There are not enough words in the English language to describe how much I love Lee DeWyze’s new album “Oil & Water”.
It’s one of those albums that play your heart strings from the beginning to the end with his soulful voice, honest lyrics and beautifully arranged melodies and harmonies. Having followed Lee through his musical journey, I am so proud of him and this album. This album is just...HIM.
I will try my hardest to limit each post to the chosen track because I can easily get distracted and go on and on about how much I love this album, SO….. Let’s talk about “Again” :
Track #1 on the album is “Again”; At first listen to the lyrics, the story it tells is pretty obvious in my opinion, which is a hauntingly beautiful ode to the excitement and relief you feel when it’s time to go home.
You know that feeling… you can be on the most amazing vacation or journey, but that last night, no matter how great of a time you had… you are excited to go home.
That is basically what this song makes me feel, but on a much deeper level. Not current home… but from the very first time I heard Lee sing this song live, It made me think of my childhood home. The two lyrics that pull me in are “Feels like home again” and “for a while, just a while let me feel at home again”
This explanation could also easily become a book, so I will give you the cliff notes version for those that are new here and do not know me. I was raised by my grandmother, she was my best friend and my childhood home has always been a sacred place to me. I felt safe there, it was my happy place and just the thought of walking through that door again feels like a giant warm comforting blanket wrapping around me. I have explained many times that although I have a wonderful, happy life as an adult; that "home"feeling of your childhood is much different. It's the comfort you had before you had a job,before kids, before being an adult and having everyday work stress, before falling in love...it's a different feeling…
There was nothing that had the same effect on me until Lee’s music. His voice and songs give me almost the exact same feeling…. Especially when it inspires me to create.
This is why the image that immediately came to me when hearing this song, is that very same house……
It wasn’t a fancy house by any means…. It was a small ranch home that was built by my grandfather, doing his best to give my grandmother the old stone barn look she dreamed of. That was the place I felt the most loved “…For a while, for a while… Let me feel at home again….” Sometimes the “home” feeling and the feelings the music gives me are so similar, that it overflows into my dreams. I have had more than a few dreams where I was showing Lee around that house…. Telling him all the stories and all the things that make it so special. …..
Now I will be tagging Mare in to talk about how the art and the song make her feel…….
"When I listen to Lee’s song “Again”, I picture someone sitting alone, lost in their thoughts, just trying to hang on. The guitar melody is what over-thinking and hanging on sound like to me…. He leaves it simple, letting the feeling of what those thoughts are come through as he thinks about them over and over “again”. His voice seems resigned with an echo of loneliness…. while the lyrics, his thoughts, are of a memory of where he feels most at peace, and desperately wanting to feel that again…. to breathe again. Even for just a moment.
Again. It means one more time. Whatever it may be, you want “it” again because of how it made you feel. A person, a place, a song…. a memory of something that takes you back in time. “I want to see you again.”…. “I want to be there again.”……. “I want to listen again.”….. “I want to feel that again.” It’s that one place that gives you peace, a connection, where you feel like you can be yourself. Where you are FOUND and where you are “home”. For Jenn, it is her grandmothers house, and that’s where this song takes her. Life is meant to be lived and we feel the ups and downs along the way. In that journey, we all have something that we hold on to that connects us to who we are, and when we remember it, when we think about it and when we feel it….it lets us feel at peace again…. one more time."- Mare
Now, here is Danielle's take on the art alone:
"This house makes me feel many different emotions. Currently, I feel sad because I miss this house. I miss the feelings associated with the house. It's not the house in it's physical sense. After all..a house is just a house. It's the people and the love that make it a home.
"AGAIN" resonates deeply in my heart as well. A breeze of memory, of THAT 'comfort feel' - Can be felt & known when listening to "AGAIN". Intangible yet of substance
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