SONG STORY

​

In October 2017, my wife Bekah and I found out that we were pregnant with our second kid. Everything seemed to be going fine until our 8 week appointment. The midwife listened for a heartbeat only to hear empty static. She assured us that this was not unusual and that we had nothing to worry about. We had another appointment a few weeks later; I was unable to be there because I was teaching and had a rehearsal. On my way to the rehearsal, Bekah called me and said that we lost the baby.     

 

Knee-drop, please stop, wait

​

A few days later she had an operation and after that there really was no baby. 

​

Flutter, quiver, heartbeat swept away

​

We then headed into the middle of winter. We were told that due to the circumstances of the miscarriage we might have to wait another year or so to try again. December, January, February, winter, sadness. It is hard to describe this loss because it wasn't a baby with a name or a face that I know, it was more the idea of a baby. How can you lose something that in some ways you never had to begin with? I was so excited to tell my daughter that she would have a baby brother or sister. 

​

Ping-pong, ping-pong, pain

Brute earth, fluke birth, truer, truer weighs

​

I cry

​

February ended, March came to thaw the cold winter, we were miraculously cleared to try again much sooner than anticipated. We were able to get pregnant again; I realize how fortunate and lucky we were in this. 

​

Bluebird, new dirt, wait

​

Wait... what about the baby we lost? Does this new baby replace that one? What if I don't feel sad because I'm excited that we're still having a baby? 

​

Bitter, withered heartbeat somewhere faint

​

My mind raced, going back and forth, back and forth, what should I be feeling?

​

Ping-pong, ping-pong, pain

​

Where is my other baby? Why can't we have both of them? Why doesn't that one get to grow?

​

Bloom first, bluebird broken by the blade

​

You cry

​

I needed a place to go where I could find some peace. I was really sad. I love the image of being in the "shadow under your wings". Everyone wants to be safe and taken care of.

​

Keep me somewhere safe

Worry wander, truer, truer weighs

​

Next, the change of season. Spring comes (the whole album centers around this), the fog lifts, the music changes. I have come to remember this lost baby as a beauty I didn't get to hold. I wanted to write a song in memory of this beauty and to process the grief of losing a baby while being hopeful about a new baby.

​

Breath, my heart's forever beat outside my chest

I see you in the heather there

​

We went to Iceland in 2017; everywhere there were fields of purple heather. Beauty.  

​

Death, forever weaved, what hasn't happened yet

​

Death and incompleteness will forever be a part of this baby's story. Then again, that will be a part of all of our stories. I think what I want to say with this song is that I want to remember this baby's beauty, that this baby was seen and loved and is still seen in the beauty that I see around me. 

​

I see you there

I see you

​

​

Love, loss, a new baby that I also love that doesn't replace the one we lost, but who I am so grateful for. Feeling guilty no matter how I processed what I felt or didn't feel. Realizing how fortunate we were to get pregnant. I am going to remember that baby as beauty.

​

The lyrical structure was heavily inspired by a poem written by Melvin Dixon called "Heartbeats". I loved the way that the words flowed in a stuttering way; creating a picture of a really intense struggle through the use of two syllable words or phrases. Check it out here. Any time I am stuck lyrically on something, I read poetry.

​

Reese Kling played the drums on this. The outro was heavily inspired by a Jonsi song called "Sinking Friendships".

​

Matt Patrick, of the Library Studio in Mpls, mixed it. 

​

Huntley Miller mastered it. 

​

The artwork is a picture of my daughter that I edited a bunch. She was standing in front of a window at a museum in Nashville.  

​

​

​

​

​

​