Constancy
when the bad old night comes dancing down to get you
and the huntsman's dogs are baying for your blood
and none of your so-called friends will protect you
i will be there
i will be there
sure enough
​
when all the doors have closed themselves against you
and the windows all are shuttered locked and barred
and everyone is trying to forget you
i will be there
i will be there
where you are
​
maybe we'll both be helpless
maybe i'm just naive
but when they drive you out with mirthless laughter
i will be there
i will be there
yes indeed
​
put your back to mine i will defend you
should circumstances twist our story so
and even the strongest gale shall not upend you
i'll be constant
i'll be constant
so you know
​
nothing bad lasts forever
and this too in time shall pass
and with the changing of the weather
i'll be constant
i'll be constant
remember that
​
when the day begins to beckon at the corners
and the savage night has put away her teeth
and you start to feel your two feet underneath you
i will be there
i will be there
you will see
Oh wow, this song basically wrote itself in 10 minutes. I don't think I'm the only songwriter artist to ever say this but: usually, when I write something really excellent, I don't feel like I "wrote" it so much as I "caught" it. Like there are songs and poems and stories floating around in the ether, and sometimes, if you tune your antennae just right, you get to catch one.
​
Back in the mid-2010s, Julien and I were living in a too-large-for-us apartment over an organic grocery store in NDG, with our destructive cats and our guitars and our dreams. It was during this epoch that I spent a lot of time in Montreal's Anglo-folk scene, attending the open mics at Mariposa Café and the Yellow Door Coffeehouse, meeting excellent people and having a real blast. I was working from 7 AM - 3 PM at Day Job, which meant that I always had evenings to go off to bars and play songs with Montreal's finest folkies. And this was before I had kids so you know... I had oceans and oceans of time to do whatever I wanted always but I didn't really understand that. The point is that I was saturated in good juju. My antennae was tuned just right.
I wasn't thinking about anyone or anything in particular when I wrote this. I was just messing around with my guitar and there it was. And now it's hard to tell if it's one of my faves because it's quite a Good Song (I think) or because it didn't give me a hard time in the writing of it. I guess it doesn't matter :)