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Pinhole of Light

from Songs From the Crux by Walter Ehresman

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Click here for the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuXICorI8pI

Ehresman gives us the backstory to this substantial composition:

"There are a couple of stories to tell about this one. I wrote these lyrics last November, right after the election was called for Biden but with Orange Head refusing to acknowledge it. I've felt compelled throughout my life to study politics and human behavior (the former just being one manifestation of the latter), and at this point, as I project what is likely to happen to American society, I fear it will not be pretty. But I still need to allow myself to enjoy moments of good news, like Trump being un-assed out of the White House, and the Dems somehow taking the Senate. And that's what the lyrics of this song try to express."

"Around that same time, I watched a documentary on Joni Mitchell. I had only had a passing familiarity with her and her work prior to seeing it, and I was struck by how (among other things) her use of alternate guitar tunings really breaks her material out of standard song forms and makes it sound fresh and harmonically interesting. And so I resolved that I would take my first real stab at writing a song in an open tuning, and "Pinhole of Light" is the result. It's in open 'G' tuning, capoed to the 3rd fret.

I had no idea, when I started putting the music together, that: a) the song would be almost 9 minutes long; and b) that I was going to have to create maps to match all these guitar chords I was making up......a keyboard map for those chords, bass note map for the bass guitar, etc. Since I don't read or write music, this was certainly an adventure and definitely not like anything I've done before. It took a week to get it all mapped and recorded, but I'm glad I went down this particular rabbit-hole......Like Joni says it does for her, it sure knocked me out of my own musical patterns and personal cliches, and I was able to get something that is harmonically dense and a bit abstract (at least, by the standards of what I've done before), while still being fairly sparse overall."

Both the lyrics and the music here show a definite influence from mid-period Joni Mitchell, achieving harmonically rich and interesting sound without ever getting dense or cluttered. And this really is some of Ehresman's best confessional, introspective songwriting in a long line of such songs.

lyrics

Pinhole of Light
(© 2020 Walter Ehresman)

My mind whirls in endless contingencies
--I think I know why it does;
We all deal with our childhood vagaries
--find ways to cope beyond the cause.
But in between charts and the diagrams
--demanding all my precious time;
Sense to notice when a light breaks in
--Sense to let that moment shine.

Not looking for Zen repositioning
--with neurons all wired anew;
And can’t live with blinder conditioning
--my heart only beats for what’s true.
But there has to be time to see forests
--while studying bark of the tree;
And there has to be time to hear promise
--of letting our hope out to feed.

That pinhole of light deserves attention;
Just a pinhole of light deserves my time;
Got to program my sight to scan my horizons
--tune perspective tonight.

It may not change our projection of our arc in the fullness of time;
But our happiness rests in these moments stolen from ominous signs.

Just yesterday, I heard conditional news
--it was good, for as far as it goes;
And I had to look up from contextual views
--to appreciate when bad men go;
So sad at the lack of capacity
--for change in the name of us all;
But at least I could widen acuity
--spot that thin shaft of light when it falls.

credits

from Songs From the Crux, released April 1, 2021
Walter Ehresman: vocals, guitars, 4-string fretless acoustic/electric bass, keyboards, Irish bouzouki.

Snipe Bog Records.
p. 2021 Walter Ehresman

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Walter Ehresman San Miguel De Allende, Mexico

Called "the quintessential Austin DIY artist" by famed local disc jockey Charlie Martin , Walter Ehresman was an eccentric presence in the Austin music scene from the '80s until his 2015 move to Mexico. A prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording artist...and a restless musical spirit, always looking for something new, expressed with fearlessly honest, socially-conscious lyrics. ... more

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