Hold Here

'Hold Here', from Houses, speaks of the consolation and love that can be found with family (or at least a family where love has managed to survive the ravages of time).  However, to get the full impact of 'Hold Here', you need to have listened to the previous track 'Uphill and Downhill', which of course is not a song at all, but a recording of Adam's grandmother 'Noni' describing what it was like to experience her father's death when she was just a teenager.

This song reminds me of Cat Stevens' Wind, in its originality, sensitivity, and quiet spirituality.  (Trivia: did you know that Cat Stevens was also part Swedish?)

If you're part of a family (whether 'blood' or not) who can hold each other to sooth, console, and help heal the inevitable wounds of life, you are a very lucky person.

Lyrics:

Hold here, close to me
How often do we get to meet?
Your brother and your sister know
When you come here
I wish you'd never go, away.

My hands hurt, my love is dead
You broke up with your last boyfriend.
You know how we both hurt so
Just hold here and
I swear it will go, away.

So come back, even if you're well
I'll hold you here.

8th St. Mother's House

APL has a way of hitting you right in the gut (or 'solar plexus', as we used to say when I was young) when you least expect it...with his music, of course.  I'm talking now about '8th St. Mother's House' from the Houses album.

While it sounds like just a jaunty, playful little tune about nothing much at all, this is actually one of Adam's most profound compositions.  (I think I keep saying that about every song!)

Preacher for the Week at Topsail Beach, 1987


This song is about time, and memories, and life passing.  It feels like it's about me at age 60, looking back at all the life I've lived (and with much less in front of me than behind me).  When I'm standing at my computer, scanning boxes of our pictures from decades past, these lyrics are speaking directly to me: "Remember it well, remember it well.  But the older that you are, the more those memories carve your life away."

The word 'poignant' comes to mind.  This is definitely a poignant song, as in 'evoking a keen sense of emotion, especially sadness.'  But it's not just sadness, because with memories there is (or should be) gratitude and pleasure as well.  Hopefully, that's what memories do for us.  But I'll admit that it's a mixture for me these days.

Writing the other day on this blog about the Castle, built by Hedgie and Tom Dean and the scene of many of our best family memories, was a poignant moment for me, because it was sold some years ago and is no longer in the family.  It's just a memory now.

I remember the chain
That locked up the front door
And blocked the bay-front window.
I remember the feeling that
a memory is all I'd have.

Same thing with my family home in Pennsylvania where I was raised: sold (actually, under contract as I write), gone now, only a memory, along with most everything else from that time of my life, including most of the people. 

But that's our life as mortals, is it not.  Each moment we live in the present quickly becomes only a memory, like the grains of sand passing through the hour glass, going from the top to the bottom.  But unlike a physical hourglass, we can't turn our lives over and start it running again.

Perhaps here's the lesson I would take from '8th St. Mother's House':  Cherish the moments as you live them, and then cherish the memories you make of those moments.

And also take lots of pictures!!

Lyrics:

I remember it well,
the cat on the front porch of your 8th st. mother's house.
You gave me the front door, a sip of you lemonade.
You said it was homemade. No, I saw the powder there.
But I didn't care.

All the old days, cause the current age to race away.

I remember it well:
The old grand piano, that played through the bay-front window.
The blue-satin pillow, that held your hair so well.
Your Grandmother Willow, that never would stand still.

All the old days, cause the current age to race away.

Remember it well, Remember it well
But the older that you are,
the more those memories carve your life away.

I remember the chain
That locked up the front door

And blocked the bay-front window.

I remember the feeling that

a memory is all I'd have.

As though I was peeling towards,

The core of life that's so sad
It's so sad.

That all the old days, cause the current age to race away.

All the old days, cause the current age

The older that you are,

the more those memories carve your life away.

This Tin Roof

In a way that I don't really understand, a songwriter is often able to tell a complete story within the confines of a couple of verses, and then write music to go along with it, all of which evokes incredible feeling and pathos.  That's the case, I think, with 'This Tin Roof' from the Houses album.

Sarahbeth, Adam, and Nathan in the Rockies

This song is about a love that is lost, due to the inability of the loser to 'speak'  love.  It tells of a soul that is so isolated by thick layers of  self, that it remains impervious, withered, and  'dry' to love's moistening and enlivening 'rain', which it effectively keeps out.

'This Tin Roof' is a sad song, and ultimately a tragic one, because this soul, despite its knowledge of its self-imposed exile from the realm of love, is never able to make the decision to break down the barriers that keep love away.  And it therefore dies 'alone', a powerful form of hell on earth.

It has been said that the artist is a prophet to culture, bringing a message of truth and wisdom to its time, or at least shining a revealing light on culture's true condition, and I think that's true.  If that is the case with this song, I think the message for our time might be this: the true Love that our humanity needs requires an intention and willingness to move beyond the thick layers of protective selfhood that can develop in a person, into a shared, unselfish, and just plain risky, interpersonal mutuality of adoration, commitment, and communication. 

In our world of impersonal sexual encounters, mindless intoxication, and a pervasive and stubborn refusal to totally commit to the wellbeing and care of another person, this song is a reminder of both the tragic costs of such personal narcissism, as well as the ultimate benefits and blessings of true Love.

Lyrics:

You wrote your letter the day you were married
and sent it to me
It said you were happy, happy there with him
But you would never forget me

The rain comes, the rain comes, the rain comes down outside

When love is shared I keep it unspoken
And I lose it
But it's easy for me in this fortress unbroken
I'm tired of it

The rain comes, the rain comes, the rain comes down outside

This roof keeps, this roof keeps, this roof keeps me dry inside

It's all, It's all I can do
I know, I know, I know
To keep the rain from soaking me through

I'm alone, alone, alone

I'll stay alone, alone, alone

The rain comes, the rain comes, the rain comes down outside

This roof keeps, this roof keeps, this roof keeps me dry inside

I'll write my letter, the day I am dying

but you'll never get it

And you stay there with him

Happy and breathing

And never regret it.

Ps. Click on the picture above, for an incredible closeup of a beautiful mountain landscape (and three beautiful people)!

Young Lennon

I have to confess something: Houses is my favorite album by APL (so far).  It's almost as hard as saying that you love one grandchild more than another (though I don't have any of those yet...cough, cough.)  But, even though there are individual songs and other aspects on the other albums that I really love, there is something about this album in toto that is just very special to me.



Christmas in Bradford, PA

 And although 'Winterhouse' is probably my favorite song on Houses, running a close second is 'Young Lennon'.  Adam doesn't write many songs dealing with social issues or the pursuit of social justice, but in the midst of the expectations and political turmoil of 2008, 'Young Lennon' came to light.  As a child of the '60s, this song 'took me back' to a time when young people were in revolt against an unjust war, racism at home, and other social corruptions.  It was a heady and idealistic time, and that's what 'Young Lennon' feels like to me.

One more thing: one of the real gifts to Adam musically has been the drumming talents of Sam Huff, Adam's friend and musical collaborator.  Sam's percussion graces many of Adam's songs, and they bring a rhythmic sophistication that adds so much to the music.  If you haven't paid attention to the drumming, listen to this song and focus on it, because it is VERY good.

Lyric:

I need the faith of a principled young man with something to say
I need the love from a mother's hands to take away the pain
I need the patience off the prison walls that held Mandela in
I need the fire, the kind they say young Lennon burned in him.

I need it here right now, I need to feel it right now.

I need the guns, and the bombs of this state to throw them away
I need the cause of the simple heart to take the noise away.
I need the words that as a man a house divided cannot stand.
I need the sound, to the doubts to say we can't oh yes we can.

I need it here right now, I need to hear it right now.
I can't let the fear win out, I need to hear it right now.

I won't be split here as I'm telling it
No, don't distract me, I cannot pull out
'Cause I've got to be it, right now.

WinterHouse

This first song is 'WinterHouse', the 8th track on Adam's second album Houses.  How does one choose the first song for a blog like this?  Well, it wasn't easy, because there are so many songs of Adam's that I like, it would be impossible at this point to choose my favorite one.

At the Castle in Hornell at Christmas Time around 2002

But 'WinterHouse' has always been special to me because it speaks of the love that we share as a family, a love that transcends the material world around us and that 'centers' us as a family as we move through this life.  I think perhaps as well as any, this song expresses where Adam's heart is at.

Because I think Adam's lyrics are as important as his music, I'm going to append the lyrics at the end of each of these posts, so that you can easily refer to them. 
Lyrics:

There's a crowd here in my house
they all love one another
I sing a song for them, losing the tune
But they ask for another
We all love one another

And there's a message in my ear

It's the voice of my brother
He was faraway thinking of home
We're losing track of each other
But we love one another

Oooh so I've strayed
to some strange sunny places
Chasing the storms
But a thousand and one
of those houses of sun
Don't hold the warmth
like a cold day here at home.

And I have little left this year
Towards a gift for my lover
But she said tenderly lying me down
All we need is each other
And we love one another

Ooooh so you've come

with your thick jacket on

to show me the lights

And a thousand and one

of those lights shining on

keep me outside



Adam, Sarahbeth, and Nathan at Shamrock House



On this cold night

There's a crowd here in my house

and always room for another

I hear words that we're singing aloud

Keep your faith in each other

Keep your faith in each other