Yes Indeed

The next song we recorded on Friday was “Yes Indeed,” a piece that formed while I was driving from my daughter’s farm in Campbellford. Since I’ve been little I have been able to hear music in my head, as if it’s a radio receiver. I just tune into that “station” and the thing plays—from who knows where! So I let the music roll around and around until it was fairly complete.

I prefer writing the basics of a song without an instrument. I connect to the melody and basic phrases, and afterwards set the rest of the lyrics to it, sometimes with Jane’s poetic input.

With “Yes Indeed,” the entire song had formed by the time I got home and picked up a guitar. The main theme was the chorus—“love, love, love is what we need now, yes indeed,” along with a chugging zydeco backing that I heard very clearly.

I had a sense of the lines as frames in a kaleidoscopic documentary. Each image was a flash of a person having some kind of challenge that genuine love and attention would heal. To me, love is a word that indicates deep connection. When we feel connected in this way, it’s not possible to abuse or neglect ourselves, others, or the world at large. I believe that most personal and societal suffering can be tracked to the original abuse or neglect of the people behaving in this way. If their original needs had been cared for—which is what connected, loving caretakers do—most of this suffering could have been avoided. And even after the fact, environments of genuine love, understanding, and caring would help the issues resolve.

Yes indeed!

 
Yes Indeed 
© 2007 Sam Turton

For the baby in the belly
Junkie in the alley
Farmer on a combine
Daddy in a coal mine
Mama on the highway
Teenage runaway
Daughter of a drunkard
Beggar on the boulevard

I say love, love
Love is what we need now
Yes indeed
Love, love
Love is what we need now
Yes indeed

For the urchin on the curbstone
Grandma all alone
Toddler by the TV
Schoolyard misery
Armchair romeo
Sister with the rosary
And the dancer with the left feet

I say love, love
Love is what we need now
Yes indeed
Love, love
Love is what we need now
Yes indeed

For the orphan in a war zone
Stranger in the unknown
A Muslim in Texas
The vet with the flashbacks
Native on main street
Alcoholic MD
Family on a flood plain
Refugee freight train

I say love, love
Love is what we need now
Yes indeed
Love, love
Love is what we need now
Yes indeed

 Jane preparing to lead the zydeco train. Love, love, love . . .