26.ii.08 Some New Song Lyrics

"Raining Again"

It's raining again, and I'm sitting here alone
listening to the clatter on the roof
as the night grows long long toward the dawn
and I long, long
for a different ending to my day

and it's raining again and once again I'm all alone
thinking about my daughter with her ma
sleeping, how I'd love to kiss her brow
and tuck her in
from these many miles away

and the train's cry down by Safe Harbor
carries up the river with the rain

I hear a Barred Owl calling in the hollow
"Who cooks for you-all, who cooks for you?"
No one cooks for me, owl, I'm frightful lonely
as the rain
pours down to wash me away

I wish I had a shoulder I could cry on
I've go nobody I can telephone
When I'm feeling lonely I have nobody
to listen to me
like I listen to the rain

and the train's cry down by Safe Harbor
echoes up the river with the rain
and I think of all of this
long, long, I'm here alone

The rain is my friend, with me when I'm all alone
I whisper to its clatter on the roof
It's my lullaby long long toward the dawn
and I long, long to hear its melody again.

-- 29.i.08

Commentary:

As usual, this piece is essentially a first draft. The only emendations I see in the manuscript are the addition of "here" in the first line, a replacement of "rail" with "train" (which happened in the process of writing the line), a replacement of "hide my tears" with "wash me away" at the end of the third verse, the addition of "'ve" after "I" in the second line of the fourth verse, and a replacement in the last lines of the fourth verse of "Nobody who will listen to the rain at the end of the day" with "to listen to me like the rain", replaced in turn by the lines given above.

The music is intended to be roots blues, but that is more a feeling than an actual appropriation of traditional blues construction. For those who can figure out such things, the notes of the guitar chords involved are DADADF, DDDADA, DADCDF, DGDBDG, with a run from the "C" in the third chord C-B-F on the 3rd and 4th strings; and for those interested in such things this involves some fairly relaxed left-hand positions, since the tuning I employ is DGDADE (6-1). I have just hit the ceiling of my technical musical knowledge.

The lyrics are straightforward; I was not doing any kind of clever philosophical mind experiment in experiencing some Other's Weltanschaaung: no, it is about my experience at the time of writing the piece -- about a month ago. It was, indeed raining, I did indeed hear a train whistle. I took a bit of a liberty with the Barred Owl: although I have heard the local Barreds calling lately, none called that evening that I heard.

When I play this song, I think of someone sitting in a tarpaper shack with a corrugated metal roof. That is an extreme exaggeration downward of my current digs (very nice contemporary, and in fact brand-new, three-bedroom with a low-flush toilet and even a dishwasher [which I use as a concealed drying rack], thanks Ben & Mercia!), but even so all this opulence is irrelevant to the heart. And of course life can be rich and wonderful in a tarpaper shack. I think.

In fairness to people who do live in tarpaper shacks, I will say that for the better part of six months I lived in the shell of a mobile home with no electric, no heat, no running water, and -- for a long time -- no other means of cooking than an open fire (not in the trailer, which was wrapped in 4-mil plastic in an attempt to weatherproof it). This was a traumatic experience for me, overall. So, if you live in a tarpaper shack and happen to be reading this, let me ask you this: what do you think of the tarpaper shack? If you don't like it, what obligation do you think I have to change that for you? Because I love feeling responsible.

No one should have to live in a tarpaper shack or a plastic-wrapped shell of a trailer. It was a good experience for a pampered suburbanite such as myself to have, particularly since it wasn't so much something I chose as something which was thrust upon me. But that whole episode produced its own fascinating batch of songs nineteen years ago. That's another story.

I'm a bit nervous about some of the language here. "Frightful" as an adverb is not a word I use regularly. As I was composing these lyrics I was thinking in part of my experience of what years ago we called Negro Spirituals. Perhaps that is no longer an approved term for this sort of music. My mother was fond of these, or at any rate it was my impression that she was -- I remember her singing them to me when I was very young. She also sang "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess.