Come in Close

by Shaker BrianWS

Hey Shakers!

A couple of weeks ago, without too many details, I asked for some help from the community for a project that would celebrate the love that Shakers share with the one(s) we hold dear, and I asked for your favorite photographs to help build it. Below is the finished product.


[Lyrics below.]

My original post was (deliberately) a little bit cryptic, so here's the story: I send Liss music all the time. Some it is awesome (The Rescues; Ellie Goulding), and she likes it, and some of it is less awesome (Ke$ha), and she still likes it because if there's one thing we all know about Liss, it's that she has no standards. The day I wrote the guest post asking for photos, I sent Liss the most recent song I had recorded, and it was the first song I had recorded in a few years—it's been a long time since the days of being a huge star on the coffee house/pizza shop/Barnes & Noble circuit!

Liss loved it, and wrote back saying, "If I had more time, I would solicit pictures from Shakers and their partners, and make a video to this song." I thought that was an amazing idea, and offered to do it myself, because she and I are always blubbing over shit like that together.

The song comes from kind of a funny place—I wrote it eight days after meeting my boyfriend (we're pictured in the final slide of the video). I was living at home for the summer, and he was still living at home, so we were sort of forced into building a relationship from the ground up with few options besides spending our time at restaurants, movie theaters, friends' houses, etc, while sustaining our time apart through hundreds of text messages a day, usually ending with him falling asleep while texting me at 1am in his bed.

I came home from one of those first nights at a bar, opened a bottle of wine that I almost surely didn't need, and this song came spilling out—a moment so early on where I just knew that it was perfect and that through all the fuck-ups, bad decisions, mean boyfriends, etc, in my past, that this was the person that was just bound to walk into my life someday and forever change it for the better. And he has.

That was my story. The coolest part of this project for me was that I only asked for photos, yet so many of you sent me amazing, joyful stories along with the photos explaining either what the photograph was and what it meant to you, or stories of how you met, who you are, and how long you had been together. I didn't expect that, and I can say it was truly an amazing privilege to be able to read those personal stories and memories that you freely shared with me, allowing me for just a moment to share in that joy—and naturally, several of you left me blubbing my face off.

It was unexpected but perfect, because those little stories and those moments are exactly what this song is about, and your photos and memories fit it so well despite the fact that none of you had any idea what the final product would look like or even what it would be. And the final product shows that those moments can be shared by all different types of people—not just the perfect young, thin, able-bodied, white, straight, cis, good babymaking Christian couple that's held up as the model of romantic love in our culture—and that was really the goal all along.

I can't thank you all enough for sharing your moments with me—and now, with all of us.

Also, I have some photos left over, so if there are more people who would like to share their favorite photos, I'd be happy to put together a part II if there is enough interest. Just send pictures to me at ShakerBrianWS@gmail.com.

[Note from Liss: If you would like to propose a community project on which you're willing to take the lead, email me.]

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COME IN CLOSE

There's so many things in life that I've ripped apart at the seams
And this wine can only fix me one night at a time
I get so crazy when I think, a heart so heavy when I drink
I'm driving around and singing along to another Edie love song

It's a perfect storm of timing, of tears, and trying, and you

Maybe someday I will be falling fast asleep on the couch
As we both forget the end of another sad movie
And since I let it go and just let it be, amazing how easy it is to see
That this is the life that's been waiting for me
Come in close and live it with me
Won't you come in close and live it with me?

And I can take so much once I've had enough
There's always room for one more little disaster
Every one comes faster than the one that came before
And I got so tired of him dragging me out on the floor
And then saying he don't wanna dance anymore
It's a perfect storm of timing, of tears, and trying, and you

Maybe someday I will be falling fast asleep on the couch
As we both forget the end of another sad movie
And since I let it go and just let it be, amazing how easy it is to see
That this is the life that's been waiting for me
Come in close and live it with me
And I've waited so long
To write the best mix CD
In just one song
And then you came along

Maybe someday I will be falling fast asleep on the couch
As we both forget the end of the same old sad movie
And since I let it go and just let it be, it's amazing how easy it is to see
That this is the life that's been waiting for me
Come in close and live it with me
Won't you come in close and live it with me?
Just come in close and live with me
It's just a little dream