ISABELLE - Lyrics and Video

Leave a Comment on the Video HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7xo0u_O8W0

It's been a long time coming, but a friend had long requested this song be posted along with the full version of the story and the lyrics. I guess I've recounted this many times at shows, but I will say it here. Isabelle was my "grand-mere" when I lived in Switzerland for a time. She was a widow who had loved her husband very much, and bided her time living the simple (but sweet) Swiss life...tending her garden, cooking, keeping house. In many ways I felt that I was her preoccupation, to make life a little more fulfilling. She truly was a grand-mere - she made sure I had everything I needed for long trips, she made breakfast every day and even put together dinner parties for my friends (one for Thanksgiving, too, which they don't even celebrate), she taught me French and took great pains to help me perfect the language after dinner every night, she drove me to places every once in a while, and if I didn't tell her where I would be, she would sometimes get frustrated with me. She took me to art museums and theatre events with friends, sometimes even driving hours to get to an exhibit - Basel, Lausanne, Geneva. 

Sometimes I would catch her staring out of her window, over the vineyards and towards the Jura mountains, stroking her one-eyed cat Pepette's fur while nursing a cup of mint thesan that rested on the coffee table. I knew in these moments that she was missing her husband. And even though her children sometimes visited and she had adorable grandkids, she didn't feel complete without him. 

Anyway, that whole story is part of the inspiration for this song. I tried to capture that melancholic sentimentality and that feeling that life had somehow passed someone by, though not necessarily in a negative light... but just that this is how life is many times, and that it's wasn't easy for me to feel connected to her life because of my age and because I haven't been through much of what she had. Somehow, I guess, writing this song was a cathartic way to try and make up for that disconnect.

"Isabelle" (by Alfa Garcia. Copyright 2008.)

Isabelle waits by the window, her eyes meet the sky in the afternoon glow.

She sees the sun even before it comes when the mountains give it away.

Down past the street is a church and a vineyard

when she was a child she'd run through.

Now she sits still while I play on piano

the sun no longer moves.

Isabelle, tell me again.

Oh, I remember your stories so well.

How could I ever know?

For you the world lives on in echos.

Often I'd find her asleep in the garden

the one-eyed cat slept by her feet.

And in a moment she'd rise and the old woman watched

The sun took my hair, she'd say

"Colors are what make a girl, and this world is so fragile so hold on for life.

You have the heart of a child." And I understood then that she was mine.

Isabelle, tell me again.

Oh, I remember your stories so well.

How could I ever know?

For you the world lives on in echos.

Here where the sun meets the sky

I can hear your lullabye...

"Cherie, toujours je t'aime. Pourquoi il n'y a rien de toi?

Je reste toute seule

La nuit et l'aube

c'est moi sans autre... jusqu'a la fin du monde..."

Isabelle, tell me again.

Oh, I remember your stories so well.

How could I ever know?

For you the world lives on in echos.

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