Songmail #6:

Virginia (you would have loved)

Hey all! Happy June.

It’s my birthday month! Huzzah. I am turning 24 (which is eerily inching me closer to the age at which I lose parental healthcare coverage, wish me luck with that one).

I probably should have chosen to record a demo that was super personal/about time passing/something else birthday-ish, but alas! I failed to plan such a thing.

So, without further ado, the song for this month is called Virginia (you would have loved). More details on the song’s writing are further down on the page, if you’re a read-first, listen-last kind of person.

love ya!

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The Song: Virginia (you would have loved)

Verse: 
I went down to the lake, 
and I expected salt, 
  sea green and salt 
But it was fresh, beckoning 
Me to sleep 
   where pebbles sing,
   Light refracting 

I want to lay in the womb of the water 
With the sound 
  of kissing stones  
But I must be content
with their rhythm 
Their click in my pocket
  on the walk home 

Pre-chorus: 
Oh, their weight brings a ghost to me, 
And strings of fate unfurl 
Tie me backwards to a woman, 
Heart too heavy for the world 

Chorus:
Oh Virginia, 
you would have loved the walk home 
If you’d emerged from the water 
Like a woman reborn 
Let the foam kiss at your ankles, 
Leaving no one to mourn 
Oh Virginia - 
You had more pages to turn 

Verse: 
With my back to the lake 
Oh I tasted salt, 
  sweet tears ‘o salt 
The path was over growing
but still I walked,
  On i walked 

In the door stood my love, 
Framed in the light, 
  Angel of mine 

She heard the grief in my breath 
She pulled me close- 
  She held me- 

Chorus: 
'Cause Oh Virginia, 
you would have loved the walk home 
If you returned to a woman who takes the 
weight from your bones
Someone to help you tie your laces 
to hold you when you morn
Oh Virginia 
You had more pages to turn 

Bridge:
I stayed out of the water 
Went back home to rosebud lips  
I stayed out of the water 
And my reward is this: 

   Humming in the kitchen, 
   Curtains with a checkerboard motif 
   White wine in the evening, 
   Notes of cherry and relief 

Verse: 
In the warmth of the dusk  
I let stone surface 
   catch the light 
Lined each up on the window sill 
To greet 
   the coming night 
Let a moment catch its breath 
Let a spirit take flight 
Oh Virginia-  
Lost to a cold march night 

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Postscript

About the lyrics!

I was a kid who was really into English class (shocker, I know). When we read Mrs. Dalloway in Sophomore year of high school, I somehow got it into my head that Virginia Woolf was a person that high-school-Addie would have fallen in love with, had I been alive and somehow in England 90+ years ago. I was enraptured by the care with which she rendered the world and, perhaps, with the fact that she was the first queer-femme author I had ever read.

I vividly remember walking from my school’s campus to a coffee shop called Art and Science (which no longer exists) and writing a quasi-lovesong (which also does not exist- I can’t find it anywhere in my notes-) about Woolf. It got lost in the ether, and I moved on to other authors and other songs.

Virginia Woolf and I crossed paths again in 2024, when I was in Paris on a one-day layover between Florence (where I had done a study abroad program) and home. I paid my tithe as a tourist by visiting Shakespeare and Co., wherein I bought a book called Love Letters: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville West. True to its name, the book is a series of letters between the two longterm lovers, who knew each other from 1922—1941. Their correspondence is beautiful, and full of longing, and lives forever in my brain. Love Letters is, to this day, one of the few nonfiction works that has ever brought me to tears.

The seed of this song was finally planted a year later when I re-read the book while working at the Sterling Renaissance festival. I had taken to reading and sitting on the rocky bank of Lake Ontario, where I would inevitably collect all sorts of pretty rocks. I remember walking home on the wooded path, my pockets weighed down by stones, when I was struck with the realization that the sensory details of my peaceful afternoon- the sound of water, the heaviness in my pockets- couldn’t have been too far from those of Virginia Woolf’s final moments. (Forgive me for the melodrama)

All of these things- the lakefront, her/my queerness, the remembered fragments of a song that I had written so many years ago - turned into Virginia (you would have loved).(Also, fun fact: all the lake sounds and bird sounds are actually from Lake Ontario! Specifically the portion of the shore that I would/will visit at my summer job!)

…

To be honest, something doesn’t feel quite right about this one. The performance? The recording? I can’t help but wonder if the tempo’s wrong, or if the structure’s too stagnant? HOWEVER! I made a commitment to myself to publish a new demo each month, rain or shine. It doesn’t have to be the best thing I’ve ever made! It just has to be done. (Putting in the hours! Wahoo!)

so there it is, from my brain to your ears.

<3

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P.P.S.

What I’ve been listening to lately!

Everyone Around Me Dancing

by Gia Margaret

Quit Your Job, Runaway!

by Junior Mesa

Sex Dream

by Jesse Detor

That’s all for now, folks. See you on the next one. U got this.