“You’re the second worst boyfriend I ever had.”
  
Always made me wonder what really went down with those two.  Going through an old family album with her mother, I saw a picture from her graduation – it must have been around the time she was going out with him; the terrible pain she was in was evident on her face.  It was a look I recognized.  

From across the kitchen table, as I lingered over the photograph, this tiny old woman lowered her voice and said “She was very sad then.”  
It was a picture of her dark passenger. 
Based on her letters about travelling to B.C. when she left him, this is her story from the day she stepped aboard that train, until the day she left me.  


Dark Passenger

Sweet Wild Woman - April 26th, 2012
"I've lost something.  I used to be more adventurous." 

Hard to think of someone you love losing her mojo.  She used to stand naked in the morning sun on beaches in B.C., climb hills just for the hell of it, take lovers she'd never see again...  I wish I'd known her when she was a twenty-something, before the challenges of single motherhood left her with only shadows of the wild side she lamented to me.  Yet still I could feel that energy bristle in her; and though it's only in my imagination, I loved her wild side.  So, Paula, we had our own little adventure, and this is a tribute to my sweet wild woman.

Sweet Wild Woman

I think this is the really rough demo when I first wrote it.

Summerville Lullaby first demo

These songs describe a woman I once knew; my love and eternal mistake.

“You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.”
 - James Joyce

Amal