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about

This song, an old-time a cappella number (just accompanied by handclaps), has a tragic origin. A good friend asked us to perform at a memorial show at Palmer’s for Kobe Dimock-Heisler, a young man of color on the autism spectrum who had just been murdered by police in Brooklyn Center on Aug. 31, 2019. (Police claimed he lunged at them with a knife, but eyewitnesses say that’s a lie, that he was running away from them shortly after they barged in the door.) One morning, while thinking about what we would perform for that show, a tune started going through my head that was inspired by the fact that Kobe apparently loved sea shanties. Aside from movie-based cliches about sea shanties, I don’t really know anything about them, and the tune had this old-time quality I liked and some sea-inspired words were popping in my head when I realized that I was writing a song. We finished it and performed it (without claps) at the memorial and Rosie had the idea to add claps in the studio—and that’s how we do it now. (The words roughly depict someone young leaving their home and returning to the sea, perhaps to die or just to get back to it.) The vocals were tracked live (and then doubled live), and we added the claps afterwards.

lyrics

I’m a child of age who has lost my way
I afford no cause that I could not say
But I’d hold this close to my dying day
’Til I knew that I’d found my home

Chorus:
Over land, when the breath is done
Over land, when I’ve left and run
Over land, when my death has come
I’ll return to the sea once more

I was caught betwixt and between all things
That my mother feared for a child who sings
But there’d be no cage, nor a throne for kings
When I knew that I’d found my home

Chorus

So I set on foot for a town out west
And my mother knew that it was for best
I could not delay, wasn’t time for rest
As I knew that I’d find my home

Chorus

And I wandered long for a lonely year
I had conquered naught but my only fear
That I’d find no sand, and I’d disappear
Then I saw that I’d found my home

Chorus

So I built a boat from a beached old tree
And I set out west on the shining sea
And the sky and sun finally came for me
For I knew that I’d found my home

Chorus (2x)

credits

from The Honor and Glory of The Gated Community, released February 3, 2023
Sumanth Gopinath: lead vocals, handclaps
Rosie Harris: backing vocals, handclaps
Beth Hartman: backing vocals, handclaps

written August 2019, recorded September 2019

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The Gated Community Minneapolis

The Gated Community is a country/bluegrass/Americana band with rock influences based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in Minnesota and has been in existence since early 2006.

Bandmembers: Sumanth Gopinath
Rosie Harris
Beth Hartman
Paul Hatlelid
Cody Johnson
Nate Knutson ... more

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