Sailing on a Sea
Writing lyrics is a mystery for me. I sing something unintelligible while playing the piano or taking a walk, that something suggests an image or a storyline, then I’m hooked and the hunt for words begins. In the case of a song called “What If,” the hunt for lyrics took eighteen months. The hunt for the right accompaniment took four years.
It all started with the image of a small boat on the open ocean with only the stars in the sky to show the boat’s single passenger where she was in the world. I knew she felt no fear; that the stars were reliable. She knew how to read them, and she trusted herself. What she felt looking up in the night was awe.
As the months of lyric hunting went on, there were other images that began to take shape: a dry creek, land in the distance, the pull of the tides, and the moon. Finally, when the lyrics were in place, it wasn’t so much that I understood them, but that they felt right and true.
Early in November, I re-discovered a piano part I’d experimented with (and abandoned) from two years earlier, this after several unsuccessful attempts with other musicians to find the right accompaniment.
It’s taken this long to share the song with you because other things have occupied my heart and mind recently. But today feels like the right day to send it out. More than anything else right now, I’m drawn to the lyric in what I’ll call the chorus: we’re sailing on a sea / searching for a breeze / reaching for the land we need. For a long time, I thought these words were too corny. But the more I sang them, the truer they became.
What If What If the light of a million stars lit up the night showed you where you are What if the rainfall on an empty stream fed the seeds of a hidden dream We’re sailing on a sea Searching for a breeze Reaching for the land we need What if the tides and the moon above pulled on your heart to another love What if the light of a single star lit up your night showed you where you are lit up your night showed you where you are
You can find this song and other songs of mine on iTunes, Spotify, or any of the other places you find the music you listen to.
Lovely & soothing. Reminds me of this poem:
“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse
Beautiful. I wish I could write lyrics. I stumble upon all these melodies and neat chord changes playing around on guitar, but without lyrics they are soon forgotten.