Child running on the beach

There’s Something (Irv Said)


My last dispatch was from as far away as I could get this summer, the tip of a peninsula off Nova Scotia. After that, we spent a few days by Lake Ossipee in New Hampshire before returning to the Texas heat. I especially appreciated those last few days of vacation knowing they would soon end.

Walking back from the beach by the lake, I started singing to myself: “There’s nothing like the sun and the sand…” and this song was born. That night I fell asleep to the rain in the trees and had a vivid nightmare (as I often did while away). When I arrived back home to happy dogs that needed walking and wilting plants that needed watering, I was glad to be busy back home.

That’s the story told in the verses of this song about how getting away is made sweeter by impending return. And how what we learn while away is buried back in our busy days.

Lake Ossipee
My daughter Anais playing with her cousin in Lake Ossipee on a cloudy day

The chorus comes from another place, Irvin Yalom, a great psychiatrist whose books I discovered last year. In the relaxed mood of unscheduled afternoons I thought about his existential view of the human condition (which you will discover upon listening) and how we make peace on those ideal days with all the difficult realities we must return to.

J MolinThere's Something (Irv Said)

There’s Something (Irv Said)

G                            D
There’s nothing like the sun and the sand
    C                              G
The feeling of a smooth rock in the palm of your hand
Em                      B7
Sneaking a peek at the girls getting tans
  C                          D
Forgetting for an hour about all of your plans
 
There’s  something bout the sound of the waves
Lying on the beach just watching kids play
Everything’s so simple when you’re not in the maze
But you know you’ve got go home in a few days
 
        Em                Bm
Your isolation, your mortality
        C                                      G
Your meaninglessness and your freedom
      Em                  B7
As Irvin said, these four things are given
C                              D
Now it’s up to you to go do something with em
 
There’s  nothing like the rain in the trees
Outside your window as you’re falling asleep
Waking to a storm in the middle of the night
Staring at the dark between the flashes of light
 
There’s  something bout a dream that so real
You know it’s not true but it’s all you can feel
I dreamt that you left me cause I didn’t understand
In the morning you told me you’d never abandon me
 
Isolation, mortality
Meaninglessness a-and freedom
As Irvin said, these four things are given
          So get out of your head and find yourself a rhythm
 
There’s nothing like arriving back home
When you’ve been gone for a while and your sick of the road
The dogs are all their wagging their tails at the door
You water the plants feeling totally restored
 
There’s something out there calling your name
It opens a door on how the whole thing gets framed
But back in your bed you sleep so long and deep
That you forget what it said like a secret you keep
 
        Isolation, mortality
        Meaninglessness a-and freedom
        As Irvin said, these four things are given
        So take a nice vacation and go do some livin!
 
There’s something.

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j

I'm j and I play: musician, web guy, family man.

5 thoughts on “There’s Something (Irv Said)”

  1. Love this song, J. It made me feel lighter, somehow. Thanks for sharing your music and the beauty of your trip with us.

  2. Loved it. Listened a few times. Captured that place between the insipid and the inspired and how they can intertwine.

  3. Very nice Jason. It’s funny that while I was listening to it for the 1st tome, I actually am at the beach with my son and grand daughter. watching her play in the sand. Thank you for the uplifting moment. love you brother.

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