Dead Songs in Depth

    
I Will Take You Home
w: Barlow m: Mydland
AGDL: http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/take.html
LASF: http://www.whitegum.com/songfile/I1WILLTA.HTM
  

    
I Will Take You Home 
Lyrics: Brent Mydland
Music: Brent Mydland

Copyright Ice Nine Publishing; used by permission.

Little girl lost in a forest of dreams
It's a dark old wood, and it's damp with dew
Hoot owl hoots, for a moment it seems
Something big and cold got a hold of you
Just when everything gets scary
Daddy's coming round for his darling again
Hold my hand with your little fingers
Daddy's loving arms gonna gather you in

Ain't no way the Bogeyman can get you
You can close your eyes, the world is gonna let you
Your daddy's here and never will forget you
I will take you home
I will take you home
Gonna carry you back home in my arms
I will take you home

Long is the road we must travel on down
Short are the legs that will struggle behind
I wish I knew for sure just where we're bound
What we will be doing, and what we're gonna find
Wherever we go, there will be birds to cheer you
Flowers to color in the fields around
Wherever we go, I'll be right here near you
You can't get lost when you're always found

Ain't no fog that's thick enough to hide you
Your daddy's gonna be right here beside you
If your fears should start to get inside you
I will take you home
I will take you home
Gonna carry you back home in my arms
I will take you home
  

    

Bbrian Bradberry writes:



on Father's day ,1990, Brent sang this at Shoreline, with his daughter
sitting on the bench with him ;if not the last performance of the song,
certainly the last in California. A very kitschy event- not expected at a
dead concert, but we all knew Brent was different, didn't we? Respectfully
submitted;Brian Bradberry(formerly of Pacifica,CA)
  

    
too bad he wasn't strong enough to deliver on the promises in the
lyric.
  

    
It was, nonetheless, a very sweet moment, one that made subsequent
events all the harder to take. There were numerous cute little 
Mydland and Barlow girls in evidence, and it was one of those
perfect little Sunday-afternoon Dead show moments.

I always did like the Sunday shows.
  

    
Barlow had this to say in his book "Mother American Night:

"The song I wrote with Brent that I liked best is the lullaby "I
Will Take You Home." I wrote the whole thing - melody, words, the
works - as I was going up the driveway of his house. Then I sat next
to him at the piano as he played it for the first time. It was about
his daughters and mine and a promise I needed to make for both of
us. That whatever happened, we would be there to take them home.
Only Brent didn't live to do that."
  

    
Thank you for that. 
  

    
Received this wonderful note today:

If you update the book please include the matching William Blake
poem “Little Girl Found” because the lyrics include both poems.
Mostly “Found” I would think. 

But I must give credit where credit is due: my daughter Hannah
Manhoff! I was reading your book and became quite depressed about
the William Blake poem “Little Girl Lost” from “Songs of
Experience.” I told her about the song “I Will Take You Home” using
the poem. She immediately informed me that you can’t read the poem
on its own but it must be read with “Little Girl Found” from “Songs
of Innocence.” Blake often had societal issues to point out.  Anyway
it was in reading the parallel poem that I realized that though the
first line is from the “Experience” poems the rest is from the
“Innocence” poem. So I assume the lyricist read both poems.

Thank you for your kind correspondence.
Dawn Crutchfield 
  

    
And here is "Little Girl Found" by William Blake:

All the night in woe
Lyca's parents go
Over valleys deep,
While the deserts weep.

Tired and woe-begone,
Hoarse with making moan,
Arm in arm, seven days
They traced the desert ways.

Seven nights they sleep
Among shadows deep,
And dream they see their child
Starved in desert wild.

Pale through pathless ways
The fancied image strays,
Famished, weeping, weak,
With hollow piteous shriek.

Rising from unrest,
The trembling woman pressed
With feet of weary woe;
She could no further go.

In his arms he bore
Her, armed with sorrow sore;
Till before their way
A couching lion lay.

Turning back was vain:
Soon his heavy mane
Bore them to the ground,
Then he stalked around,

Smelling to his prey;
But their fears allay
When he licks their hands,
And silent by them stands.

They look upon his eyes,
Filled with deep surprise;
And wondering behold
A spirit armed in gold.

On his head a crown,
On his shoulders down
Flowed his golden hair.
Gone was all their care.

'Follow me,' he said;
'Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep,
Lyca lies asleep.'

Then they followed
Where the vision led,
And saw their sleeping child
Among tigers wild.

To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell,
Nor fear the wolvish howl
Nor the lion's growl.
  

    
geez