1. |
Welcome to the Treehouse
03:07
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Thanks for joining me up in the treehouse, it’s nice to have the company. Boy, that wind is whipping tonight….let me get the window…that’s better.
You know, not all memories are experienced as regret, but let’s face it — a fair number of them are. Sometimes even fond memories are recollected through a haze of melancholia, with the residual regret being our confidence that those pleasant things might not be occurring again, in our present or future, due to changes in how life can now be lived.
Our poetic and musical heroes can still inspire us, long after they have left the ranks of the living, and we lament their passing…while at the same time we rejoice in the art they left to us, the art that moved us so.
The Portuguese have a fascinating word, that is pronounced, in European Portuguese, as “Saudade.”. There is no counterpart for this word in English — or in most languages for that matter — but “saudade” is meant to suggest a melancholic nostalgia for something that perhaps has not even happened. It carries an implied assurance that this thing one feels nostalgic for will never occur again. The Portuguese writer Manuel de Melo thought about saudade as "a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy.” The fado music indigenous to Portugal is suffused with notions of saudade, and one can easily get lost in it emotionally.
As we start to honestly face our current climate crisis, another term entered the ecological discourse in about 2004, created by the Australian social scientist Glenn Albrecht — “Solastalgia.” Solastalgia is best described as the lived experience of negatively perceived environmental change. Albrecht himself thinks of it as "the homesickness you have when you are still at home" — while your home environment is changing in ways that are distressing and disorienting.
Solastalgia differs from the nostalgic distress that can come from simply being absent from home — instead it refers to the distress specifically caused by environmental change while you are still in your home environment — one that is becoming less recognizable all the time.
So this time around I climbed up the rope ladder to this treehouse, carrying with me memories, regrets, lamentations, tributes, saudade, and solastalgia — but it all fit nicely inside my head. I also chose not to pull the rope up behind me — I’m glad that you decided to climb on up too.
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2. |
A Heart's Veneer
03:05
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They say time wounds all heels….so maybe I got what I deserved
At least that’s how it feels….a sentence, fully served.
A faithless love my calling card….no heart I would not shatter
Each lover had to be on guard….that’s the fact of the matter
St. Valentine he struck me from his list
It’s fitting, I can’t even shake a fist
From his grace I’ve been fully dismissed
If love’s a grind, then my heart is the grist
Love is strange, and strange is love…so Mickey & Sylvia sang
A gift sent from above, but then shot down with a bang
I’m the man who fired that gun, a weapon that I concealed
I could never be “the one,” my faithlessness revealed.
To have loved and lost is still to lose, my friend
It’s now a rut, where once it was a trend
My vow was never one on to depend
How I got here I still can’t comprehend
When you read the note I never wrote on Valentine’s Day this year
Correct the spelling, there’s no telling…. about a heart’s veneer.
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3. |
Where Did The Ice Go?
03:01
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A frozen tundra sounds harsh….but the thawed tundra is harsher
A glacier’s crust is hard….but a melting glacier’s harder
The bitter cold is sad….but the warming winter’s sadder
The midnight sun might drive you mad….but extinctions should make you madder
Chorus: Brother, sister….where did the ice go?
We don’t see why it matters, from our speck on the earth
Brother, sister….where did the ice go?
We won’t know until it’s gone what it was all worth
Pretending this is no big deal — makes us a great pretender
The rising heat makes mockery of our toil for the legal tender
Religious doctrine urged us all to go on this blind bender
The earth we leave our children comes back marked “return to sender” (Chorus) (Bridge)
Bridge:
We roll, roll, roll, rolled the dice….and now in hindsight we think
twice
Creating jobs a poor excuse for turning our blind eyes
We fear, fear, fear, fear what we’ve done….it hardly seems that
we have won
We face all of the evidence with our exhausted sighs. (Chorus;
fini)
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4. |
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We always fought like brothers, though we were born to different mothers
Imagined sibling rivalry — as we were each an only child
Best friends didn’t touch it, like two gloves with the same fit
No DNA could ever parse something that grew so wild
When your name became a stone
Our arguments went straight to silent
As did your exhortation to shout “the river’s up, let’s go!”
When your name became a stone
I never felt so all alone
It still feels like yesterday… but it was two full years ago
Our girlfriends couldn’t stand it, that we made out like a bandit
But not with them — we made out for the rivers every chance we got
Whitewater called us weekly, and we gave in completely
And on those runs we joined the realm of time that time forgot
When your name became a stone
A part of me was changed forever
I might paddle again some day, it’s hard for me to say
When your name became a stone
My sense of who I am was blown
And visits to this block of granite pulled me in it’s sway
When we finally made that first descent, the waterfall clear and
pounding
I took it first, as we’d agreed, then eddied out to watch your
drop
You missed your line while at the top, and got flushed under that
undercut
I waited for your you to pop out, but you stayed there for a day
We thought that life was long, and that we’d belong
To the realm of those adventurous to push its outer edge
A boater never stops to think, unless for a moment at the brink
That the light will be extinguished trapped inside a hidden ledge
When your name became a stone
I lost my “only child” brother
And more than that I lost my bearings handling navigation
When your name became a stone
I fought to find the ways I’d grown
And that I’d be without you for the rest of the duration.
When your name….became a stone.
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5. |
Solastalgia
04:27
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Our earth —a tinderbox — on fire, as we strive
We’re diving off of burning docks….just trying to survive
The new normal has arrived; this is no aberration
The elements have all conspired to spark this conflagration
Chorus:
Our melancholia is solastalgia
The world we grew up with is gone
Beyond mere regretful nostalgia
We hear the pain in Gaia’s song
The polar ice will all be gone while some of us still breathe
As humans we can’t get along, letting constant anger seethe
There is no place left to escape, the wind, rain, fire and flood;
One lesson of this hellscape is that we all share one blood. (Chorus)
Bridge: We have loved and lost a sense of place, untethered by the
seasons
As to the bottom we now race, with full knowledge of the
reasons
Our anger leaves us helpless, shipwrecked at the stable door
We find that we are faithless, with less courage than before
The music of the spheres still rings, perhaps it holds the key
But what to make of what it brings, beyond what we can see? (Chorus)
(Each day we fail to get along)
(We write the ending to this song)
(Oh how I wish this song was wrong)
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6. |
The Wings I Never Had
03:08
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You took flight and chose to soar
With the wings I never had
You always found passions new
I grew lonelier and sad
Untethered from your worldly woes
You watched me scatter and flail
As you soared above your cares
I prayed that you would never fail
But you left me, bound and tired
By the pull of gravity
While I watched you, so inspired
Glowing with vitality
You flew away from me, using the wings I never had
It was a sight to see you win in your own Olympiad
It’s hard now to believe that we once shared the same launch pad
You flew away from me, using the wings I never had
If we could start all over again
I’d be the one to set you free
You’d say “let’s go” and I’d say “when?”
And in a foreign land you would meet me
I’d not be awed by your compassion
Or by your effort to succeed
I’d let you lead in your own fashion
From a place of strength, not need
But now we’re here, what’s done is done
The backward view is crystal clear
As I look up toward the sun
You’re still in flight and without fear
You flew away from me, using the wings I never had
I’m still stuck on the runway, I was not your Galahad
In matters bold I was not meant to be your true comrade
You flew away from me, using the wings I never had.
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7. |
Fado and Fade
04:51
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Amalia….Alfred Marceneiro…Mariza….Ana Moura
The Lisbon evening drops its velvet curtain
Alfama’s puzzle box streets invite disorientation
The avenues so narrow, the delivery trucks bump you on the sidewalk
Behind small tables, grandmothers sell shots of Ginja cherry liqueur.
Fade away to yesterday
Fade from current view
The fado sounds in echoes
Through the old on to the new
Carlos do Carmo….Dulce Pontes….Misia….Cristina Branco
The trolley cables quiver in the inky darkness
The mournful ocean sighs, and tries to perfume the salted air
The sound of sadness seeps through the windows of the fado supper houses
You feel the loss of something….although it’s something that you never really had (Chorus)
Carminho….Maria Da Fe….Carlos Ramos…..Raquel Tavares….
Lisbon, city of memory….telling its stories to the sea
A silver wash of Cape Verdean blues in the night
A mystic place, exhausted by shadows, holy and enchanted
The languor of saudade cloaks the cobblestones as you are drawn to the sound in the next street (Chorus; fini)
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8. |
The Brokenhearted Waltz
02:40
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I only spend 75% of my time
Wondering why you chose to leave me
That means one time in four I’ve a moment sublime
And for that moment my spirit is free
Chorus: Each first step is madness
The next step is sadness
The third step brings teardrops
Then the waltz starts again
Three out of four’s not a bad rate of take
If you’re hoping to pass an exam
But 25% joy means that your heart will ache
When the door to that heart has been slammed (Chorus)
In three quarter time my love life slips on by
A dance that I sadly have mastered
And when I think on giving it one more try
Instead I go out and get plastered. (Chorus)
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9. |
Fare Thee Well Rabbie
04:51
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He enchanted us with tales o’ rashies green
His lassie love unequaled to this day
A red red rose lined each winding boreen
Of sweet nature he would always have his say
Fare thee well Rabbie, fare thee well!
Though daily gang aft a-glay our plans
Our auld acquaintance held closely to heart
We rejoice both with strangers and our clans
With bumpers high he did express his joy
For honored friends, and poets of the fields
A ploughman’s view since he was but a boy
His language to this day its power wields
Fare thee well Rabbie, fare thee well!
Each Burns Night we proudly raise full glasses
The greatest Scot of all we do salute
Young and old, the laddies and the lasses.
Bridge: His rattlin’ roarin’ ways cut short his living
Aye fond kiss for each mother of his bairns
A heart obsessed with taking and with giving
His life was marked by joy, and not by cairns
The Westlin Winds still bring the autumn nearer
The banks and braes ripe under harvest moon
And never was a poem of song sung dearer
Than your serenade upon the bonnie doon.
Fare thee well Rabbie, fare thee well!
Though daily gang aft aglay our plans
Our auld acquaintance held closely to heart
We rejoice both with strangers and our clans
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10. |
Samba Sung Blue
01:51
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Samba, samba, samba sung blue…One note samba, I’m without you
Samba, samba, samba sung loud…blue note samba, drunk in the crowd
One note samba, samba sung low…blue note samba, why did you go?
Samba, samba, samba no more….blue note samba, hurt to my core
Samba, samba, samba sung blue….One note samba, I’m without you
Losing, losing….all in the game? Sleeping, weeping….both are the same
Aching, breaking, heart split in two….Brooding, moping, still missing you
Red light, blue night, out on the prowl….Cold and lonely after a while
Hungry, starving, can’t fill me up — parched and thirsty, no loving cup
Samba, samba, samba sung sad….one note samba, missing you bad
Samba, samba, samba now gone….blue note samba, can’t hear my song
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11. |
For The Love Of Harry
04:52
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In 1941 his happy father had a son
But he found that the loneliest number was one
He worked at the bank, then wrote songs through the night
He waited his turn, then his talent took flight
Pop, rock, and ballads, his voice sweet and clear
And his songwriting made the world of magic appear
The voice of an angel brought tears to the eye
Then with his wax wings toward the sun he did fly
Chorus: Nilsson, Schmilsson…man I miss you bad
You were the best friend an honest love song ever had
Nilsson, Schmilsson….your life was short and merry
And when I smile in memory, it’s all for the love of Harry.
Everybody was talkin’— it wasn’t just me
“Without You” would prove his other Grammy to be
How strange that a writer without any peers
Drew his fame from two cover songs honored those years
He was the American Beatle, a friend to all four
And a fab time he had, drinking them to the floor
With the Smothers Brothers he was Tom, Dick & Harry
He was an instant party, and at each bar he would tarry. (Chorus) (then Bridge)
Bridge:
His talent unrivaled, he savaged it hard…he needed to be the court jester and bard
The lost weekend with Lennon left his vocal chords scarred…was there ever such like treated with disregard? (Chorus)
His songs made us laugh, but his voice it cut deep
He could rouse you awake or rock you gently to sleep
With “Me and My Arrow” he sold a cartoon
Then with Gordon Jenkins he would croon “Lazy Moon”
Harry at the movies, Harry on TV
But the recording studio is where he wanted to be
He wrote hit songs for others — the listeners had their say
But one thing he would never do is for the public play (Chorus; fini)
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12. |
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Thanks for visiting me in the Treehouse of Memory & Regret. Our forty minutes together is now a new memory for both of us.
My wish for you is that all of your memories are memorable, and that your regrets all are heartfelt.
May your lamentations, in their timelessness, bring you the exquisite feeling of saudade.
And, I hope that your own sense of solastalgia for your changing world serves to inspire you in useful ways going forward.
Speaking of which….
As far as directions go, it’s actually pretty straightforward — after you go back down this rope ladder, just go forward….forward in all directions!
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jimeddy Ann Arbor, Michigan
I no longer trade time for money, so I'm a lucky guy. Songwriter, music collector (at a pathological level); supporter of independent artists of all stripes. Open mic enthusiast, international traveler every chance I get. Forward in All Directions!
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