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!
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
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
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.




Love this Addie… and off to Lake Ontario you go…
Such a funny coincidence timing wise hope you have such a good time on your big ole lake <3