Song 9 of 20
Song 9 of 20
Embedded Files
The grown children return for a family gathering at the home that shaped much of their childhood. They arrive with adult lives and experiences of their own, seeing their parents and the old household differently than they once did. Stories are retold, old roles briefly return, and the family occupies the same rooms again, although everyone who enters them is older than the people who originally made those memories.
I shoulder through the kitchen doorWith cider, bread, and one dish more“Blue bowl,” Mom says. I know the shelfMy hand goes there all by itselfDad pulls the table wide with careMom finds a place for every chairThe children charge from room to roomI hear my childhood in the boom
Outside, the maple shades the glassI planted it in the grass
You couldn’t see these walls grow wideYou built a world from deep insideThrough every custom, crack, repairYour care became the common airSo strong, I thought it simply grewLike maple leaves against the blueI had to live beyond this doorTo see what all those days were for
A pale seam climbs the stairwell wallMy nephew asks what caused it all“The upstairs pipe,” Dad says and sighs“Which you called sound.” Mom rolls her eyesDad mixed the plaster, smooth and trueMom stretched one dollar into twoThe burst pipe broke the careful planYou owned your share; repair began
I thought the house ran by itselfIts order waiting on the shelf
You couldn’t see these walls grow wideYou built a world from deep insideThrough every custom, crack, repairYour care became the common airSo strong, I thought it simply grewLike maple leaves against the blueI had to live beyond this doorTo see what all those days were for
My daughter finds the pencil lineThat measured me at eight or nineMom stands her straight against the frameDad marks her height beside my nameAcross the plates, their glances meetA private sentence, still completeThe table opens, two to tenThen folds around you two again
You couldn’t see these walls grow wideYou built a world from deep insideThrough every custom, crack, repairYour care became our common airSo strong, we thought it simply grewLike maple leaves against the blueNow all of us beyond this doorCan build a world worth working for
I leave you folding chairs away“Tomorrow... paint?” “Not beige.” “Okay.”
Outside, the maple shades the glassI planted it in the grass
You couldn’t see these walls grow wideYou built a world from deep insideThrough every custom, crack, repairYour care became the common airSo strong, I thought it simply grewLike maple leaves against the blueI had to live beyond this doorTo see what all those days were for
A pale seam climbs the stairwell wallMy nephew asks what caused it all“The upstairs pipe,” Dad says and sighs“Which you called sound.” Mom rolls her eyesDad mixed the plaster, smooth and trueMom stretched one dollar into twoThe burst pipe broke the careful planYou owned your share; repair began
I thought the house ran by itselfIts order waiting on the shelf
You couldn’t see these walls grow wideYou built a world from deep insideThrough every custom, crack, repairYour care became the common airSo strong, I thought it simply grewLike maple leaves against the blueI had to live beyond this doorTo see what all those days were for
My daughter finds the pencil lineThat measured me at eight or nineMom stands her straight against the frameDad marks her height beside my nameAcross the plates, their glances meetA private sentence, still completeThe table opens, two to tenThen folds around you two again
You couldn’t see these walls grow wideYou built a world from deep insideThrough every custom, crack, repairYour care became our common airSo strong, we thought it simply grewLike maple leaves against the blueNow all of us beyond this doorCan build a world worth working for
I leave you folding chairs away“Tomorrow... paint?” “Not beige.” “Okay.”
Behind The Song
Behind The Song
Wide As The World changes the camera.
For much of the album we have experienced the marriage from inside it. Now an adult child looks back at the world his parents constructed and finally sees that what once appeared natural was actually made.
Children often experience a functioning home as though it simply exists.
Food appears. Repairs happen. Traditions recur. Someone knows where things belong. Bills somehow become electricity, heat and groceries. Problems arise and are absorbed into the ongoing structure of family life.
Only later may the child realize how much judgment, work, restraint, compromise and persistence were required to make that stability feel ordinary.
The song does not claim that his childhood was perfect.
That would weaken it.
There were mistakes, financial limits, bad decisions, arguments and repairs. The adult son's gratitude is meaningful precisely because it is an evaluation rather than worship.
He now recognizes the home as a human achievement.
And the parents' love was productive. It did not merely produce feelings between two people; it produced consequences: family culture, competence, memory, traditions, opportunities and a place from which children could eventually venture outward.
Prosperity here means far more than money.
It includes trust, skill, humor, standards, reliability and the confidence created by living inside a reasonably well-built human world.
There is another important detail: the children eventually leave.
That is not the civilization collapsing.
It is partly what the civilization was for.
The table can open from two to ten and eventually fold back to two.
The parents remain the original axis.
And now the people who grew up inside their world can go elsewhere and build worlds of their own.
The Takeaway
The Takeaway
A child can experience a good home almost as if it were part of nature, only later discovering how much thought, restraint, work, repair and persistence were required to make that world feel ordinary. Some of the greatest achievements of a human life are almost invisible precisely because they became the stable ground on which other people learned to stand.
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