RAMONA

Have you ever found a song that followed you through your whole life?

Let’s just get this out of the way right at the top: “Birdhouse in Your Soul” is a never-skip, beautiful piece of music that may very well be one of the greatest songs ever written and recorded. Like many of John Linnell’s melodies preceding hit or to follow, each phrase takes you on this cascading journey of almost classical levels of perfection. It is full of so many complimentary sounds and arranged like a Christopher Nolan story board.

The structure of this song alone is a narrative twist: it kicks off with a bridge, followed by a musical intro, and then dives into the chorus before you even hit the first verse. It's a song that never fails to excite me, especially when I introduce it to the uninitiated.

First Encounter: The Notebook in the Bedroom

The way I was introduced to this song is rather serendipitous as I read the lyrics to the bridge without music or any context many months before I would finally locate and purchase Flood, my first TMBG record.

Last week, I shared that while in the 6th grade, I was in my friend’s bedroom, I picked up a spiral notebook laying on his bed to read what was scribbled down.

“I’m your only friend.

I’m not your only friend

but I’m a little glowing friend

but really I’m not actually your friend

but I am.”

I thought this was some oddball thing he had written and laughed while I demanded an explanation for the nonsense. He said it was some lyrics he heard that he liked from a song on the radio. A station that his older sister was into was playing it.

Through the Years: Birdhouse in the Rearview Mirror

7 years after I read that piece of paper with the bridge for Birdhouse in Your Soul, I would become a dad at age 19. Every night when it was time for bed, I would sing my son this song in a more lullaby-inized way of course (slower and softer.)

Over the next 8 years, I 3 more awesome kids. for a several years, three of them were all at an age where they loved falling asleep to Dad singing lullaby songs.

Birdhouse, Older, What is a Shooting Star, and Mammal among others were all sung nightly x3 for at least 3 years. Now, at 44 years old, 3 of my children are adults who can vote. One finished college and is married, building a life of his own. Half of my kids no longer live at home let alone want me to sing them songs at bedtime.

This used to be a song that I would hear and think of that day when I read the opening lyrics in my best friend’s notebook. Now, I think about how my kids have all grown up and life is different. Really good but different.

Did anyone else sing this to their kids?