This was the first song I wrote when I got out of hospital after having a near fatal pulminary embolism. I recorded it in 2004 but I couldn't sing the melody in the key it was written in so I talk-sung some lyrics about a homeless woman in Ottawa (she wore shorts in the dead of an Ottawa winter, impervious to the sub-zero weather).
lyrics
She could not believe
all the things she lost in the time she was
looking for something else,
and in the end, when it all became too much to bear
she gave up.
Walking down the city streets in her little red tattered dress
smiling at the strangers who didn't even look in her eyes,
she was something special then,
and now she realized she's not that anymore.
I can see the city lights,
like a beacon in the night
I can see my life lies there
she won't wait for me.
And all the time she thought
it was going to change for her one day,
voices from the angels came down,
and there in her basement,
in front of her dirty stove and
the pots and pans that hadn't been cleaned for days,
and the grimy window and the sink full of dirt,
a feeling of joy and epiphany filled her,
swept over her and she felt her,
feet raising from the ground,
and a shaft of sunlight beamed down upon her head
and she raised slowly into the air,
and she said good-bye to everything she never liked,
and all the things that had abandoned her.
I can see the city lights,
like a beacon in the night
I can see my life lies there
she won't wait for me.
credits
from The Rapids Demos,
track released July 9, 2004
David-guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, vocals.