VIDEO CONTENT:
Recently I put together a performance video of my favorite part of this song. There are multiple vocal lines intertwining at the end, my favorite style of songwriting. I love creating separate lyric lines that harmonize together but each having different words and different rhythmic patterns. :) Hope you enjoy!
LYRICS
Take a step in
To what you are
Living your life
Only by what you took in
Battles unknown to
All familiar view
Open the windows
To erase what you took in
And awake to the curtains drawn
To behold what you know
Awake to the covers
Ever so slightly untangled
Number the days
To the last time you choked
Maintain open windows
To erase the broken doors
And awake to the curtains drawn
To behold what you know
You awake to the covers
Slightly untangled
From your disgrace
You awake to the curtains drawn
To behold what you know
You awake to the dirt
Gone down the drain
From your trembling hands
You maintain open windows
To erase broken doors
Of which you made
A steady spine
With a moving step
Infectious undoubting
With outward
In only frontward mind
The shoulders back
With a perfect line
The honesty breathing
The outward to find the window
Maintain the windows
Forever just like this
SONG LORE
Writing Process
It was my last semester of grad school in the spring of 2014. I was about to graduate with my masters in film music composition. We were making plans to move across the country from North Carolina all the way to Los Angeles California to start my new career in TV music. I had final assignments due and two masters thesis film scores to wrap up writing and recording. I don’t know HOW I managed to put this song together amidst all the chaos. It’s almost like it needed to come out at that time in order to keep me grounded.
At the time we were living on the third floor of a small apartment. My “studio” (if you could even call it that) was in the front room and half of it was blocked off with baby toys where our first son would play some times while I worked. I constantly worried about bothering our neighbors in that place while recording in that small apartment. A sweet older woman lived downstairs below us and commented a couple times on how she could hear our son’s “pitter-patter” running back and forth across the floor (her ceiling) so I wouldn’t be surprised if recording above her ever was a disturbance.
Ultimately I finished the writing and recording process before the move to Los Angeles, and a few years later when I had a better studio setup I re-mixed and remastered it a little bit better.
This song isn’t on streaming platforms, but it is available on my hidden CD “Open Your Wings EP”, which most notably is the only CD I’ve recorded that has my wife Sarah’s vocals on it. The only place you can get it is in the order bump section when you pair it with my free Mind Cycles cd, HERE.
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.
That said, this song for me is about change. It’s fitting how it came out during one of my biggest life changes with our move across the country and stepping into or “awaking” to the “real world” (leaving college and stepping into the professional world).
More so than physical or circumstantial changes though, it is also about spiritual change and growth. Throughout my life I’ve always found myself in different stages of waking up to new personal truths that I hadn’t held before. It’s interesting to look back at each version/stage of the “old me” and reflect on what I would say back then had I met the “current me”. My mind would have been absolutely blown or at least slightly perplexed at the very least, to hear how my spiritual outlooks on life have changed and grown deeper over the years.
While writing this passage, I realized that I have written three songs with the word “Awake” in the title. I commented to my wife Sarah on how interesting I thought this was, and she replied with: “Awaking is a process!” I couldn’t agree more. :)