A Little Blues - David Kennedy

Lyrics

Verse I

Settle down

Have a smile

Take a drag

It’s been a while

Hold my hand

For just one more

Little moment while we leave the rest behind

And close the door and don’t it feel...

Like a dream?

Aint it neat?

How the sky is turning colors

And the clouds are gaining speed

But come with me

Chorus

Cause I’ve been around long enough to know

That when singing blues is useless

Cause you can’t hear the music

When you can’t cry, it’s best not be alone

Verse II

It feels so free

To finally

Trade the sound of your name

For just the sound of the rain

A melody, so complete

No harmony

Just the whisper of the breeze

And the wind beneath the trees

To simply be

Without a need

To let it all just slip away

To save the rain

For another kind of cloudy day

You're safe with me

Chorus

Cause I’ve been around long enough to know

That when singing blues is useless

Cause you can’t hear the music

When you can’t cry, it’s best not be alone

Ending

They say singing blues is useless,

but when you can't hear the music

You sure miss those useless things you used to do.

So come on now, let's sing a little blues,

Callback

Come on down

Have a smile

Take a drag

It’s been a while

Notes

As a lifelong musician, the thought of what life might be like if I were to lose my hearing, crosses my mind from time to time. Would I really go on living like that? I wonder. I really do. And if I were to go on living like that, what would that then mean in the context of my life?

For my part, music has put me in touch with some of the most cherishable things about what it means to be human. Not a list that one can easily put to pen, but a list I hope you wouldn't need my help to put together.

I think sadness is often thought of in a negative light. We imagine that in the wake of terrible tragedy, it's intense sadness that grips us and makes life so unbearable. But I think there's more to the picture.

For anyone who's never experienced this, I don't wish it on anyone...but beyond intense sadness one can find something truly darker: a lack thereof.

A kind of withdrawing away from the world, a pulling back of one's spirit to within oneself. A fell kind of apathy. A strange calm that's more like a forest of dead trees than quiet Sunday afternoon.

I've been there. And it's there that you learn that even sadness puts you in touch with something. That however small, you are still part of the world. But this place, there's no world to be a part of, and no you even if there were.

And I think once you've been there, and you're lucky enough to make it out, you spend your life trying to keep as many others from the edge as you can.

Sometimes we spend our lives trying to escape sadness, without ever questioning what might be left of us once we do.

While I'm not so sure it's up to me to tell you what a song "means", I hope you have a better understanding now of where the music came from when it did.

Don't be afraid to sing a little blues.

— David Kennedy

Lyrics

Notes

A Little Blues— A Demo