Through Twitter, I’m always looking for real people behind the accounts. That led me to find Gracious Me a singer-songwriter based in Washington DC. When I hear the opening riff, I totally fell for the song. Click play and see if you feel the same way. Read below to get the story behind the song.
Story Behind “The Part Of Me”
I’m Gracious Me, and I write and sing Americana songs. My song “The Part of Me” originated with an Emily Dickinson poem that I once had memorized, Hope is the Thing with Feathers (314).
I heard a snippet of that poem some time later and my songwriting wheels started turning, imagining in the first verse the human impulse of longing as a bird that would fly away to the beloved if not kept caged. The bird image ties in to Dickinson’s depiction of hope as an emotion that soars and sings enduringly, but in “The Part of Me” the chorus dwells on hope lost and the barrenness of living without hope. The second verse focuses on the embodiment of ways that we protect or guard our emotions and guard ourselves from them — images of skin as a protector and a receptor, and armor as a protector but also as a block or a barrier. In the third verse, the imagery is of the heart as the bodily center of our feelings. The ghost of a lost love is felt and lives on, haunting the singer’s memory.
Listeners seem to appreciate the poetic feel of this song, as I’ve had several ask me about the origins of it or comment on the dreamlike mood it creates. Thanks for reading about this song, and please come over to my website at www.graciousmemusic.com and sign up for my mailing list to get occasional updates and insights into my journey as a songwriter!