January storm

Aw yeah, I got here in time to use the library's internet.

This is one of those grown-from-a-seed songs. Like [teeth of the storm], it started with a single line I carried around for a long time before I could get the rest of the song to come together around it. Unlike teeth, though, this one only took a couple of weeks instead of more than a year.

For me a song, in the personal development sense, is both an acid test of where I'm at right now and a road sign of where I'm headed in the immediate future. This has more to do with the mechanics of songwriting than anything mysterious: to create a song, you have to open up a space inside your personality where the spark of something living can grow. Any personality only has so much "living space", that is, suitable places for aliveness to flourish. So how potent a thing you can create depends on what areas of yourself are available for use, whether because you're able to pull yourself back temporarily or because a part of yourself has been cleared out by disaster or the urgent need for change.

I think this one was a case of intentionally pulling back from a space I've used for the purpose pretty often. It's good, but a part of me always goes "you can make a bigger space! you can do better! next time there will be even more shiny!" Oof da. XD I feel like I've been writing more confident things lately, "I will", "I am" et cetera. Which makes me eye myself suspiciously to make sure I'm not growing into bad egotistical attitudes. Still, I figure where I'm at right now must have some good in it, when it means I can write a love song to my city. :D


[January storm]

it's afternoon, all right
come on, fill my cup with morning light
I need something to pour
over this frozen vehicle's front door
if love is
letting in
your beloved to yourself
then the winter wind loves me

stretch out my morning legs
did not leave myself time to fry an egg
conversing with the pets
cause I ain't fit to walk that cold mile yet
if love is
waiting in
patient silence by the door
then the winter wind loves me

oh hello, icy neighborhood
hey graveyard, hope your night was good
sweet light beyond the grey, grey clouds
who's singing louder than me now
if love comes
crashing in
like a January storm
then the winter wind loves me

the subway walls all echo back my voice
they sing their names to me
oh let me make Chicago home by choice
not just necessity
bonsai me till I've grown to love
the blood and sweat the stone's made of
like the winter wind loves me

let me love you
like the winter wind loves me
let me love you
like a January storm
let me love you
the only difference would be
I would keep you warm