Finally!

I had a bit of a catharsis today.  I’ve been trying to write a song to address my feelings about my father’s death for almost two years, but when I try I feel like I become overwhelmed with feelings that I don’t have the neurons to process and I usually stop.  But in about 15 minutes of clarity just now, I sat down and wrote all this out.  It’s a draft so it’s all right if you don’t love it.  I’m sharing it with y’all now because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sing this live anyhow.  My relationship with my father was fairly turbulent—he struggled his entire life with alcoholism and depression, but I wanted this to be a memorial for the memories of him that aren’t painful.  Here it is:

I saw you in a faded photo
Blond summer hair and knobby knees
At a house I’ve never been to
But your bright eyes, they didn’t come through

I heard you through my open window
Fingerpicking low and sweet
But when I ran to find you playing
The wind blew away the words you were singing

And finally when the band came through
I cried because he looked like you
But he played songs of happy lovers
And all your happy songs are covers

This is what I choose to recall
Just the best, and not it all
A little boy with knobby knees
Mr Bojangles on the summer breeze
They play forever on the wind
But I’ll never hear them again