Barcelona

I wrote this piece on Thursday, August 17, on the day when a van drove down La Rambla and into human beings; the day of a brutal attack. It was too fresh to post that day, and so I am publishing it now, a few days later, with no less heaviness in my heart.

The photo above was taken at Montserrat in 2005. I was 19 (hi, Twin!)

I love you, Barca. 

***

I have written many times about Barcelona.

It is where I met my Twin sister.

It was my home and has brought and given and meant so many things to me.

I do not blog much about my music anymore, even though I recently got my groove back, but when I was writing and singing and performing more regularly, I wrote a song that never got completed. Maybe because it was a silly little ditty of sorts, especially compared to some of the more intense pieces I was writing that were being composed and played and recorded at the time. It isn’t my best work. But it was something that came out of me as I sat in a coffee shop one day, and I scribbled the lyrics in my journal, and I came up with a melody and sang it into my phone and then sent it to Twin.

I do not revisit my old music often, but, today, I had to. Because today, I weep for Barcelona.

And so while it is not the finest example of my songwriting — not worthy of this beautiful, now broken city–it is what I have.

Because I cannot find the other words.

Barcelona

I remember the stands and the string of lights on Three Kings Day

Thinking, “Is it always going to be this way?”

As I walked along the bright and shining streets.

 

We drank wine straight from the bottles, sitting on the floor

With the rowdy, dowdy boys next door

And one of them was like a living Jay Gatsby.

 

But, oh, my beauty, Barca, why must we now be apart?

You have stolen my heart for all of my days.

And oh my beauty, Barca, there’s no one else like you

You are all I want to do,

In my heart you’ll stay.

I remember sitting at a table for dinner with a group of boys

We were laughing, making so much noise

As we ate our meal at eleven o’clock at night

 Ambling down the backstreets of La Rambla til the morning hours

Rambling about the backwards country of ours

I think someone was looking for a fight.

 

But oh, my beauty, Barca, why must we now be apart?

You have stolen my heart for all of my days.

And oh my beauty, Barca, there’s no one else like you

You are all I want to do, In my heart you’ll stay.

Living with the finest person I will ever know

Just around the block from magic fountains and Joan Miro

And the lilacs blooming, why’d I ever go?

 

But oh, my beauty, Barca, why must we now be apart?

You have stolen my heart for all of my days.

And oh my beauty, Barca, there’s no one else like you

You are all I want to do, In my heart you’ll stay.

***

My heart goes out to everyone, today–

in Barcelona, in this country, in the world.

May peace be with you.

xx,

B

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