Make Your Heaven

By Restless [Originally on goofyblog 5.21.07]

For the last 7 years that I lived in San Francisco (’95 - ‘02), Tracy Chapman was my neighbor across the street (mansion at right). While living there, I began to travel and explore the world — Europe, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, Burning Man, all for the first time — until I decided to make traveling away permanent . . . for now.

When I moved in, Tracy had just released New Beginning. The album went platinum 5 times and resuscitated her popularity. The hit, Give Me One Reason, got air play, but there were several other tracks that spell instant homesickness no matter where in the world I am.
Like the time I found New Beginning on a juke box in a saloon in Virginia City, Nevada:

The world is broken into fragments and pieces
That once were joined together in a unified whole
But now too many stand alone There’s too much separation
We can resolve to come together in the new beginning
Start all over. Start all over. Start all over.
Start all over.
We can break the cycle - We can break the chain
We can start all over - In the new beginning
We can learn, we can teach
We can share the myths the dream the prayer
The notion that we can do better
Change our lives and paths
Create a new world

Its chanting call to action becomes more relevant as each day goes by.

Or the time in a smoky coffee house in Amsterdam musing to the lyrics & structure of Heaven’s Here on Earth:

You can look to the stars in search of the answers
Look for God and life on distant planets
Have your faith in the ever after
While each of us holds inside the map to the labyrinth
And heaven’s here on earth

We are the spirit the collective conscience
We create the pain and the suffering and the beauty in this world
Heaven’s here on earth
In our faith in humankind
In our respect for what is earthly
In our unfaltering belief in peace and love and understanding

The philosophy and ideals in these songs is San Francisco to me, a place where the thing called Burning Man could be born — just one small, relevant example. A place in the world that powerfully inspires those who live there to say and do what needs to be done.

Tracy moved away just a couple of months before I did. But I carry the feelings from the lyrics, chords and the arrangements on the New Beginning CD wherever I go.