WEEK 2 | Land and Home - Down in the Valley

Down in the Valley develops a setting, a backdrop, of where each verse takes place. It is a story told in an ever changing landscape, different valleys in which the tone and undulations of the singer transform the lyrics to express the emotion and sense of the verses.

My favorite version of this songs in the one featured in the Andy Griffith Show. The woman's voice embodies the feeling of the wind, the flowers, the air, the letter. It is soft, keen and sincere. The highs and lows she controls with her voice provide the presence of a rocking movement, almost as if someone has embraced you and is calming you down by gently rocking you back and forth.

So where is this valley?

This valley is land. This valley is home.

Growing up, I moved to my own valley, the town I call home: Crescenta Valley. This song reminds me of my home's mountains, trees, bushes, pathways, and the rising and setting of the sun.

This painting is what I remember my valley to be: always golden and always growing greener. Because it is so much a part of me, I painted the mountains with my fingers because I really wanted to express my love with each stroke, express the exhaustion of my fingers trying to remember the shadows and dips of my home.

The funny thing is that as I was painting the valley I came from, I found myself also painting a valley of a different sort. A valley I someday want to be in, to someday make my new home. A land with him.

This valley will be our land. This valley will be our home.

Build me a castle 40 feet high

So I can see him as he rides by...

WEEK 1 | First Song - "Silver Moon"

When I was a little girl, my mother would sing me a song in Armenian. I remember lying in bed in the darkness of my room and concentrating on her silhouette as she would sing. She would sing to me often, you know. She would sing even as I got older and one day she asked me to sing it for her.

It makes me sad to remember that because I did not sing back to her at a time that she really needed me for support. Now I sing any all songs I know to her when she goes to sleep in hopes of making up for all the times that I did not.

This song is very old - I do not even know if I could find it anywhere but in some aging song book written in Armenian decades ago. So I will try my best to provide an extremely rough translation of the song into english. I title this song after its first line.

<< Audio: արծաթ լուսին >>

Silver moon, window dust

Scattered on the ground

Heavy, aching woman

My sad heart heaves

The woman's tree grows*

The leaves will breathe

Birds on a branch

With longing they perch

* Not quite sure how this line translates.