Song Story: Taking Care

I wrote this song in early 2019 after a medical appointment in one the University of Kentucky hospital buildings. Sitting in the waiting room, I looked around at the typical scene: the median age of my co-waiters was upwards of 60, and some were much older. There was another familiar demographic in the room: the out-of-towners.

Full lyrics are at the bottom of the post.

In Kentucky, if you need to see a specialist for some particular issue or if you've exhausted local medical resources, it often means a trip to Lexington and a visit to a UK facility. This can mean hours of travel, overnight stays, and--in addition to any medically-induced worries-- the anxieties of being in a bigger, busier, and quite unfamiliar place. These nervous travelers, seeking care at the big blue flagship often arrive to their appointments very early, full of nervous energy, and often alongside their significant other. 

Looking around that day, I noticed a handful of single, older apparent out-of-towners waiting to see the medical team, and a few of them were wearing wedding rings. I know that their partners may have been working, busy, or simply uninterested and that not every story has the most dramatic context imaginable, but it occurred to me that some  people come this long way by themselves because the person who might have come with them is no longer around. On its face that made me feel sadness and pity, and I HATE feeling pity. I don't want to receive it, and I don't find it to be a very compassionate emotion to feel toward other people either. 

I had arrived quite early myself, and eventually I needed to use the bathroom. As I went to wash my hands before leaving the very new, maximally ADA-accessible bathroom, I found no knobs, nor even an obvious hands-free water sensor. It took me the better part of a minute with foam-soaped hands to figure out how to get water to come out of the faucet. I was strangely flustered by the experience, and inexplicably embarrassed. I didn't really give that much thought until later. After my appointment, I helped a woman in a wheelchair enter the building via a poorly-calibrated automatic door. I mainly just stood taking up space in front of the sensor. These each became key images for the song.

The more I thought about that day, the more my pity was supplanted by deeply uncomfortable empathy and relatability. I was going through all kinds of anxiety of my own at the time about the first real hiccups in my own aging process, some strange health issues, a sensation of time passing very quickly, a new generalized fear of change and the unknown, and a position uncannily described in two songs I had been listening to a lot.

From Julien Baker's "Hurt Less"
I used to never wear a seatbelt
I said I didn't care
What happened
I didn't see the point
Trying to save myself
From an accident
...
See, I've started wearing safety belts
When I'm driving
Because when I'm with you
I don't have to think about myself
And it hurts less

From Tyler Childers' "Feathered Indians"
Lookin' over West Virginia
Smoking Spirits on the roof
She asked ain't anybody told ya
That them things are bad for you
I said many folks have warned me
There's been several people try
But up till now, there ain't been nothing
That I couldn't leave behind

What does it say when your only reason to live, or to want to live is someone else? What if they go away? Do you know when time is passing you by, or do you just feel the symptoms?  What do the unsexy moments of loving, losing, and then trying to find a reason to keep going look like? (For an incredible related song, see Jason Isbell's "If We Were Vampires")

For the more romantic bits I borrowed some from my own memory and from my imagining one version of how my life will someday end. In this story, the relationship is a romantic one, but the feelings are FAR from exclusive to these kinds of relationships (both for me and for many people I know).

I am really proud of this song because it feels true and vulnerable, which is something I don't always embrace in my songwriting. It's scary.  

Taking Care (Brett Wolff)
Drove three hours in my old truck;
wasn't sure that either of would make it
but here we are.

A military discount on
towels and frozen biscuits and all the TV
you care to watch.

Appointment starts at 8am
I don't know where I'm headed yet
So I'll leave the hotel and quarter past 5.

I didn't say it at the time,
but when I felt your hand squeeze mine, I knew you knew
I was scared

The automatic doors and faucets close so quick
I try to keep up, but the keeping up makes me sick.
I've been taking care like I told you I would.
I've got a feeling that the news I get today, isn't good.

They sent someone to sit with me, 
to talk and keep me company.
A pretty little college girl.

She wasn't half as pretty as
you the day when we first met
or the day we said goodbye

A paper gown to keep me warm
in the belly of the beast that reads
the darkness deep inside.

I bite my lip and close my eyes
Like waking up, I realize
I'm ready. Take me home.

The automatic doors and faucets close so quick
I try to keep up, but the keeping up makes me sick.
I've been taking care like I told you I would.
I've got a feeling that the news I get today, isn't good.

It's not the Lord who kept me fighting 'til today.
But He gave me you, so I guess that it's all the same.
I told you that I would try to soldier on, 
but today I'd say taking care means getting gone.