Four Songs

Through My Door, Saint Verses Fool, New Organ, Lullaby

If you are not using a password manager to store the (unique!) credentials for your dozens of online accounts, then you are missing out on many benefits, one of which is the opportunity to stumble upon your years old personal profiles where you expressed yourself in ways that are now, from the perspective of your older, surely more mature self, simultaneously nostalgic, cringe, and inexplicable. I do use a password manager and so I recently discovered a Soundcloud account I created 14 years ago. It made me happy and so I want to share it with you.

Some guide rails:

• Kin Cairn is what I call my music; or maybe it’s the name of my musical persona. When you pair that with Sun Tongue, I guess I like names made of paired, crisp, monosyllabic words that you can imagine slamming your fist on the table twice while saying.

• I was 26 when I created this profile (40 now), and I feel it is cute to see how baby-faced I was in my profile pic. You, on the other hand, will probably find the idea of a baby with such a face to be quite monstrous. Also, it shows how comfortable with myself I’ve become that I have not scrubbed my bio from that profile but am instead bringing attention to it here: “I'm an acoustic storyteller from Colorado.

  A few of the things I'm into are flannel, cookies, books, beer, mountains, and family.” Cringe, yes, but my only feeling in reading this self-description is saudade for gluten. Also, I fear I may not have changed much in the last 14 years.

• These recordings are objectively bad and yet I honestly feel they’re really good. You very well may not agree with the later half of that statement. I’ve come to realize how deeply indy my artistic sensibilities are. I’d rather hear a crappy recording someone made on their phone than a perfectly produced piece, as long as it has some soul or verve and is for the love of God NOT BORING. Anyway, it’s okay if you don’t like these…let’s call them sketches of songs. They clip, they are not mastered, the gear is crappy, etc; so caveat auditor. If your device has poor sound you might have mercy on these songs and find a decent pair of headphones or whatever.

In what follows, I will share each of the four songs I found with a brief explanation and the lyrics.

Through My Door

It took about two months of marriage for my wife to get pregnant. We were told by some medical professional that we couldn’t have kids. We had shrugged our shoulders, assumed we would adopt someday, and turned the L into a W by enjoying the ability to ignore questions of birth control. Psych!

For reasons relating to family baggage and good ol’ fashioned immaturity, I responded with what I used to call my “9-month anxiety attack.” Then, on the morning of my daughter’s birth, I woke up with a sublime calm and resolve and have never looked back. Six kids (total) later, words fail me in expressing my gratitude and awe. So this song is about meeting my first child.

I wasn’t happy when I first heard the news
Felt like a sucker paying for something I didn’t choose
Immediately I began to hyperventilate
The only thing I wanted was to run away
Pleasant surprise it wasn’t, the word “terrified” it doesn’t,
Do justice to the way I felt that day
Immature I panicked, unprepared to parent
But later on I’d find He handed me a real good thing

For nine months, every night in bed, I’d lie awake
Thinking of everything headed my way
Of all the things robbing me of sleep, running through me head
It was a person who I hadn’t met that I couldn’t forget

Someone who came through my door
And I didn’t know who she was
And I didn’t know what was in store
But it was love, love, love

A daily delight to see the life in your eyes
A daily challenge to pick you up and lay down mine
Crazy being grateful for the way you’re killing me
Lovely the way you’ve become a reason to breathe
A fantasy it isn’t, sometimes it’s like a prison
But sweeter than any dream I’ve ever had
The fictional could never, no material could ever
Compare with the real life we share together

Everything that I thought I need that I said was good
Just wasn’t necessarily so
Everything that He gave to me and said I could
And now the good in my life overflows

Someone who wasn’t there before
And I didn’t know who she was
And I didn’t know what was in store
But it was love, love, love

It’s such a slow death, it’s such a sweet death
A thing that I need
It’s such a slow death, it’s such a sweet

Saint Verses Fool

Have you ever read C. S. Lewis’ sermon, The Weight of Glory (PDF)? If it’s been more than a year or so, get thee to it. Sometimes, once we see how we’ve erred and have joined the prophet in proclaiming, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips,” then the coal comes to cleanse our lips; only instead of a flying, bejeweled snake, the messenger comes in the form of a beautiful woman who shows you something divine by simply being noble and πραΰς, and you can only bow your head in veneration.

So this is one of three, “I’m sorry for breaking up with you,” songs I wrote for my now wife. I really like a good title that adds to the total weight of the song so let me just point out how lovely it is that Christ verses us rather than versus us is some good news like no other.

The way that I treated you
You didn’t deserve that
And I have been such a fool
But you have only been a saint
With elegance and grace
Your dignity it humbles me
You didn’t come crawling on your knees
Your gentleness, your self-respect
You’ve got the glow of a woman who has been blessed
And la da di di di di

And how did you react with such grace
When everything that I did
Was just like a slap in your face?
I’m beginning to realize
you must be the daughter of a good father
Who showed you how precious you are
How blessed you are to have a father like that
I wish my actions had shown you the same thing
And la da di di di di

New Organ

A phenomenology of gaining new divine capacity. The experience of hearing the guitar solo in this one was just delightful. I didn’t see it coming, and it felt like my past self was showing off to me and I was like, “Kick ass, bro!”

Let me summarize everything experienced
When I saw with my eyeballs the first of all sights
A lot of light, and everything that I could find
Was a glowing color picture–words to describe
Everything I never was there was there
I can’t close me eyes

How do you know that the soul has lost something should be missed?
How do you tell something’s missing when you don’t know it exists?

Let me tell you of everything that I could feel
When I heard the very first sound ever made
If you awoke and suddenly you found
That you had another organ let you feel a new way
Everything moving through the air was there
I can’t close my mind

How do you know that the soul has lost something should be missed?
How do you tell something’s missing when you don’t know it exists?

Let me sing about everything that turned around
When I found I had a new heart
It was soft, it seems to get softer with time
Makes me laugh, it makes me cry, makes me alive
Everything I never knew I need was free
I can’t close my eyes

How do you know that the soul has lost something should be missed?
How do you tell something’s missing when you don’t know it exists?
How do you get free to receive what you need to get free?
How could you find the clue when you never knew this was a mystery?

Lullaby

What to say? I wanted to write a lullaby and maybe I failed in one respect and succeeded in another. I haven’t tested its putting-babies-to-sleep powers. I must have been in my teens or very early twenties when I wrote this. I love the guitar solo; the fusion of riffing and rhythm reflects the kinds of solutions I’ve come up with in lieu of a band. Can you guess what instrument comes in at the outro? I’m sure you will think it is a real trumpet.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath,
Let your head rest and let go of your fears
Breathe a deep sigh, unclench your teeth,
Don’t try to see what the future will bring
The sun is down, the moon is up
Either way you’re full of love
And there is nothing gonna come between us

We are close, we are close to the God who made us
And he is watching over us
We are close, we are close and he is growing us
Into the people that he wants

Today you lived, all that implies
And now it’s time to close your eyes
Whatever it is, let it be
It is in his hands and he wants you to sleep
When morning comes the birds will sing
But for now they know it’s night
And your should follow in their flight to your dreams

And when you dream he is close
And you should come to know
That fear has failed, fear must flee
In the child he is watching, it’s over now
Lay down, it’s over now

Jesus comes to give you his rest
Jesus comes to give you his best
Jesus comes to make you to be
An apple that won’t fall far from the tree

Voilà. I hope you found something to enjoy in all that. I’ll be posting much more music as time goes on–hopefully with some more presentable execution. Songs have been by far my most voluminous creative output and I’d love to share more with you.