A Bridge of Darkness to a World of Light

Just last week, on Winter Solstice Eve, I started mixing my next album. This was the perfect time to start a new project that would take me from 2020 and lockdown to the end of one busy, magical year and into the next….

Now let me just start by saying that I have written a LOT of songs in the past few years, have recorded at least basic tracks for most of them and because of lack of recording studio availability during Covid, I have done tracking in Finlayson MN, Hendersonville NC and Bay Village OH (the town where I live). Most mixing, but not all, has been done in Cleveland using Zoom online.

I even recorded an entire album with Mariah Dawn Shepherd and the Covert Dragon in 4 days with engineer and producer Paul Ferrise in Minnesota in between 2 festivals in Wisconsin in June. It unfortunately has been put on indefinite hold and I might take some of that and add it to my own albums… We’ll see…

At the same time that I’ve been writing and recording, I have been all over the country playing festivals and other assorted gigs and have even taken on a regular local gig that I really love: playing instrumental acoustic guitar for music therapy at a rehab hospital, when I’ve been in Ohio.

2023 has been especially busy…

Now I’m really and truly feeling the onset of the future. Something new. Something built from the hard work and inspiration of the past. Something that will grow from the long night of Winter Solstice into the Spring, Summer and Autumn of the new year.

A bridge of darkness to a world of light.

Ordinarily I don’t like to share my music with many people until I think it’s been recorded at as near perfection as is humanly possible.

This blog post will include a “final mix” of one song (the last stage before mastering) and a song that has just had its very first “rough mix”…

I’m doing this because I really want to share these songs and because I want to share some of the process that goes into anything I record and then release.

Sometimes I’ve decided that the finished recording of a song will be nothing but a single guitar track and single vocal track and sometimes I add harmonies and other instruments. In that I have been really fortunate to know soooo many talented singers and musicians from all over the world who are willing to record with me.

This 1^st song I want to share with you is just one guitar track, one lead vocal and one really beautiful harmony from the amazing Mama Gina Lamonte… This song is finished and I have no plans to add anything more…

It is a rather sad song called “Roses Tangled in Ivy”. Click to listen:

You can probably tell by the date next to the title (sometimes I write the date of when I finish a song…sometimes I don’t) that this was written during the height of the pandemic… Maybe subconsciously that’s why I wrote about something so sad….?

She was born on Sunday morn
In a house covered in ivy
Ivy Rose was her name
For 10 years she played in the garden

Now she sleeps in the glade

She was the light in her parent’s eyes
Love was her song and her story
Her garden was scented with pumpkins and spice
And roses in all of their glory

Now she sleeps in the glade
Under the stone, sunlight and shade

Chorus:
Roses tangled in ivy
Cover her stone and her grave
Roses tangled in ivy
In sunlight and in shade

A fever had stolen her life as she slept
In the arms and tears of her Mother
Her Father buried her as he wept
And swore to the heavens above her
Chorus

A hundred years gone and I’m in the glade
Reading her stone and her story
The song that I sing is all I could pay
For the gift that they had left for me
Chorus twice
“Roses Tangled in Ivy” by Brian Henke, 5/31/20

This next song is going to both be on the next album and is also part of the musical that I’m working on with Byron Ballard.

This is also the very 1^st rough mix. Although I don’t currently plan on adding other voices or instrumentation to this song, it still needs more time mixing to get all the tiny things that are in the background fixed…little pops, string noise, heavy breathing etc…

I really love what this song says and even though this is just a really rough mix…I am really excited to share it with you… I believe in you.

I wrote this in an hour… (Click to listen)

I believe in you
Spread your wings and fly
I believe in you

All of your magic
Is there deep inside
There inside of you
I believe that you are the one who holds the key
I believe in you
(bridge)

You are so beautiful
I wish that you could see you like I do

It does not matter
What anyone says
They don’t love you like I love you
So spread your wings and fly to me I am waiting
I believe
I believe in you
“I Believe in You” by Brian Henke,11:11 a.m. -12:11 p.m. 8/5/2021

2024 holds a lot of promise. Even now at the darkest time of the year, I know Spring will come…

Now let’s all get out there in the World, roll our sleeves up and get to work (and play) to make our reality beautiful.

All photos by Ukrainian photographer Rodion Kutsaiev

For more information about Brian Henke, including his collected articles here on Pagan Song, his bio, and links to Brian’s sites on the web, check out Brian Henke’s page on Pagan Song.

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