Songwriter and producer, Rick Elias, once told me that sometimes the best songs come from your dreams. I dream vividly, which is helpful. Occasionally, I'll dream lyrics or poetry, or even melodies, and I wake up scrambling to find a pen and piece of paper. I'm sure other writers experience the same.

Five months ago, I had a dream that this guy came to my front door and handed me a letter. It had all these words written all over it, beginning with, "I think I'm kind of, maybe, a little bit falling in love with you. But I'm scared." And in it he proceeded to give me all these reasons why we couldn't be together or why he was unable to express his feelings for me. I said in reply, "It's okay. I feel the same way," and invited him in.
I liked the meter, and I liked the concept. So I wrote this song:

As I lay in my bed
Ev'ry night, ev'ry night, ev'ry night
Well I hear what you said
Circlin' round in my head
Well I prayed, and I'll say
That it's right, yeah it's right, yeah it's right, yeah it's right

I think I'm kinda maybe a little bit
Falling in love with you.
I know what you're thinking, babe,
But we could be better as two.
I know that I miss you
And I know you miss me too.
When will you see
You're falling for me?

Well I'm waitin' for you
Ev'ry day, ev'ry day, ev'ry day
And I will see it through
Cause I know that you're feeling it too
I may give you my heart,
Ev'ry part, ev'ry part, ev'ry part, ev'ry part

I think I'm kinda maybe a little bit

Falling in love with you.

I know what you're thinking, babe,

But we could be better as two.

I know that I miss you

And I know you miss me too.

When will you see

You're falling for me?

I'm believin', but leavin'

The time that it takes.

You're scared, but

With my love

You'll be safe.

I think I'm kinda maybe a little bit

Falling in love with you

I know what you're thinking, babe,

But we could be better as two.

I know that I miss you

And I know you miss me too.

When will you see

You're falling for me?

(c)2011, Victoria Bailey

A Burning Lot

A year ago today, I released my first album-- an EP entitled A Burning Lot. The project, produced, recorded and engineered by Chris Leonard at East Nashville's Iconoclast Recording Co., was the result of five years' worth of wading achingly through depression, observing relationships in despair, rediscovering how to write a song, and finding both joy and muscle in the music and creative process.

I think it's a good thing when someone looks at a lyric or an abstract concept and says, "What does that mean?" Sometimes I'll write a verse about which not even I, myself, know what I mean, only to discover the answer later through some life experience that comes unexpectedly. This gives me strength as a writer and lets me know that I may possibly be a keen observer of life, after all. One day in the studio that spring, Chris (aka Nard) asked this question of the lyric "I torch the sin and so it rises/ The fragrance of a burning lot." I believe his words were something like, "What's 'a burning lot?' Is it like one's lot in life?"

That little word "lot" has variations of meaning. We use the term a lot, I mean... often. It is commonly used to mean "much of" something, but it is actually that very something which we possess or which we are apportioned whether we have much of it or not. You may own your lot of land and may be handed your lot in life (your destiny, once revealed by the casting of lots). I allow for interpretive license here.

Essentially, the lyric (and the album) is about sacrifice. As I listened more and more through each song, what surprised me was that, even though the songs were each written at a different time of my life, sometimes years apart, this common theme ran throughout. Sacrifices had been made by either giving up what I had once held or by losing or missing someone or something.

Images of sacrifice are woven all throughout Scripture. Old Testament law prescribes burnt offerings to atone for sins: "It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord" (Lev. 1:9b ff). In Romans, Paul tells us to be "living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God (12:1)," and then in Ephesians he goes a step further and says to "live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (5:2). I like the images and the idea that the burning of something can be fragrant; that something pleasing can come from something as awful as smoke or as destructive as fire; that pain and loss can become something beautiful, and that there is atonement and redemption for sin. As the last line of the song verse says, "I know a love come to save us/ And so I give you all I've got." By giving it up, we are better able to give. And by this love, we hope.

*You may find and read all the lyrics from the album here.*

Album artwork (c) 2010 by Sara Beth Merz

Ticking Time Bombs
Copyright 2010, by Victoria Bailey

There's a little town with a train going through
And I cannot stop it-
My thinking of you

Ticking time bombs and the weight of it all
There are miles in between us
There is grace to cover us so

I'm a quiet woman who can't seem to find the words
There is hope in my head-
A blessing and a curse

Ticking time bombs and the weight of it all
There are miles in between us
There is grace to cover us so

Love, take over
Love, take over
Love, cover over all my wrong

Ticking time bombs and the weight of it all
There are miles in between us
There is grace to cover us so

I wrote most of this song in the early spring of this year. We almost recorded it in Nashville in April, but it ended up on the studio cutting room floor. The melody was great, but the chords and picking pattern didn't fit the song. And what I realized this week is that the original bridge didn't make sense. Ultimately, this song wasn't at the time what it was meant to be.

I've been thinking a lot these past two weeks about two biblical promises of love--
Perfect love drives out fear.
Love covers over all wrongs.

Emotionally, the song is based on my experience of simultaneously having a deep longing for one person, but discovering my surprising amount of affection for someone else. Although what I felt for them has since dissipated, I find that the same theme has recurred months later. And as much as I want to love rightly, I continue to mess up and not love well.

Thomas Merton speaks of the good of the beloved. Love is not self-seeking. There is no fear in loving him whose good is what I hope for. Everything else falls away.

And so I need Love to take over. Merton says that in loving our brother, not only should our love be selfless, but we should love as if God's providence in his life depends on our loving him well. I'm no good at it, and so, I need Love to take over when I try and fail and I need Love to cover over all the wrong I do in the process.