(How’s your singing voice? If anybody here is a singer, or even fancies themselves an aspiring vocalist, I’d love to hear your own covers of this. I’d love to hear an alternate voice take this on, someone with a little more soul and smoke to their vocal cords, maybe a female lead, to help bring this to a new dimension. It’s a song that’s both intimate and powerful, and I’m curious how other voices would give life to it. Send me a note over email if you wanna try something.)

Lyrics:

Come home to your body

Come home to your mind

Come home to your body

Been such a long time.

Your body’s been waiting

Since you were a child

It did not need taming

It’s free and it’s wild.

Go tell your skin

You’re moving back in

Go tell your nerves

Your sentence was served

Return of the exile

It’s been such a long while

Go tell your bones

You’re coming home.

How long was the journey?

How high did you climb?

How far have you come, dear?

Been such a long time.

Come home to your body

You are not a crime

Come home to your body

Been such a long time.

Go tell your skin

You’re moving back in

Go tell your nerves

Your sentence was served.

Return of the exile

It’s been such a long while

Go tell your bones

You’re coming home

Come home to your body

Come home to your mind

Come home to your body

Been such a long time

Behind the song:

What isn’t behind this song? Just months and years of processing, of reading and conversations and growth.

There was Jamie Lee Finch’s book “You Are Your Own.”

There was Hillary McBride, writing and teaching and showing up on podcasts over all these years, reminding us you are good. The songs and writing of Lisa Gungor.

There’s the writing of Linda Key Klein.

Emily & Amelia Nagoski’s conversation on burnout and on completing the stress cycle.

Richard Schwartz’ “No Bad Parts” inspired the chorus: a direct conversation with the parts of the selves we’ve alienated: our exiles, our protectors, our child selves that need hearing and welcoming home.

And the up close journeying, conversation and growth with my own partner over time, revisiting old scripts and discovering new ways forward.

There’s more to the story I could share, but there’s also the notes that already existing on my other songs, like You’re Allowed To or Purity Ring. Go check out the old stuff for some more context. :)

Behind the song, musically:

This song has been a tough one to evolve independently — leading to my request at the opening for other vocalists.

First of all, it’s very slow — 43 BPM!

Secondly, and because of that, it means whoever’s singing needs to hold sustained notes at a slow pace for a long time, on almost every line. Every warble or variation in pitch is easily detected, and uncomfortable to listen to.

Third, I would be ideally suited to a singer with a healthy dynamic range. To move from the parts that are quiet and intimate, to the moments that are loud and declarative, an octave apart, while still achieving the above bits, I kept finding…this isn’t really a song for my voice, is it?

The take you’re hearing was recorded “live” at home, as I sang along to the auto-accompaniment of my grandpa’s old keyboard, while playing a simulated electric guitar. It allowed me to flex/flow with the sense of the song.

Other versions I’ve tried required me to build the beat first, then layer in the piano, and then vocals. I tried that — here’s a version that does that, below. This one has some nice harmonies. But I recorded it before I wrote the chorus (this version is from summer 2021), so it needed it a do-over anyway:

Anyway — it would be lovely to hear your own stories of recovering from alienation from your own self, and to hear you give voice to this song in your own way.