Blackberry Stone

Posted by Sweetpea

I am fascinated by those lesser explored emotions at funerals.  When I visit a family, I carry poetry and music with me for those who are struggling to find expression.  Of course, it’s comparatively easy to find things which talk about love in its more conventional forms – we are almost swamped with choice, and it’s more a matter of which individual poem or song speaks best to them.  Much harder to find things which express those often felt, but more rarely explored, ambivalent feelings.   Perhaps we could share some here?  I’ll start you off with this one by Laura Marling. She’s a wonderful singer/songwriter.  Her lyrics are complicated and haunting. This is from her album ‘I Speak Because I Can’.

Blackberry Stone

Well I own this field,
And I wrote this sky,
And I have no reason, to reason with you.

I’d be sad that I never held your hand as you were lowered,
but I’d understand that I’d never let it go.
I’d be sad that I never held your hand as you were lowered,
but I’d understand that the world does what it does.

And you never did learn to let the little things go,
And you never did learn to let me be,
And you never did learn to let little people grow
And you never did learn how to see.

But I’ll whisper that I love this man,
Now, and for forever, to your soul as it floats out of the window.
To the world that you turned your back on,
To the world that never really let you be,

And I am lower now and lower still,
And you did always say that one day I would suffer.
You did always say that people get their pay.
You did always say that I was going places,
And that you wouldn’t have it any other way.

But I couldn’t turn my back on a world for what I lack wouldn’t let me
But I couldn’t turn my back on a world for what I like I need it
But I couldn’t turn my back on a world for what I lack wouldn’t let me
But I couldn’t turn my back on a world for what I like I need it
And I shouldn’t turn my back on sweet smelling blackberry stone.

And here’s the song itself: