Full of Alone

​· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 

Composer’s comments:

There’s an interesting notion that creative people, especially those of us in the artistic space of performing for live audiences, only truly thrive in rarified relationships with rooms full of strangers, but often founder on the waves of normal, interpersonal relationships. Performing artists’ cherished goal is to create magical moments in time in which we engage with an audience on a deep, yet distant level. We strive to use our performance artistry to share unforgettable moments with rooms full of people whose names we’ll never know – bravely baring our souls in public to gift total strangers with thrilling, poignant, or soul-stirring experiences. We pursue profoundly deep human connections that are as ironically fleeting and anonymous as they are life-altering. And for those of us who compose – who imagine into being the very raw materials of which these performances become a sort of public birthing – we depend upon our conviction that we can capture and memorialize the bits of glory in our imaginations, and entrust them to others to play or sing into life, for the benefit of audiences unseen, unknown, and even yet unborn. It is a privilege and a miraculous undertaking, walking that emotional tight-rope. And in all the years I’ve inhabited this creative space, I’ve come to believe that there may well be a direct connection between our yearning for these supremely personal/impersonal interactions, and difficulty connecting with people, one on one.
 

I also believe that a painful disconnect between one’s outer persona and innermost truth is not confined to the realm of creative artists. On any given day, we all probably encounter someone we think we “know”, but who are actually living behind a mask. “Full of Alone” is a foray for me as a composer, into a style and genre that may seem somewhat out of character. And yet, both the lyrics and music felt so powerfully honest that the song all but wrote itself. The young woman reveals in this heart-breaking monologue, that she lives trapped in a constant struggle between the paralyzing shyness that keeps her world ever at “arm’s length”, and an inescapable desire for the romance she fantasizes will give her the grace and courage to blossom into the beautifully loving woman she knows awaits inside her. “Haven’t you had your fill of yearning?”, she asks. “I’ve got no debts to atone, but I’m still at home . . . in my place full of alone.”

​

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·