Hold Still grew out of my fondness for the character of Malcolm's mother Martha. At first impressions she is weak & unstable but she makes one of the most significant transformations of anyone in the book.
This song is my imagined response to Jimmy's departure, as she nostalgically looks back on their life together & unpicks why it was always doomed to fail.
"Malcolm Orange loved his mother. She was beautiful to him like a TV chef or a first grade teacher, but he no longer knew what to say to her. She was unravelling before his eyes, a forty foot scarf left one decade too long in the damp." (p60)
"I can see you've the flight in you too" (p237)
"why can't I hold still?" (p238)
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You can find out more about the inspiration for this song here:
Chapter Two (p27 ff) - The Oranges Life together
Chapter Three (pages 57-60)
Chapter Ten (pages 229-254)
lyrics
There's a sign, avert your eyes, pay it no mind,
It's only pointing to somewhere, we don't want to find,
Now we've arrived.
Just drive to where open road meets vacant sky,
We never feel more alive than when passing something by,
Or letting something slide....
Prechorus
I was all you had left,
I was all you had left,
I should have guessed cause
Chorus
Who could have the will? To stay with a creature, who cannot hold still.
A meeting of souls I pledged true, you're not the only one,
who can't stick those who disappear from view.
And recline, a few more winds counter-clockwise then I'll find,
my favourite way to realise the world, my favourite state of mind.
Sleep but do not dream of flying children quickly vanishing,
you'll only wake with a start and your heart in your mouth and your mind screaming....
When did we stop moving?
Prechorus
Chorus
Bridge
I was all you had left, all you had left to leave behind,
I should have guessed, great minds you and I.
Julien Baker is an acquired taste - assuming of course you’ve acquired great taste in singer songwriters… beautiful, devastating, honest, insightful… I’ve not heard a single song of hers that hasn’t left me in absolute awe. crisbroadhurst
The UK pianist, a touring member of Black Sabbath, Travis, and others, returns with his first contemporary-classical album in over 20 years. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 17, 2021