Music Monday: The Wood Song

The Wood Song by Indigo Girls

 

This is a song by my favorite band.  It is from the album Swamp Ophelia, which was released in 1994, at just about the height of my Indigo Girls fandom.  I don't think I realized it at the time (I was just starting college), but at some point I figured out that this was my lifesong.  It still is.  EVERY TIME I hear this song, I feel more at peace.  I LOVE this song.  It's always kind of been my encouragement that at some point I will get to the other side and the "prize" (husband? kids? something else that I can't even imagine at this point?) will make the whole journey worth it.  Encouragement that if one is living life fully, there will be heartbreak and sadness.... but that at the end it will be clear how everything fits in to the "tricky plan."  Maybe at some point this won't be my lifesong anymore.  Or maybe even if I get to "the other side", I will only love the song even more because it will make me appreciate where I came from.  The prize is always worth the rocky ride...


The thin horizon of a plan is almost clear
My friends and I have had a tough time
Bruising our brains hard up against change
All the old dogs and the magician

Now I see we're in the boat in two-by-two's
Only the heart that we have for a tool we could use
And the very close quarters are hard to get used to
Love weighs the hull down with its weight

But the wood is tired, and the wood is old
And we'll make it fine, if the weather holds
But if the weather holds, we'll have missed the point
That's where I need to go

No way construction of this tricky plan
Was built by other than a greater hand
With a love that passes all our understanding
Watching closely over the journey

Yeah, but what it takes to cross the great divide
Seems more than all the courage I can muster up inside
But we get to have some answers when we reach the other side
The prize is always worth the rocky ride
But the wood is tired, and the wood is old
And we'll make it fine, if the weather holds
But if the weather holds, we'll have missed the point
That's where I need to go

Sometimes I ask to sneak a closer look
Skip to the final chapter of the book
And then maybe steer us clear from some of the pain it took
To get us where we are this far, this far

But the question drowns in its futility
Even I have got to laugh at me
No one gets to miss the storm of what will be
Just holding on for the ride
But the wood is tired, and the wood is old
And we'll make it fine, if the weather holds
But if the weather holds, we'll have missed the point
That's where I need to go