This song is FREE for download on my music page. In exchange for the free part, please share it with a friend.

I'm hoping to begin work on a new solo album very soon, but while I'm caught up in the writing/planning stages of it, I thought I'd share this demo with you as a taste of what I've got in mind. Darwin Gross recorded some of my new ideas, and this take turned out quite to our liking. I was inspired to write Strange Summer Snow on a lovely hike in a Utah slot canyon, which then reminded me of a Walt Whitman Poem that I've always loved.

The particular excerpt of Whitman's Song of Myself is as follows, and my original song lyrics are beneath that:

Song of Myself

I too am not a bit tamed … I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air …. I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you

_________________________________________________________________

Strange Summer Snow

When I die won't you carry me up the canyons of stone
where the light echoes like the prettiest song--
and cast out my ashes, a strange summer snow
spinning down on the current that'll carry me home. 

And if you can't find me: look under your boot-soles.
Pick up a fist full and be at peace.

I'll water the almond tree, it's roots are my own--
mirror the branches, where sweet blossoms grow. 
Come and gather the petals, in the pale moon they glow,
Shaking down on the green grass like a strange summer snow.

And if you can't find me: look under your boot-soles.
Pick up a fist full and be at peace.

In a basket they're carried with wicker and wine
to give to a lover on her wedding night.
Oh, they're tossed like confetti, a new baby cries and moans
while everyone's barefoot and dancing in a strange summer snow

-written April 2009, recorded July 2009, released January 2010.  © Gabrielle Louise, ASCAP

Gabrielle Louise: R. Guitar, Lead Vocals, Songwriting 
David Rynhart: Lead Guitar, Vocal Harmonies 
Darwin Grosse: Engineering