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Beside the Barn

from Inside Things by Frances Drost

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about

One beautiful October day, I picked up the phone and was pleasantly surprised to hear the voice of my brother, Adriel.  He is nine years older than I and though our careers have taken us in very different directions (and we live in different parts of the country), I continually discover many more things that I have in common with him than I ever realized. 

On the phone, he asked me what the weather was like that particular day.  We were experiencing one of those perfect days when the weather is crisp, the sky is crystal clear and the leaves are hinting of change and he seemed nostalgic as I told him.

He responded with distinct pleasantness in his voice, “ah, yes, when I hear you talk of blue skies....” and my mind trailed off into songwriting mode.  That simple phrase alone; “when I hear you talk of blue skies” gave me the idea for a song.

I finished up our phone conversation and began to pursue the song idea.  I pondered the month of October and what it meant to our family history.  Adriel was born in October.  So was another brother, Nathan.  Unfortunately, he also died in October.

Nathan Carl was only one and a half years older than I and was apparently entertaining me one day as I sat out in my high chair near our farm pond.  My mother had put us both outside for a while and went back into the house to do something.  She wasn’t gone very long when she came back outside and couldn’t find Nathan, who had just turned two a few days earlier.

She frantically began to search for him and was devastated to spot his little red jacket floating in the pond.  As she retrieved the jacket and his body from the pond, she tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. 

I have never really felt closure to that chapter of our lives.  Perhaps it’s why I tend to write so many songs with death scenarios, as my producer would point out to me in the midst of writing for the project “Inside Things”.   It’s a pattern I never noticed in my writing. 

Perhaps in a way, part of my heart does still live back on that farm, for it feels as if a part of me went with Nathan that day. 

When I share this song, I often hear someone else’s story of their ‘pond beside the barn’.  Even though the circumstances are different in each story, the feelings are the same.  We miss them and we have a special place in our hearts for the location of their death.  But more than that, we are not alone.  Many others have a ‘pond beside the barn’ story just waiting to be shared.

lyrics

Beside the Barn
By Frances Drost

It was early in October
On our little farm in Gardners
When we lost our little brother
In the pond beside the barn

Every time I see the water
It’s so easy to remember
How it felt to lose a brother
In the pond beside the barn

And though I'm not there anymore
And they say home is where your heart is
My heart could live most anywhere
Still my heart is where that home was

When I hear you talk of blue skies
When I hear you tell of colored leaves
I can see that little farm now
And the pond beside the barn

And though I’ve lived in other places
Even they could not erase this
So I guess you’d say my heart lives
Near the pond beside the barn

Though I know the land is different now
And the road you take is changed somehow
I know I’d find it just by looking out
For the pond beside the barn

credits

from Inside Things, released June 1, 2008

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Frances Drost Pennsylvania

Frances Drost is a singer/songwriter who gives voice to our innermost thoughts and feelings through lyrics and melodies. She lives life and then writes about it so others can join in the journey.

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