006 STRAIGHTING

This song means so much to me.  I think I gave myself a little more artistic room on it, and that carries a lot of weight with it.   The thing I had in mind early on with this song was that it had a trajectory.   It’s viewed through us celebrating her birthday (May 14th), and projecting that towards a future time where I’ll be with her in the end.  

On her birthday, we go to the river downtown with our friends and family, and light paper lanterns.  It’s one of the hardest days of the year, and somehow I also look forward to remembering her and making sure she knows that we remember.  We all gather there and hang out and watch the sun set before lighting the lanterns.  

This past year, I knew this song talked about that, so I brought a cassette recorder and set it down near us, hoping to lace the song with recordings of our family being together.  It’s sort of a weird idea, but I liked it.   But – something weird happened that night.  We all got to the river and it’s always pretty heavy, emotionally, and out of nowhere, an air show began, with 3 planes.

It was apparently national aviation day or some obscure holiday that exists without need or reason.  It was a wonderful shift of energy that night, though, and the sound of the airplanes is on the tapes through the whole song. You’ll hear them zooming around in gaps at times (maybe add a time reference).

     
  •  ‘Is this a sad song’
  • The question for me was initially a sort of jab on myself writing yet another slower song, but it shifted almost immediately to be more of a glance at my life as a whole.  I know that’s rather heavy, but it’s just a chance to be honest here.  Will my life be a sad song?  Will the rest of my life be defined by this loss of AK?  I’m still waiting to find out.  I’m working it out in real time.
  • “ears pressed on the tops of clouds”
  • The day after she passed away, I was driving on the interstate in silence (as I do most of the time when driving since I listen to things a lot day-to-day).  I started talking to her and sobbing.  It’s a tough place to feel like I have no idea if she can hear me or not.  Do we just imagine the connections to people that are gone to comfort ourselves?  Or maybe can they still hear us or have a connection?  No one can know, but I envisioned her laying on the clouds and pressing her ear to hear me.  I choose to think that she was there.   Nicole has always dressed our girls in little smocked dresses with their names on them.  We never had a chance to get there with AK, so this is a nod to Nicole and that she’s with us forever and a part of us.
  • “wrinkled chalkline I keep straighting’
  • To me, this line has a few angles on it.  Maybe it’s that my path in life is wrinkled and full of twists/turns, and I’m trying to straighten and make sense of it all.  Maybe it’s like a crime scene chalkline that she has passed away and I’m trying to undo that.  I’m not sure to be honest, and I’m ok with that.  ‘Straighting’ was the most Seuss-way I could say that, because we read a lot of Dr. Seuss in our house.
 
  • The production of this one has cassette tapes from her birthday, as mentioned, and it’s full of chords that often land on beats you aren’t expecting, or are inverted to not be stacked over the tonic of the chord (DEMO SNIPPET of the pre-pro).   Inverted chords are the best, and I used them through this whole record to feel slightly unresolved or on the wrong foot here and there.  
  • When AK was in the NICU, we would go there every day and hold her and rock her.  As I mentioned in my post about ‘Always On My Mind,’ my favorite record of all time is Sigur Ros’ album ‘( ).’   I listened to it with her as I rocked her and would hum the melodies and talk to her about why I loved it and how it made me feel.   If you happen to know that album, the track ‘Untitled #3 (Samskeyti)’ LINK TO IT – has the melody quoted in my song (not exactly, but close).  At first I felt like I would have to change it, but in the end, Chad felt like it was meaningful and that we should keep it in there, so it’s there.  I hope they hear it and I hope they aren’t offended!
 
 
 
The end of this song is something I am still emotional about every single time I listen.  It feels like I feel, and is chaotic and beautiful at the same time.  It’s noisy, and there are some layers of texture from my modular synth layered in.  When I recorded the cassette tape into the session from the birthday/airplane night, I had been recording for a while and reached over to stop the tape and right as I hit stop, my daughter said ‘I got it.’   I knew that was the end of the album, and I don’t know why I love that so much, but it felt like some sort of combination of that she got the lantern lighted literally and the tape was right there, but maybe that’s mixed with a bit of a sentiment of ‘we remember you’ or ‘we’re going to be ok.’   I’m happy to not have the answers to what a lot of this project says or feels.  I’m just proud to have made it, and I hope you find anything in here to connect to.
 
Straighting.
 

LYRICS

 

Is this a sad song?   I’ll keep waiting

to be standing at the end when the waves break

I’ll be listening for your voice to show me where to go

 

are you up there with your ears pressed 

firmly on the tops of clouds in a smocked white dress

wrinkled chalkline I keep straighting

all the echoes, they just aren’t fading

 

my sweet girl, I’ll meet you at the end

my sweet girl, I’ll meet you at the end

my sweet girl

 

It’s been years now

the river’s flames reach 

to bring our promise to the clouds on the fourteenth

dandelions floating softly

full of promises they just can’t keep

 

my sweet girl I’ll meet you at the end

my sweet girl I’ll meet you at the end

my sweet girl

 

how long?