February A-Side: The Apple Orchard
Added 2025-02-27 16:59:40 +0000 UTCMastered by Andrew Katz
Art by Billis Helg
The vocal melody of this comes from a hymn, “Lord, It Belongs Not To My Care”, by Richard Baxter:
Lord, it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve you is my share,
And this your grace must give…
The courage and simplicity of the original hymn amazed me. Not graced by such simple assurance myself, a different verse came to my mind in the wake of some troubling dreams:
Until this day I had forgot
The heart behind your name
And now I must feel everything
To feel your love again
I was thinking of the burden that Jesus shouldered while anticipating his own death, seeing that great obstacle that stood between him and his reunion with God. To be human is to feel everything, not just pain and sorrow, but joy, fondness and hope. We experience each emotion as vivid and alive, and mourn its passing. It’s tempting to try and avoid those emotions, to avoid the suffering that comes with them. It’s our fate as humans to encounter them anyways, and to pass through and beyond them, into love.
Tracks:
1: acoustic guitar
2: 12-string guitar
3 and 4: vocals
Lyrics:
There is an orchard down the way
Where once we used to go
There is a lock now on the gate
That stands and guards the road
The lock is strong, its keyhole small
Too small to see light through
With every key upon this ring
I’ve tried to get to you
Yes, every gift my young heart held
I left outside this door
And every day I came to give
There was less than before
Where have they gone, the shades of life
That hung in this bouquet?
What were those words from gentle lips
Who said all there is to say?
Why can’t I remember now?
There is a song I used to know
I heard it at my birth
I used to praise and help create
The wonders of the earth
And underneath the blossoming trees
I pledged my love to you
the fruit was sweet, and then my love
Was left all bare to prove
Why must I remember now?
And though I know it is not lost
It’s yet to be regained
And echoes of my steps are all
I hear inside this cave
Until this day I had forgot
The heart behind your name
And now I must feel everything
To feel your love again
Comments
This one is my favorite 🥺💕
Carmen✨
2025-03-01 21:59:51 +0000 UTCThis song gives me the same feeling as Operator by Jim Croce, i can’t pinpoint the feeling but it’s somewhere between nostalgia and comfort. Anyways I love it!
kaci ミ★
2025-03-01 01:17:51 +0000 UTCWhen I got the notification for this post, I had just gotten out of a dream. Though I had forgotten about had happened in the dream, I was still shaken by the intensity it felt. Then as I read through your post and listened to the song, the dream came to me and I started crying as the emotions washed through me. I tried to dissect what about it that was so meaningful to me and why it resonates with the song. At the end, I came to the conclusion that it was not the content of the dream itself that spoke to me but the emotional intensity I had from it. This reminded me of a quote from a book and the TV series it adapted from called Fellow Travelers: "... There really was no such thing as happiness or unhappiness. Maybe there was only intensity - and then everything else" and also "I seem to be always searching for something to lose myself in completely... It's like what we say in seminary - beyond measure." Maybe we as human beings are always searching for something greater than us to subsume us, take hold of us and dissect us to pieces unrecognizable to ourselves. And yet we long for it because maybe it's love itself that makes us want to be compelled and consumed completely. What a beautiful song :,)
Mia
2025-02-28 03:42:24 +0000 UTCthis beautiful 😭😭😭
zev
2025-02-27 18:40:03 +0000 UTCLove the music and love all the art that has come with it
Jack
2025-02-27 17:29:10 +0000 UTCWhile I am no longer of Christian faith, it’s nice to have media I can consume that holds something that made up so much of my life. It’s healing, thank you
Axo
2025-02-27 17:16:31 +0000 UTCThis is lovely! This winter has pulled a lot of forgotten memories to the surface. It’s taken so much energy to digest what Ive been facing. But it’s all meant to happen for a reason, healing is cyclical. I feel as if I have been traversing the void, prayer has been my only way to ground myself. I feel in my heart something will change, life is always evolving around me - and thats a blessing in itself.
Sam Bradley
2025-02-27 17:10:46 +0000 UTCthis is so beautiful!!!!! will these a sides and b sides be on the upcoming album? :3
callicoeidoscope
2025-02-27 17:05:27 +0000 UTCseriously such a beautiful piece <3
gravegurl
2025-02-27 17:05:14 +0000 UTCThis is so pretty omg
Sageisafruit
2025-02-27 17:04:36 +0000 UTCThis is so pretty 🫶
elvis
2025-02-27 17:01:59 +0000 UTC
