I Wouldn't Trade It

The Beautiful Mundane and a Plain Brown Bird

This morning I put Bear on the bus, came back home, messed with a song I’m working on, chatted with Jakob on the phone (he’s on tour in Ireland this month), and headed upstairs to write a totally different letter than the one I am sending you. When I sat down at the computer, I got a notice that this video we made (directed by Tommy Yacoe) back in Seattle of my song Brown Bird was 10 years old.

There is something about 10 years that really pops a balloon and startles your eyes open. It sent me on an existential head trip. The familiar riff- wow- that was forever ago, and also wow- that was yesterday morning, right?

Look at who we were. Look at who we are. Exactly the same. Completely different. How is this possible? How can probably every human alive know this trope, but we can’t answer that question? Also, how did I convince these guys to be such weirdos at 6 in the morning when we shot this thing?

When I wrote the song 10 years ago, Jakob and I had been together almost 10 years, and I was often feeling restless. Not just with our “relationship”, but with our story. I struggled with how different it was from the love story I thought I would have to tell. It was way more mundane. We worked together and toured together. We had some drama but mostly we were enmeshed in what had to be done and looping the routines of getting it all there. It was harder than I thought it should be. It didn’t feel like it would make a very inspiring song.

I remember sitting on the back porch of our house in Seattle one night when we were off the road, and I had the house to myself, which was fucking rare since we lived with 4 other roomates. A little brown wren rustled in the leaves near the porch steps. It was diving down under the leaves and then popping back up like it was playing in a puddle. A plain brown bird in some plain brown leaves. I can’t know how it felt, but it seemed delighted to be alive.

I sat with it and tried to name that ache, watching it be it’s plain content self. I wrote this song about the beautiful mundane, the day to dayness of loving someone for a long time. There’s been bullshit that almost broke us. No question. But there are also these ways that we keep each other awake, day after day. I still love this song, but I think I misnamed it. If I were releasing the song today, I’d rename it “I Wouldn’t Trade It.”

“I Wouldn’t Trade It”- (Sketch for a print by Jes Raymond (that’s me) )

Ten Years Ago Me was not dreaming of the same things that I am dreaming of now. I remember how good it felt when this band was getting momentum and killing it onstage. I can still feel where I am tender from that loss. That me didn’t know that was coming. She didn’t know she’d be having a baby in 2 years. She didn’t know she’d leave the West Coast. It was a really different vision in her mind when she made that video. She didn’t know how life would change her dreams. She would not have pictured me here where I am, and if she did, I don’t think she would believe I could be happy. She didn’t know what she didn’t know.

There are dreams that are still the same, too. Ten Years Ago Me was experimenting with a looper she got used from Guitar Center. I remember having to clear it off my desk to make those masks. I wanted to use it to write some audience choir parts, but it felt like it was too much to learn at the time, and Ten Years Ago Me sold it on Facebook. Just last week I got a used looper pedal from Guitar Center to do some experiments on. Present Day Me has learned how to read a users manual, and I have spent all week sneaking in to play with it when I have a few minutes. That same little dream is still knocking. Or looping, I guess.

So much has changed. So much hasn’t.

I wouldn’t trade it.

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Here in The Valley

Upper Valley Folks- I’ll be playing some old time tunes with some pals as part of my King Arthur Baking Company summer residency TONIGHT- JUNE 12 from 4:30-7!

Beecharmer will be at FLOW STATE MOUNTAIN BIKE FESTIVAL in Ascutney on July 25

Beecharmer will be at FEAST AND FIELD in Barnard on AUGUST 21