"Waiting"
Released March 2019
Available for listening (below and on all major music outlets) and for purchase on Bandcamp.
CREDITS:
Music & Lyrics: Marika Straw
Piano: Marika Straw
Violin: Alex Travers
Cello: Isabel Castellvi
Bass: Eric Heveron-Smith
Producers: Kevin Harvey & Marika Straw
Pre-Production: Michael Tao
Recording & Mixing: Griffyn Sound
Piano Recording: Philip Ludwig of Seclusion Hill Music
Mastering: Brent Lambert of Kitchen Mastering
Cover Art Photography: Matilda Bliss
LYRICS:
A fragile moth is clinging to the plaster
The pretty thing is sitting in the light
The moth has lingered, calm for many hours
I don't know why it's waiting in the night
A lady waits, her golden ring a-twinkling
A hundred years, she's waited for her love
“He'll come again,” she tells me as she sits there
She knows he died, yet still believes he lives
Waiting for deeper things
The moth and lady stay, waiting, waiting
What are we all waiting for?
Maybe for the light that brings us home
One waits for years, one only waits for hours
They wait for reasons we don't understand
And in the end, they're part of all things waiting
But do we know what we are waiting for?
Waiting for deeper things
The moth and lady stay, waiting, waiting
What are we all waiting for?
Maybe for the light that brings us home
In time, the lady's golden ring stops twinkling
It's deep and dark, enshrouded in her grave
Her waiting's over at her sweet reunion
A hundred years was worth her deeper joy
And in the night, the moth continues waiting
And then the day will live as did the night
The moth will wave its sparkly wings and lift off
Then I'll know the light it waited for
Waiting for deeper things
The moth and lady stay, waiting, waiting
What are we all waiting for?
Maybe for the light that brings us home
Waiting for deeper things
The moth and lady stay, waiting, waiting
What are we all waiting for?
Maybe for the light that brings us home
Well maybe for the light that brings us home
Well maybe for the light that brings us home
THANK-YOU'S:
As “Waiting” is my first-ever professionally produced single, a longer-than-usual round of thanks is in order:
Thank you to the Brown Bag Songwriting Competition, its fantastic host, Debrissa McKinney, and all of the incredibly supportive songwriters I met through it for helping me believe that I was worth recording. Thanks as well to Michael Tao for donating recording time for the 2nd Place prize!
Thank you to Kevin Harvey of Griffyn Sound, who helped make this single much more than I ever could have possibly hoped or waited for.
Thank you to my music mentor PW Gopal for supporting and encouraging me through the process.
Thank you to all of my music teachers, especially my piano teachers Richard Hobbs and Dorothygrace Bernhard, who have kept up with my musical progress and continued to encourage me throughout my life in matters musical and beyond. Thank you as well to my high school choir teacher, Lisa McIntyre, who believed in us, taught excellence, and modeled love.
Thank you to my fellow songwriters in the Summer Fishtrap songwriting workshop in 2007 for asking me to tell them more about the moth and the old lady, and to Lisa Aschmann for leading an excellent songwriting workshop! Thank you as well to Nick and Angie Lunde for choosing me as a recipient of the Bryn Lunde Scholarship so that I could attend the Summer Fishtrap gathering as a teenager.
And last, but of course not least, thank you to my parents and to my brother, Guthrie. You have supported me in so many ways, not the least of which was putting up with my daily practice on our very loud Kawai grand piano. Love you!