Curious Soul

This is going to be a short blog, this week – it’s the end of our quarter at work and I have a ton to get done today. But I wanted to share the song that I wrote for my songwriting class this past week.

The assignment was to write our own “deep cut” – the B-side or song from an album that superfans would know but wouldn’t be the one to get tons of radio play. I don’t know if I succeeded in that, but I like what I came up with regardless. I pulled a bunch of old lyrics from a handful of songs written over the past six years or so – this is one of those songs I’ve been trying to write for a long time – and reworked those concepts into something new.

Eternal thanks, as always, to Steve Dawson and my songwriting classmates from the Old Town School of Folk Music for their brilliant suggestions that I tried to incorporate into this draft.

Curious Soul, (c) 2020 by Alyxander James

Here are the lyrics for the curious:

There’s a twirling child in dresses and dance shoes
Nose in a book and their head in the clouds
They dream about flying and rescuing damsels
And magical wardrobes that wait to be found

There’s a lonely child who always sings
An empty school playground their favorite stage
At home in their room they write songs in a diary
Pouring out heartache and joy on the page

I’m building this wondrous body, creating my home
Something more suited to housing my curious soul
I dress it up in ink, in wool, and in leather
I know this act of creation is a holy endeavor

There’s a teenager longing for tattoos and freedom
Counting down days to when they’ll spread their wings
Fists full of anger and hurt in their eyes
Cautiously hopeful they’ll make it to spring

There’s someone awake late at night in their dorm room
Afraid that they’re sinful and broken and wrong
They reach for their laptop, and type a confession
In tears over secrets kept hidden too long

I’m building this wondrous body, creating my home
Something more suited to housing my curious soul
I dress it up in ink, in wool, and in leather
I know this act of creation is a holy endeavor

There are days when I look in the mirror
And see fragments of faces that used to be me
I thank them for all of the lessons they brought here
And hope that they’re proud of who they came to be

I’m building this wondrous body, creating my home
Something more suited to housing my curious soul
I dress it up in ink, in wool, and in leather
I know this act of creation is a holy endeavor

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