The Song Project: All of us are Strangers

Here's the song: All of us are Strangers


I've always been interested in the accident of birth. I don't believe in any guiding intelligence; it's always seemed to me at heart a cruel concept. If it was the choice of some being that I should be born into relative comfort, with loving parents, a (relatively) sharp mind, and all my advantages, then it was also that being that chose people to be born into the most horrendous, hellish lives; to be born broken. To be born into famine and disease. 

On the afternoon before I smashed my finger (as of this writing I can play for short periods, but alas still no busking) I happened to record the acoustic guitar for this song. Later, as I refined the song, I had to do a bit of clever editing, since I couldn't play. When I decided I wanted the A minor in the verse, I had to cut and paste the measure of A minor from the chorus and stick it into the verse. If you listen closely, you can here that there's more looping going on than usual in the acoustic. Indeed, if you listen to the verses carefully, you'll hear that A minor measure is exactly the same every time it comes up!


Anyway, here's the first verse:

It could have been me beneath the freeway

holding a sign out for my bread

It could have been me in the alley

looking for a place to lay my head

All of us are strangers, walking through this world of woe

Some wear a cloak of sorrow, and some let it go

Here we introduce the concept. But for luck, there go I. The last two lines hint at the idea of recognizing our own suffering, and letting it go. The "cloak of sorrow" phrase is from one of my favorite poets. I wonder if anyone can guess who?

We were some to the earth we were some to the sky

We were some to the truth we were some to the lie

Have mercy for those who are lost on the way

Take heart for this is the dawn of the day

The chorus sort of sums it up. Each of us cleaving to our own path. Have mercy for others. And the final line is my nod to an idea: that even though we look back and see the thousands of years of history, we can choose to see this moment as only the beginning of a much longer and perhaps ever brighter future; that history is only just begun. It makes me think of one of my favorite MLK quotes - "the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice."

It could have been you in California

with a million-dollar dream

It could have been you in the headlines

your face on the silver screen

All of us are strangers, some are high and some are low

Take your comfort from tomorrow, and just let go

Here we switch to second person, and take the idea in the opposite direction. Yes, you could have been born into abject poverty. You could be homeless. But you could also be famous, you could have been someone with a very easy life.

It could have been us in a trailer

broke and broken down

It could have been us in the railyard

jumping a train back to Charlotte Town

And all of us are strangers, some are blue and some are gold

And some spend their life in the bottle, and some let it go

The final verse is a "we" voice. And back to more depressing alternatives. THe blue and the gold could be the sky and the sun, or the sky and golden grass. Who knows?

I like this song. It feels quite whole. I don't think it will need a lot of editing when it comes time to record it properly. To my mind, this is the third song in a row I've felt pretty good about! Of course, pride goeth before the fall. Having a string of decent songs made the next song devilishly hard to write. I had been doing pretty well, letting go of my judgment as I wrote, but I noticed trying to follow up three good ones, that I had relapsed. Once again I was being such a perfectionist! I'll be posting that song and blogging about it shortly, so I'll leave the rest of that process for later.