In this series of Song Stories we’re taking you behind the scenes of each song.

We’re starting with Chapter 1 – Old Bones Odyssey and our first song on the album Repair With Gold.

Coming soon: we’re creating a podcast that dives deeper into the stories and history behind our songs.

REPAIR WITH GOLD

Listen Now and See our song Story

Repair with Gold Videos Below

Playlist

4 Videos

Ellen Kaye - Repair With Gold (Live at Howland Cultural Center)

7:39

Repair With Gold Song Interview with Ellen Kaye

7:00

Ellen Kaye - Repair With Gold (Audio)

7:25

Coming Soon - Repair With Gold (Official Lyric Video)

0:16

…be a mender of a broken world

Click Here For "Repair with gold" Lyrics

“Repair With Gold” is so many years in the making. This song holds the ideas for all our work.

A few years ago at least, Naomi Fein, Ethan’s sister, said “Your Old Bones project makes me think of Tikkun Olam.” I’d never heard of it so I looked it up. On my first search I found that it was a Hebrew phrase and one definition was “world repair. A jewish concept defined by acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair the world.” I was captured by that idea. The more I read, the more all these ancient ideas came spilling out. Then I came across this line ”To live from the place in you that has the greatest truth.” That felt like a direct challenge.

Over many years of reading and these thoughts rumbling around in my brain, I decided to write “Repair With Gold” with Ethan. I think Naomi was speaking of it, in regards to our work, as a secular form of social justice. The concept of healing the world. I was caught off guard by what she said. It was a straight arrow into the heart of everything I was thinking about all this time. The more I read about Tikkun Olam, the more I loved it. And somewhere along the line, not sure when or how, I started wandering down the philosophical corridors of Kintsugi and Wabi-sabi.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the cracks with seams of lacquer and precious metal. As a philosophy, what’s broken is the story, it’s the beauty of the object, of the person, of the life. Something to shine a light on, not to hide or be ashamed of or disguise.

“To repair it the Kintsugi way is to continue its tale. An eastern philosophy of living that finds beauty in the damaged or imperfect. Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated.”

At first I blended the two ideas of Tikkun Olam and Kintsugi in my own mind, they wove in and out of each other. It wasn’t till I started writing “Repair With Gold” that I realized I had rolled them into one idea. As I wrote, I separated them out and my thinking got clearer, thankfully.

Along the way I heard a compelling interview by Krista Tippett, from On Being, with Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen*, the author of Kitchen Table Wisdom. It was Dr. Remen’s children’s book The Birthday Of The World that helped me crystallize what I wanted to say. (Links below)

I hope when people listen to this song they feel that anything is possible. That the answers lie within us. We can make the choice, we can choose every day to be menders of a broken world.

an interview with ellen

Repair With Gold

This is the transcript, watch the full video above.

“…shine a light, shine a light on the broken people, shine a light, shine a light in the broken world…”

Q: Why did you write Repair With Gold

Well, Repair With Gold, our song, that we’re in the studio here at Samurai Recording Studios in Queens, for two sessions, recording, started with Naomi Fein, Ethan’s sister, who told me quite a while ago – I don’t know if it was five years ago, it could have been longer, I’m not sure, but I feel like it was around four to five or six years ago – that the work that I was creating inside the research part of Old Bones and the music that I was making with her brother Ethan, reminded her of Tikkun Olam.

And I never heard of Tikkun Olam, I got to be straight up, and didn’t have any idea. So, I went home to look it up, and the first definition that I stumbled upon was “world repair”. And I was really flattered, because actually, I do have the crazy kind of hidden – I don’t know how hidden it is anymore, goal – it’s kind of like out of a James Bond movie, whatever, Spector or something – or my secret mission, is to save humanity with this project.

And so when she kind of came up with this ancient phrase and found it apt for what we were doing, I felt like, okay, at least I’m on the road if somebody else can identify it.

So that’s it. Repair With Gold is Tikkun Olam, “world repair”. And then when I was researching Tikkun Olam, I stumbled onto the philosophy of Kintsugi. And so I blended these two philosophies into the lyrics of Repair With Gold.

Plus, I then had heard a wonderful interview on On Being and a wonderful author, and I’ll talk more about that later, The Birthday of the World, a children’s book that I found that had to and all of this resonates with Tikkun Olam. And then, other elements with Kintsugi.

So, yes, repair the world. That’s what we’re trying to do. And this song is our anthem.

Q: How do you want listeners to feel when hearing Repair With Gold

When people are listening to this tune, I really hope that they’re going to feel hopeful.

I feel like there’s so many, the world is just in such a weird, weird place, and a lot of it’s not good. And I think that we can all feel paralyzed or excessively depressed or terribly sad or whatever the heck it is. The way you experience so many things happening simultaneously in a world where you actually get to hear about them all. I mean, there was a time when you only knew about the suffering of those immediately around you, and then you’d hear about world events maybe weeks later. Okay, that was a couple of hundred years ago, but still, I think we were more suited to that than we are to this kind of constant alarm, state of heightened vigilance.

And that kind of can make one feel that you have absolutely no efficacy. That even the smallest thing you do will have no effect and the largest thing you do will make no difference.

And I’m hoping this song makes people feel like every single thing they do will matter. Not just in the end of things, but will matter in the moment that they do them and that we’re all engaged, most of us, I think most people are engaged in some form of world repair every day through the kindness towards those they love, towards strangers, in creating the work and the art that they do.

We’re all involved, and this is kind of just a more focused sense of feeling powerful and a part of the change that needs to happen for us to get to a saner or more humane world.

Q: What are the lines of lyric that you think are the most powerful? Why?

You know, you should never tell a lyricist to talk about their favorite lyrics. Probably not a good idea because I actually like that. Of course I like them all. I mean, I love the image of seams of gold that comes from the Kintsugi philosophy of that when a bowl is broken instead of well, Kintsugi is much more complex than this, but the metaphor for it is instead of throwing it out, that you mend the cracks with gold.

And that’s why the song is Repair With Gold. So I guess I start with the title. I love the idea of that. And I love the image of seams of gold. I like that it reoccurs throughout the song. And I love

“Shine a light,

Shine a light on the broken people,

Shine a light,

Shine a light on the broken world”

And then, I don’t know.

So those are some of the lines I love the most. “Shine a light on what’s forgotten,” because I think part of America’s extraordinary amnesia, willful amnesia about the struggles of all the different people, but particularly African Americans and Native Americans, but honestly, pretty much every group that’s continuing to suffer in an out portioned way, including women and children.

Yeah. I think the idea that if we shine a light on their sorrows and troubles, that it doesn’t take anything away from us, it won’t hurt us to look closely at what’s wrong with our world. We’re strong enough, we’re not going to break because.

We look inside ourselves and say, maybe we need a course correction. Maybe in my own personal life I can improve. And then you can look at the country and say, maybe we need some major improvement and that we’re only a little bit down the road in our democratic experiment, which looks more fragile by the minute.

So, yeah, those are the different lyrics I like. But I guess my favorite of all would be,

“Be a Mender,

Take the broken pieces and change the world,

Be a mender of a broken world.”

That’s a call to action.

That every single person can be involved and engaged in the change.

And that’s why the song is Repair with Gold. So I guess I start with the title. I love the idea of that. And I love the image of seams of gold. I like that it reoccurs throughout the song. And I love shine a light, shine a light on the broken people shine a light, shine a light on the broken world and then I don’t know.

So those are some of the lines I love the most. Shine a light on what’s forgotten. Because I think part of America’s extraordinary amnesia willful amnesia about the struggles of all the different people, but particularly African Americans and Native Americans, but honestly, pretty much every group that’s continuing to suffer in an out portioned way, including women and children.

So, yeah, those are the different lyrics I like. But I guess my favorite of all would be Be a Mender, Take the broken pieces and change the world, Be a mender of a broken world. That’s a call to action.

That every single person can be involved and engaged in the change.

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Sources and inspirations:ﾠ