I recently re-recorded this as part of my ongoing “Life In Song Project” to preserve and share all the songs from my 35 plus years of compulsive songwriting and featured it here back in February…
Today I wanted to share the original version from the 1982 LP, “Songs Through A Window” that I’ve been revisiting the last week or so.
This is one of many songs where I was able to step into another person’s reality in my imagination and write the song looking out through their eyes or observing them from the “fly on the wall perspective”. As a songwriter that one technique opens up a lot of possibilities that might otherwise not provoke songs. Ultimately I think it is the story behind a song that hooks our unconscious minds and pulls us into a little movie about something.
I just imagined this young woman spending a night watching the city skyline from her apartment… perhaps she was going through something that kept her from sleep… or maybe she was in love… or perhaps she was looking out a hotel room in a city she was visiting and couldn’t sleep because of jet lag… that part doesn’t really matter… what matters is that she see’s it through until sunrise…
On this beautiful rainy Monday in June I wanted to share something quiet and reflective.
Enjoy!
-Mark
Please click the arrow to play:
Songs Through A Window
Song #12 | December 1977
She sings love songs to the traffic light
That lives outside her window
And the rust and concrete symphony
That drifts in from the street
Finds its way into the background harmony
All night…
The clock on the dresser
Grinds away the time
And improvises any tune that comes to mind
She sings so many things through the window
The near and far away
She sings the song of the night and the day
She hums ballads to the bridges
That look like cages full of stars
And the stained glass poetry
Of the moving cars
Emerges as a painting in red and white
All night…
The clock on the dresser grinds away the time
And improvises any tune that comes to mind
She sings so many things through the window
The near and far away
She sings the song of the night and the day
And even as she’s singing
The dawn begins to rise
The new sun offers up itself
To the altar of her eyes
She bows her head in a prayer with the eastern skies
Ahhh….
The clock on the dresser grinds away the time
And improvises any tune that comes to mind…
Tuning DADGAD
Copyright 1977-2015 by Mark Shepard. All Rights Reserved.