California, Still

Two love songs (sort of)! One fun (!), one pensive (sort of).

This song came out fully formed. I wrote it on guitar, sitting on my bed with a notebook by my side. Just above the lyrics is written, “First day back after LA Summer 2021.”

The first draft of California, Still

It’s a love song about a long-distance relationship. It’s part of the fun, dancey album called Giving Love and Hate that For Thomas and ‘Til the End of the Evening are from. My friend Sam calls it my ‘California lovin’ album!

I never intended to make the dancey version, but the words seemed to fit this basic loop so well:

Despite writing the song on guitar, I ended up recording the guitar version after the dancey version, using it as an opportunity to go down some fun sound-designy rabbit holes. So it’s perhaps fitting that California, Still is both the final track of Intermittent Life and the first of Giving Love and Hate. I’ve now shared every song from Intermittent Life, so I should put together a release of that soon!

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I wake before your sun-drenched kiss,
A warm tan arm upon my skin.
The sound of soothing filtered air,
I have no care, no care, no care.

My neck's a canvas for your lips,
My waist, a rudder for your hips.
I haven't moved a single inch,
But this, oh this, this is bliss.

I feel something full of spirit rise,
Out through my flesh, it's not my mind,
Or, not my brain, though I think this thinks,
Perhaps it's what thinks beyond our skin.

Can time freeze? Can this still be still?
Four legs, four eyes, two with freckles in.
Viewed from above, a scene of purest love,
But love is never settled in.

So knees find hamstrings and egos start to move,
The wind tussles with the body for the still.
The body wins, it always will,
Until flesh is left behind, or desire killed.

The thoughts rush back tightly in,
Thinking only occurs now under the skin,
Though, as the freckles turn to face each other,
Even flesh seems paper thin.

I rush in, rush out,
Without moving an inch,
I know what to take,
Because you know what to give.

Two bodies fighting to be seen,
Each glimpsing each, but much more between.

So together we two burn up this California air,
With a heat much truer than the fires there,
We leave this unholy, cool, and filtered air,
Perfumed with what only love can bear.

The space inside the room contracts, refills –
Space can breathe as time can still.
And when you give me so much truth,
So much goodness, trust, and youth,
I feel it all – the breath, the still,
The way time stops, and space refills.

And though moving through space is easier than time,
With you, I don't feel physics define
How two bodies ought be intertwined,
Even when separated by several date lines.

I've read the truth, I've seen through the signs,
Distances and time are more like guidelines,
Suggestions, ill-defined,
That can be transgressed by the divine.