For You
While this song is about the senior and from the outside of his perspective, I wrote this song specifically about my Grandmother. She used to play the piano, and in this song, the piano represents her presence while the acoustic guitar represents mine.
For most of the song, the violin and the cello move in contrary motion, meaning that the pitches move away from each other - The violin moves to higher pitches while the cello moves to lower pitches to portray the growing separation between the narrator and the senior.
Sainted woman, patient lady,
you know who I am,
don’t you recognize?
Lonesome hiker, lost disciple,
I believe in what you say,
I know you’re not insane,
but don’t be so far away.
Like many Alzheimer’s patients, my Grandmother had a tendency to wander off. She was also a Christian, but became ‘lost’, as if from wandering, unlike followers of Christ who are ‘found’. My dad once told me that the day he knew he lost her was when symptoms were arising and she urgently promised him that she wasn’t crazy.
Do you think that you know why?
Do you think you understand?
Do you think that you know why?
Don’t you know my heart breaks every time?
Asking the senior if they think they know why or understand is not only referring to their awareness of the disease or their general cognitive ability, but also to the hallucinations that they misinterpret.
Helpless trooper, absent mother,
this pageant’s for you,
from the child you once knew
but don’t recognize.
The verse above is my personal message within the song telling my Grandmother that, even if she can’t understand, it is for her, and this entire album has been dedicated to her.
Do you think that I don’t cry?
Do you think that I don’t care?
Do you think that I’ll move on,
like nothing ever happened,
like something I imagined?
About halfway into the instrumental section, the piano quickly voices a chord across all of the keys, from low to high, as a transition. This is something my Grandmother did when she would first sit down in front of the piano. It’s also the last real thing that she could remember how to play. The last time I saw her at the piano, she did it twice and that was all we could get out of her. Perhaps that is why it stuck with me.
Do you feel as though
goodwill miscarried you,
disparity has married you,
the yin has been unfair to you
and slowly keeps on tearing you apart from me?
Unanswered questions pour out of the narrator, and after each one, the violin and cello continue to move farther away from each other
Do you think that you know why my heart breaks every time?
The song ends without resolution in (musical) harmony, leaving subtle dissatisfaction. The cello sits on the leading tone just before cutting off, and the piano’s final notes are A♯ and B: Two keys on the piano that are directly next to each other and when played together, create strong dissonance. This shows that the senior has been corrupted and agitated. All of the narrator’s questions remain unanswered and therefore, resolution is withheld.