I’ll Be Here

The day I started writing this song, I was walking along Venice Beach when I thought I saw my best friend from childhood buying ice cream. When she turned to face me I realized it wasn’t her, but that quick flash took me back to childhood and this friend, and I felt a rush of nostalgia and memories. I spent the rest of the day wondering about her – where she is now, whether she has kids, whether she ever traveled to Spain – something she’d always wanted to do when we were little. It’s so strange to me that I don’t know these things about her anymore – that I don’t know anything about her anymore. Isn’t that weird? – how we can so deeply love someone at some point in our life, and then later on we don’t know anything about them?

I thought about this all day, and then started to write this song about that feeling – that feeling of having drifted away from someone with whom I once felt such closeness and intimacy. I think a lot of childhood friendships are like that – very intense, because you are bonding together as you are beginning to learn about the world, other people, dreams, longing, and everything else that comes with growing up. It’s this weird path of self-discovery and world-discovery that you are sort of on with someone else because you are friends and doing everything together, but in truth, they are on their own path through all these things, too. It’s inevitable that we all grow up and often grow apart from the friends of our youth, but there’s just something about that bond forged with someone who helped you learn to run, fall, to love, to live. (dare, risk, dream???)

What’s even stranger is that, if you were to meet each other for the first time now, you might not even choose to be friends; but because of that early, intimate bond you formed, you will always be there for each other. You would always answer the phone if she called. You would always be there if she hurt or if she needed you. There is always something of her in you, and of you in her – and because of this, seeing her is like looking into a compassionate mirror.

So I wrote this song to express that intimacy and closeness and nostalgia for the people that we both were when we were young – and compassion for who we are now.

I’LL BE HERE (by Kat Parsons, Leslie King, Rich Jacques):
it was simple then
you were my best friend
nothing in between
what we feel and dream

you would hold my hand
and we would understand
it was love
and it was enough

but now you’re far away
and we have less to say
we both left that life
and chased our highest heights

if I saw you in a crowd
would I know you now

and if it all breaks down
if darkness comes around
if all you counted on is gone
I’m still here
I’ll be here
I’m still here
I’ll be here

Now I’m in LA
the sunshines everyday
looking for someone
just like everyone

did you ever move to Spain
and drink champagne
did you find love
and is it enough

and if it all breaks down
if darkness comes around
if all you counted on is gone
i’m still here
I’ll be here
i’m still here
I’ll be here

all the moments left behind us
before the world appeared
there’s a tie that always binds us

i’ll be here
i’ll be here
i’ll be here
i’ll be here

** I get by with a little help from my friends- thanks to Jodi Elliott for sharing her writing and editing expertise.

Get this song here: http://KatParsons.com/shop