This is the second Humans&Harmonies (H&H) blog post. Every Friday, another H&H blog post will be released. Each post will have an associated song that you can watch and listen to via YouTube. The songs are written from a perspective other than my own. This week, the song is written from the perspective of Nick Ballweg, a good friend of mine. Click HERE to listen to this week's song called "Grow." You can also find it on my new album "Memory Box." available on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, GooglePlay, etc.
The lyrics to "Grow." are at the bottom of this page for reference.
“I had become so reliant on my roommates to make me happy. I hung out with them everyday. I would get home from class and crack jokes with them. Then we would go to the library together to study. Then we would get dinner. Then we would come home and start our late night shenanigans until we got tired and did it all over again the next day. They are such great people, and they always bring a smile to my face, and I can be myself around them. But now, they’re off doing big things in different cities and I don’t know how to entertain myself.”
Nick called me on the phone and asked if he could come over. This was the summer after our sophomore year of college. I hadn’t heard from Nick in a while and he said he wanted to write some music together, like we used to. When we sat down with our guitars, he already had a few lyrics in mind. He started singing, “what does it mean to be alone? is no one home?…”
This puzzled me; normally Nick looked to me to brainstorm the lyrics. He seemed pretty down. So I asked him if he was okay — boy did he spill.
He had been alone in his college apartment for the past three weeks because his roommates had internships in other cities. He would come home from work, make himself a meal, and then not know what to do with himself. He tried reading books, watching TV, playing guitar, going for walks… every “get out of a funk” trick that he knew of was attempted.
So often we overinvest ourselves into the people around us. Not only do we love them, we also love who we are when we are with them. All of a sudden we have to rediscover how to love ourselves without those people there. For Nick, being alone for a few weeks was a reminder of this all too common truth:
“I need to learn how to make myself happy.”
That’s when we wrote the song “Grow.”
Lyrics:
what does it mean to be alone?
is no one home?
will no one pick up the phone?
or am I truly on my own?
ooooh I think you know
ooooh it's how you grow
so don't lose your mind
let the sun leak through the blinds
good friends are hard to find
you're the only one you'll have for life
ooooh I think you know
ooooh that's how you grow
so when those thoughts creep in
don't let'em take you over
just shrug'em off your shoulders
so that when your day begins
you ask yourself what you want
no one's stopping you so get up
ooooh I think you know
ooooh that's how you grow
Great Nick tribute!