Travis Dow: The Songs

Even Misery

(Travis Dow (from "Someone's Awake" - 2005))

Another song written as a way (and what felt like the only way) out of a pretty bad funk. My old friend Andy Baxter had a line in one of his songs about finding the strength "to love our misery". I found that to be a pretty radical idea. Just think of the power one would have over the slings and arrows of life if one could make peace with feeling crappy...
So this song is both a defense mechanism and a defiant kiss-off to the blues. It seems to have found a second life these days as a tune we play in the country-fied band, Concrete Cowboys, here in Portland. Hearing it "country-ed up" with Chad Kessner on vocals was a real revelation, and it really seems to work well.

Lyrics:

If you look for me tomorrow, I will still be here

Even though I have the look of one who could be swallowed by his fear

Even misery is not enough for me to disappear

If love was only pain, then I would follow you down into that lonely, hollow place

And we would shutter all the daylight, and just give in to the chase

But even misery is not enough for me to smother grace

If you look for me don’t be fooled by what you find

I may be on my knees, because I’m not the runnin’ kind

On those lonely days when you’ve tried everything you know

You look inside for places even misery can’t go

If it’s cloudy now, and precious little sun, then I’ve still got a job to do

I believe you make your own reasons, and my reason is just to make it through

‘Cause even misery, that’s enough for me if it’s true

And it never lasts, nothing ever lasts

Even misery will pass