OpenMic Songwriters Challenge Week 5 - Austen Ballard (+ A Little Extra)

Week 5 - 'Wind Swept Shore' (lyrics below)

It's Been a While.

I'm hype to be playing something for the Open Mic Songwriters' Challenge this week, after several weeks off. I've been really sick lately - and I don't want to bore you with unpleasant details, but suffice it to say singing, playing and recording have been tough these past weeks.

This was me a few days ago. It was exactly as fun as it looks.

Watching With Envy

Although I've been incapacitated, I've been keeping an eye on the challenge; watching all the great submissions people have been sending in, and even writing my own entries week by week in the hopes that I'd have recovered in time to record them. I think the work that @luzcypher, @meno and everyone else who's been instrumental to this and the Steemit Open Mic overall is not only really nice for our community, but an essential affirmation of blockchain social's importance and a working model of what I can see developing into a new music industry - and it pains me that I've been kept from participating for so long.

Follow @luzcypher and @meno to stay up-to-date about the Steemit Open Mic & Songwriters Challenge!

Making Up for Lost Time?

Like I said, I have been writing for each of the past 3 weeks so I'm posting them all today anyway. I've had so much fun writing to these themes that it felt wrong not to record them, at the very least so I'd have them for myself.

Click here to see this week's entries in the Open Mic Songwriters Challenge!

And now for the rest of mine:

Week 4 - 'Because We Can'

Week 3 - 'Stolen Soul'

Week 2 - 'Lost & Found'

Lyrics

Week 5 - 'Wind Swept Shore'

He remembers the day you took him to play in the sand
Counting the sails flying over the sound on his hands

Then resting his palms in the warm grains of sea dust
With you right behind him he knew he could trust
That you’d keep him safe here, a rock of a father
And never be tempted away by the water

He remembers the evening you took him to sit in the park
And as fell the night so upon his life fell a new dark

For you’d tasted the ocean, and decided to prove,
Cutting ties to the dock, now a sailor were you
With less an excuse than the spur of the moment
You shattered his knowledge of what the word ‘home’ meant

Now he waits alone at the place where your ship once was moored
And counts plastic bags blown across the cold, wind-swept shore

Then resting his palms on the weather-worn dock
Remembers the way that his father the rock
Borne away by the water on land once had stayed
Safe by the sound, at home and at play

Week 4 - 'Because We Can'

Please don’t tell me we can’t play tonight
Yeah that diamond says you’re taken but your eyes are fixed on mine

You’re here by yourself looking for some trouble
I came with my buddy who already found his double

Your man won’t find out until he hears me sing this song
So lets live in the moment before the moment is gone

Because we can
And because we want to
We’ll have a grand old time me and you
Because we can
Now it seems we have to
So take my hand and dance with me

Please don’t worry no one’s over your shoulder
Let’s be young before you become second wife to someone older

And let’s skip the bar with its 15 dollar glass of wine
Cause I’ve got champagne in my suitcase in room 169

Your man won’t find out before he hears me sing this song
So lets live in the moment before the moment is gone
Stop that guilty talk, you’re saying much more with your hands
We all do something naughty sometimes just because we can

Week 3 - 'Stolen Soul'

I’m only half of what you know me to be
But fully functional and almost happy
Doing my best to seem alert and thoughtful
With my mental health held captive in an orange bottle

I used to stay awake for days at a time
Then weeks would pass when I would just run and hide
Now I’m doing my best to seem better
Yeah I guess I’m doing fine or whatever

This is what it means to be stable
When your normal state of mind is what they call disabled
Its a smile that you just can’t fake
Without drowsiness, confusion and a stomach ache

This is what takes to bring me into the fold
To be quiet and collected and to do what I’m told
To take a handful of happiness my doctor sold
To beat my brain into submission and to steal my soul

I’m only half of what you know me to be
I don’t cry anymore I don’t feel sorry
Doing my best to seem awake and lively
As long as I can take my pills on timely

I used to stay asleep for hours on end
And let the voices put on shows in my head
Now I’m doing my best to seem fine
I do things like wait my turn and stand in line

My quiet mind keeps asking me
When my stolen soul will come back to me

Week 2 - 'Lost & Found'

I left the party empty hearted 
With a bottle in my hand
Didn’t know where I was headed 
But you said you understand

You were just like me cause 
You had left the party too
The night that I was lost 
Until I found myself with you

We spent an hour talking
It felt more like a year
You told me a few dreams of yours
I shared a couple fears

And every time I looked in your eyes
I saw me staring back
The night I thought I found myself in you
And nearly lost my mind at that

I wish you would have said you felt the same
When two minds think they are each other
Then both will go insane
But we never could have known until we tried to make it through
That you’d find yourself in losing me and I would find myself in losing you

I left your bedroom empty hearted
With my phone tight in my fist
Didn’t know where I was headed
But at least that I exist

You were just like me
Looking for someone just like you
To give up your identity
The night we lost and found ourselves anew

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