Song Notes: The House with No One In It

Song Notes
Jamie O’Reilly
The House With No One In It
From The Way the Heart is Sculpted


Title inspired by the poem
The House with Nobody In It by Joyce Kilmer

I chose Fall back as the theme for the Roots October Salon, the second fall event in my 4th season at Tre Kronor, the North Park Swedish restaurant where I sing every six weeks or so.

As soon as the tiniest yellow leaves start to fall, and yellow school buses take over whole driving lanes, leaving exhaust-fumed air behind, I’m back in the school-daze. Anxious to fill a pencil-pouch with new markers and pens; feel the satisfaction I remember when the binder’s three rings snapped together, and I loaded the first written assignment into its cardboard pouches; vowing to keep the important stuff there – tidy and safe.

Fall IS nostalgia for most of us. “It’s a long, long time from May to December, but the days grow short when you reach September.” Shorter days. Crisp, autumn evenings – early dark. Bring out the slippers, the soft throws, the thick cardigans. Get cozy.

Only this fall season has a surreal quality to it for me. The binders these days contain medical information: orders for blood tests, drug facts about myriad prescriptions, illustrations on thick-paper handouts, with diagrams of the human body: veins and arteries in vivid bluish-red lines; a close-up rendering of the renal system – with a caption reading “End Stage Kidney Disease” – ESKD for short.

I was diagnosed with this elusive condition in mid-July. (The week Biden was with NATO and Ms. Harris came to the fore as his replacement as a presidential nominee.) The glee in the air over Kamala-hope was in stark contrast to the void I felt looking into my own future. Dialysis? Transplant? Life expectancy? A whole new glossary of terms. My normally with-it self could neither take it in, or take it on.

Foreign and sneaky, kidney disease wreaks havoc on the body in monumental ways, and one usually doesn’t see it coming! It thwarts the efforts of the usually well-oiled body machine’s day-to-day functions, with, among other things. chronic fatigue, anemia, constant itching and interrupted sleep paired with a drowning sensation in the chest.

That one, the drowning sensation, that’s the worst. One can’t dismiss that feeling by thinking lovely thoughts, your usual deep breathing, or with a more suitable pillow-set up. This mother is scary as hell. It took consulting with a GP, nephrologist, hematologist, vascular surgeon, transplant clinicians, psychiatrist, and cardiologist before I found some relief from the drowning sensation. which still comes and goes. The only real break will only come when and if I have a kidney transplant, a procedure I am told is one of the most serious medical procedures, and requires a generous donor or is achieved through a waiting list made up of cadavers.

Alright then. Add to this, the dreams I have when I DO sleep, and a whole parellel universe resides in those nocturnal hours. Steeped in memories of places populated with extended family episodes – me trying to fit-in, with deceased lovers and lost friends – people no longer dead, with no distinct faces, who turn away from me. I force myself awake, minutes pass before I see it was just a dream.

It is a shocker – to suddenly have your life turned upside down and inside out by something out of your control. In contemplating that, and what I want to write tonight,
I’ve seen perhaps the universe is giving me a little mental break, a reprieve from the
constant need to push and make sense of life’s wily ways. Maybe it’s telling me to listen,
to seek counsel from those who do know what they’re doing, to not sweat the small stuff,
and trust.

Meanwhile, the dreams continue. Here is a song I wrote with Tom Amandes about a recurring dream I had of returning home and feeling displaced. Strange to think it was written 35 years ago.

The House with No One In It
There’s a house where there are children
Seated round the table Voices in the distance
They are droning deep and low
So I step inside the walkway and I dare to go inside

They’re engaged in conversation
Some are playing cards and laughing
But nobody seems to know me though to me they look the same

CH
I’m here on a assignment
I just came by to ask you
Why you always bring me back here every time I go to sleep
Will it work some kind of magic
Am I trying to gain some knowledge
Are my memories an illusion of a time that never was

I’ve cut my hair and I am hungry but there’s no food on the table
It is piled in the corner It is applesauce in jars
Mother looks up from the table, she puts down the game she’s playing
And she offers me spoonful of the stuff inside the jars
I remind her I’m a member of this familiar party
I’m the fourth one on the middle
No I don’t want to play cards

CH
I’m here on a assignment
I just came by to ask you
Why you always bring me back here every time I go to sleep
Will it work some kind of magic
Am I trying to gain some knowledge
Are my memories an illusion of a time that never was

Bridge
Then I happen upon a mirror
And I see a faceless child
It has tousled hair and bangs and its hands are in its pockets
And it looks like it is falling into some kind of tunnel
At the dozen anxious faces and they’re calling out to me
No we don’t want you to come down here, we are stuck in here forever
we caught between the seasons in a house with no one in it


There’s a house where there are children
Voices in the distance
Droning deep and low


The House With No One In It:
Composed by Jamie O’Reilly and Tom Amandes
Arrangement by Peter Swenson

From the CD ‘The Way the Heart is Sculpted’:
Jamie O’Reilly: vocals
Peter Swenson: vocals, classical guitar
David Van Delinder: electric and acoustic guitars, b.g. vocals
Shawna Lake: oboe, english horn
Bob Weber: cello
Jim Seidel: bass

(c) 1994, Rogue Productions Inc,
J. O’Reilly Productions