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 here is our third song on the album These Walls Are Alive.
Coming soon: we’re creating a podcast that dives deeper into the stories and history behind our songs.
THESE WALLS ARE ALIVE
THESE WALLS ARE ALIVE
These Walls Are Alive is the essence of Old Bones Odyssey.
The ghosts that live inside you, the people you loved, the wise things they taught you, the things you couldn’t grasp at the time, the secrets.ﾠ
I wrote it from a few different points of view. The dead talking to their loved ones, trying to protect them, trying to teach them. And then the living, what it feels like to discover the past, to learn from the dead, to be caught up body and soul in the wisdom all around us.
I hope people feel exhilarated listening to it. Inspired to find out more about who the people in their own lives are, living and dead. To think about how each person is an accumulation of knowledge, and you want to tap into it. You want to be the vessel too.
“These ghosts say, I can’t save you now
But I can tell you how
How to live a life that’s brave and free”
I feel deeply about the opening lyrics. I hope they resonate and make you think. Think about how each one of us is responsible for what happens in our own small world. No one can save us. We have to save ourselves, but wisdom, knowledge, it’s all around us and we can grab it, absorb it and become more than we thought possible. Riding on the shoulders of those who came before.
I love the music that Ethan wrote. It’s so strange to think something and then translate it into words and music with someone else. He has an extraordinary ability to take complicated thoughts and emotions and express them through the language of music.
And the genesis of this song, it’s odd really. We went down south to do some research and I saw my Confederate ancestors for the first time. In black and white photos of their blue and gray uniforms. I had seen their names before, but not their faces.
And we wrote this song. Which isn’t about them at all. It’s the opposite. It’s about all the people who made me think the way I do, made me think in a way that could never understand, never forgive the horror of the Confederacy.
An Early Collaboration During Covid
We first recorded These Walls Are Alive virtually during lock down, click here to listen and read about our earlier take of this song with North Carolina Artists: Anna Stadlman, Pat Crouch, and Kay Crouch.
an interview with ellen
These Walls Are Alive
This is the transcript, watch the full video above.
“…These ghosts say, I can’t save you now
But I can tell you how
How to live a life that’s brave and free
I can tell you what I cared about
I can tell you what I regret…”
Q: Why did you write These Walls Are Alive?
I was inspired by a bunch of photos I found on a wall in a museum in the south that was part of it and that had some of my ancestors on it. And another part of it was from just all the pictures that I have inherited over a lifetime and then the ones that I’ve very recently been working on and archiving.ﾠ
I’m kind of surrounded and immersed in images during these last three years. And the pictures speak to me. They talk to me like I feel that I can hear what they’re saying at least. I feel that at my very best, I’m listening to the people that came before me and hopefully the ones that are wise and have something good to say, though I have to say that there are bad ones there too.ﾠ
Ones whose voices I don’t want to hear. I do want to learn about them, but I don’t want them to infiltrate my mind. And These Walls is about the battle we have with the things that come before us. And what do we do about all of these lessons and stories?ﾠ
And do we just accept them at face value? So it’s kind of like grabbing all the wisdom that there is around us and at the same time learning to have the discretion to choose between what is actually wise and beneficial for other human beings and what would best be put to rest forever.ﾠ
That is what I’m writing about when I’m writing These Walls.ﾠ
Q: How do you want listeners to feel when hearing These Walls Are Alive?
I want people to feel that they can change the world when they listen to These Walls Are Alive. I feel that the very most important thing that we can have is hope. And I want to be one of those people that makes people hopeful because I know what it’s like to have no hope. And I feel that this song digs down and says that there are so many reasons to get up every day and fight for things that you believe in and to make the world a better place. And in this sense of this song, it’s through stories and history, the things that matter to us and the dangers if we don’t learn and get a lot smarter, a lot faster than we are right now.
Q: What are the lines of lyric that you think are the most powerful? Why?
I love the opening lyrics. I feel like it’s in the trenches in World War One with the mist floating around and all those young boys dying on either side. And you hear these lyrics.
These ghosts say, I can’t save you now
But I can tell you how
How to live a life that’s brave and free
I can tell you what I cared about
I can tell you what I regret
I feel like that is what I want to say to my son and also what I wish so much that older people in my family had said to me. My family is not so great at passing really important stories down, and I’m trying to do a better job when it comes to my son.
Q: Is there anything in particular that inspired you when writing These Walls Are Alive?
I think that the whole project, These Walls Are Alive is almost completely about how much I miss the people that I’ve lost in my life and how I can bring them back to life through the things they taught me. And that makes me then think about everyone in the world who has people that are sharing with them and teaching them and making them the people that they are. And I’m trying to honor those people. Aunt Alice, uncle Jan, Cruz, Lero, my brother Joel, Lloyd they’re all inside of me. And so I feel that we all have These Walls Are Alive inside of us. Every single human being is made up of other people, and if we’re lucky, we can remember them and keep them with us always.
Ellen C Kaye
Singer/songwriter, producer, podcast maker, mom, born and bred in NYC. Night Club singer at heart.
