SONG LORE

Writing Process

This is one of the oldest songs of mine available on this Shadow / Light Path experience. I wrote this song during my undergraduate studies in college going through the ups and downs of college dating life. When I wrote this one, I had very particular angsty feelings about a recent breakup, and I wanted to put that dark emotion into a song.

Before I kind of grew into accepting the “shadow” that life always manages to bring (and being okay with sitting in/accepting those shadow moments) I had a hard time writing a darker/angsty song that stayed in that mood or didn’t have a mood change from dark to uplifting. I frequently wanted to change the mood of those darker songs to end on a more hopeful note. That is very much the case with “Open Your Wings” as the verse moods are polar opposites from the chorus and final ending moods.

As I mentioned in the video section above. I had a LOT of fun writing the intertwining vocal lines in the ending. I feel that ending a song like this in this way serves as a big payoff of “LIGHT” after going through the “SHADOW” of the verses. I guess in retrospect, this song serves as a perfect balance between Shadow & Light, which is why I wanted to include it as one of the song options here on the Shadow/Light Path.

Song Meaning

I always hesitate to share a song’s meaning because it’s usually specific to me, but I truly feel these songs are meant for each listener to interpret and find their own meaning. I’d hate for my meaning to get in the way from a listener finding their own. Also, over time I usually find different meanings come out of my songs for me so it’s always changing.

As far as what I mentioned about this song being about a past breakup, there really isn’t much else to say about that specific part of it, as that relationship has absolutely no hold on my life over a decade later. It might be worth a laugh though to share that at the beginning of my marriage, my wife Sarah and I created an inside joke/codename for my ex-relationship though haha… “Voldemort”… lol… for all the crap I went through with them.

I have absolutely no bitter feelings now towards my “Voldemort” haha… just love and respect for them as a soul who, just like me, is imperfect and makes mistakes. It’s still fun though to be able to look at past “shadow” experiences with humor, like we did here with creating a codename for our Voldemorts haha.

In the end, I like to see life as just a giant play or stage production, and everyone has their role to play. Some people play the ally while others may play the villain. It’s all to gain soul-growth and experience. To be honest, it would be a boring play if there were no villains along the way! But even so, I thoroughly believe that every villain, no matter what harm has been caused, deserves forgiveness and redemption. I know I’d want the same since I’ll be honest, I know I’ve been a Voldemort to people in the past too.

Okay, so I guess I had more to say about that than I thought, lol! Regarding the rest of the song’s meaning… the imagery of a “butterfly” is a powerful one for me. If I could imagine what it would be like to first be a slow grounded caterpillar, then to be stuck in a cocoon for a while… the perfect payoff to those more-difficult experiences would be to get to fly as a butterfly! Such a remarkable Shadow/Light example, the life of a butterfly.

That’s the overall message of “Open Your Wings”, that after going through any shadow that the “nights” of life bring, there is peace in knowing that the light always comes with the next morning.