#filk #mythology #opera #jazz #personwithpiano #acousticonetake #story #exvangelical #deconstruction #finished_it This song was inspired by the tale of Tam Lin, the old Scottish story about Janet who rescues Tam Lin, a mortal held hostage by the Faery Queen. I shifted the focus to be on the restriction Janet's parents give her not to go into the woods (the wild) and specifically to focus on the strain of the mother-daughter relationship. I've got #mamatrauma as @laurenoxford calls it. While I'm not a girl, and I never was, I was raised as one, with all the expectations and training that came with it. I'm finding I want to explore that in songwriting more and more. I wrote these lyrics at Samhain four years ago and could never find the door to set them to music. This week I went through a bunch of lyrics I've never written music for and these shouted at me. I heard the opening line and when I sat down this morning it was a flood, and there was this opera/jazz journey I had managed to capture in recording! This is definitely one of those songs I'm going to have to learn from myself in order to perform again.

(mother) Janet, my love Please don't wander into the woods The woods are no place for a girl that is good Creatures live there, in the shadows between Watching you step 'neath the wide branching leaves Creatures who watch from the shade and the dark With hungry desire to pierce through your heart Janet, my love Don't wander into the woods The woods are no place for a girl that is good

(Janet) Mother, I've wandered now into the woods The woods full of sunlight and starlight and should You see who lives there in the gloss and the green You'd never more warn me of what might be seen Creatures who frolic in glades full of sun Desiring only to chase down the fun Mother, dear, I've wandered into the woods The woods full of sunlight and starlight and good

(mother) Janet, how could you? You've ripped out my heart! The woods have now tarnished your pure clean white start These creatures, they lie! There's no gloss and no green I despair to imagine just what you have seen Creatures? Ah, demons more likely they be Chasing all innocents out of pure greed Janet how could you? You've ripped out my heart The woods have now tarnished your pure clean white start

(Janet) Mother, I found my true self! She was out in the woods! I held onto her, hard as ever I could I finally feel the way you've always described But I had to find it outside your boundary lines I'm wild and I'm free, powerful in my right And I've discovered there's no reason to fear the night Mother, I found my true self! She was out in the woods, I held onto her, hard as ever I could

Daughter, my dear one, here at life's start I'll bless you with words from the depths of my heart Follow the streams, the sky and the birds And don't fear to challenge all that you've heard There's things that I know, and there's things that I don't But I trust you to know your own wills and your won'ts Daughter, feel free to wander far from the woods Our world has no need for more girls that are good