Alex Henry Foster - "Summertime Departures / Sometimes I Dream" [Official Live Video]

Alex Henry Foster & The Long Shadows performing the song "Summertime Departures (Sometimes I Dream)" off the album "Windows in the Sky" at the Club Soda in Montreal on July 5, 2019, at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

Song from his live album and film "Standing Under Bright Lights"
Order / Stream the album: https://smarturl.it/ahf-standing-album

"I started to daub the words to what would later become the lyrics for “Summertime Departures” as I was living in the dazzling city of Tangier, where I sort of drifted in a moment of great confusion. My father’s passing being at the center of the echoing emptiness that I was no longer able to ignore after years trying to avoid any type of introspective honesty on what felt like a senseless existence at this point in my life.

Witnessing how the people who make Tangier such a unique place connected with the notion of the “now” offered me a perspective I couldn’t escape from no more, something that was way beyond grief, life, death and myself. Therefore, I started writing. It all sort of made sense with the image of setting stone on a sanctum shrine… That was the starting point. That was the strange but meaningful ignition for me and ultimately the song. The idea was about a “marker” testifying of the foundation a person could have been in our lives… a “common” stone transcending any sort of precious ornaments.    

That image led me to wonder what’s ultimately left of us, when time passes by, when loved ones disappear, when promises vanish with the memories of those we cared for, when names are no longer mentioned, when our fondest souvenirs of someone we used to cherish slowly make place for somebody else’s heart, when the vivid colors of flowers are long gone, when time keeps its vows and catches up with us, when dreams and their hopeful shines wither, when we’re one faceless soul to somebody else’s view… When we are lost in the winds… When there’s no right or wrong in death…     

And therefore, now looking at it with an honest perspective of my own paradoxes and vulnerability, I understand that “Summertime Departures” is my way to say that regardless of what we may have spent our entire lives believing in or what we may have forgotten with time, there is a permanence amidst the most painful of all sorrows and our decision to let go in the acceptance that love, just like stone, will forever endure."

LYRICS:
I’ve been covering my eyes, barely holding breath
Haven’t slept much, can’t figure how it goes down
The struggles, the damage, the faithless trials
It doesn’t change the way I feel about you now
Lost in the winds of summertime departures
I’ve seen you
Oh, I’ve seen you

I’ve seen the clouds bloom and disappear
Silences feeding their own masterful cheers
Uplifting praise beholding love, lifetime gold
Enough for me to count my every haven funerals
Lost in the winds of summertime departures
I’ve seen you
Alive and well
I’ve seen you
I’ve seen you
I’ve seen you

We’re all set to lose
One day or another
We’re all set to lose
Always

And I set stones on your sanctum shrine
Wrote down a few words so I could remember
I hate to say, but I told you
I told you

And I set stones on your sanctum shrine
Wrote down a few words so I could remember
Remember
Remember

Remember that it’s not your death that hurts the most
It’s the sadness that I kept growing between us
Drifting from places where I always felt stuck and in the way
Lost in the winds of summertime departures
And I hate to say, but I told you
So many times
So many times
One way or the other, we’re all set to lose
Always

Oh I see now
And I hate to say I told you so
So many times before
Oh I see now
And it’s not the fights, the fights we had
That kept me away from you

I’ve been sticking around, as long as I could
I’ve been sticking around, as long as I could
For you to decline my care, my invitations
The lantern’s tired, the fog’s still growing
Shadow’s howling, shadow’s howling
Waiting to take you away from me, to fly away, to fly away with you
And I’m tired, and I hate to say I told you

And I set stones on your sanctum shrine
Wrote down a few words so I could remember
That it’s not your death that hurts the most
It’s the sadness that I kept growing between us

Oh I see now
And I hate to say I told you so
So many times before
Oh I see now
And it’s not the fights, the fights we had
That kept me away from you
From you
From you

We’re all set to lose

Oh I see now
And I hate to say I told you so
So many times before
Oh I see now
That it’s not the fights, the fights we had
That kept me away from you

Sometimes I dream I can sail through the past
And let my teardrops fall in the ocean, in the ocean
Sometimes I dream I can sail through the past
And let my teardrops fall at your feet

I’ll see you one day
Coming back for me
I’ll see you one day