constancy from lost songs by zoë and the lost boys
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.
Tracklist
| 6. | constancy | 3:35 |
Lyrics
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
Credits
Zoë Robertson: vocals
Julien Palassio: bass, acoustic guitar, djembe, tambourine
François Pelletier: archtop guitar
License
All rights reserved.
I write songs about all kinds of odds and ends - shoes, ships, sealing wax, cabbages, kings - but I always find myself returning to the themes of landscape, love, time, death and the strange way that being a creature feels and creates meaning in the swirling eddies of spacetime. I also write about motherhood, and the emotional saga of becoming a parent.