The River. Audio.

[mdlbear]

"The River" [ogg] [mp3]. A little rough, but since it's only about 12 hours since I finished the melody... (11:00 ... and I think the tune could still use a little work; I'm not entirely satisfied yet.)

We met in a place that was crowded with people
I was lonely and lost, and in search of a friend.
You seemed to be someone I needed to talk to
We started a journey not seeing the end.

Time passed and our paths crossed more and more often
Not exactly by chance, nor exactly by plan.
I sang you my songs and you told me your stories;
We loved without noticing when it began.

    Now I feel that I've known you for most of forever;
    Old friends from the time before cities were made:
    We walked in the sunlight beside the wild rivers,
    Slept in the quiet of a deep forest glade.

    And love is a river that flows through time's forest
    Smooth in the shadow, and sparkling in sun;
    Over the stones it goes singing by starlight
    To pools of deep silence the clear waters run.

When passion has left you lost high in the mountains
Or you wander deep valleys of grief and despair
Remember clear water runs down to the river
And follow your friendship to lead you back there.

It's a river so deep that we can't see the bottom,
A river so long we can't walk to the end;
We'll journey together beside the clear water;
As long and as deep as the love of a friend.

    refrain
    repeat last 4 lines

There haven't been many songs that grabbed me the way this one did; I started out yesterday afternoon with the one line, "It's a river so deep...", and got as far as a rough version of about half the lines in the refrain before heading back to work from my lunch. At that point I thought it was a pretty metaphor, but kind of lightweight on content.

I was wrong.

There were a couple of lines I choked up on, and when I got the last two lines of the second verse I actually cried. It's only the second song where I've done that; the first was "For Amy".

I was wrong about a lot of things on this song. It started out to be about a new friendship where it seemed as though we'd known each other for a long time. And it still is, but it's also the story of me and my beloved flower_cat, and it pleases me tremendously that I was able to finish it in time to present it to her as a Valentine's Day gift. The recording, flubs and all, is from this evening's gathering at the Starport.

I can tell I've been hanging out with cflute and company -- I'm starting to hear a flute line and at least one, maybe two, vocal harmonies. And I had to totally resequence the tracks in the next CD.

Comments

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

I really like the lyrics!

I've always found it interesting what songs are "really" about. Often the song ends up about something other than (or in addition to) what I thought I was writing about.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Beautiful song!

[hms42]

Pretty song. I have to email that to a couple of people (link of course.)

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Beautiful!

[andpuff.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful!

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Finally had a chance to listen.


(Deep satisfied sigh.)