Sleep Well

from Songs From Home by Tara Dente

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about

Sleep Well (2015) was inspired by an old graveyard in southern Vermont across from the first place I lived on my own, away from New Jersey. I would take my dog on walks there, and after letting him off leash on day, found him scoping out the perimeter where there was a whole family buried together, and a very small gravestone in particular stood out to me. The epitaphs all read dates from the 1700s, and the smallest one had the cause of death inscribed; it was due to drowning before the age of 5. This humbling reality sparked the thought: this was a time when the smallest sickness could take a life just beginning, or what is now considered a third-of-a-lifespan, and any record for an entire town of people whose only memory lives, perhaps, on that fading stone epitaph. This song is in memory of those who may not ever be known apart from those fading inscriptions, and for that young boy, in particular. How will we be remembered in 300 years, and what form will our memories take? Recorded in the home of David Spelman, by candlelight and whisky glasses, in one take (vocals, guitar, upright bass), with additional instrumentation added later, remotely; the result is a haunting continuation of the emotion felt in that graveyard on that snowy day in 2015.

lyrics

Little boy drowned at only five years old
Mother and father sleep beside his headstone, in the deep, dark ground
I walk amidst the dead tonight, no fear, no fright
I, too, shall lay under the stars, they’ll tread atop the place I lie
And over time the wind will blow, the ice will cling, the rain and snow,
Will wipe away those words of mine, leaving no one left to know

These olden bones, I feel below
These people who I feel I’ve known
Sleep well amidst the snow and rain
Leaving no more worldly pain

Dog is sleeping, let him lie
We’re in this room for just a while
A piece of land before I sleep
My fairy tale, my sunny isle

These olden bones, I feel below
These people who I feel I’ve known
Sleep well amidst the snow and rain
Feeling no more worldly pain

These olden bones, I feel below
These people who I feel I’ve known
Sleep well amidst the snow and rain
Feeling no more worldly pain
Feeling no more worldly pain
Feeling no more worldly pain

credits

from Songs From Home, released October 31, 2020
Words and Music by Tara Dente

Tara Dente- Vocals, Classical Guitar
Chris Dubrow- Upright Bass
Kevin Breit- Electric Guitar, Baritone Guitar

Produced by David Spelman
Mixed by Jack Daley
Mastered by Francis Valentino

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Tara Dente

Intention Fall🪞Streaming Everywhere
#youareonnativeland
📍Cherokee Territory (Nashville)

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