Walking
Straight
Looking back, it’s easy
To understand all of the signs
All of signs written on the
Palm of my hand from the beginning of time
But in the moment
Cracks in commitment
And hearts haunted by
Silent resentment
Somehow never seem all that bad
Thank God I kept walking
Walking straight ahead
Through fire, through the flood
Through the darkest night of my soul
Through storms, through the cold
Clinging ever tighter to hope
Love ain’t found me yet
God, I keep my faith by walking
Straight
Close your eyes and you’ll begin to see another field
Another field of thought beckoning to be revealed
Full moons and long-lost lovers
Hands filled of four-leaf clovers
Everything real starts as a dream
All ya gotta do is keep walking
Through fire, through the flood
Through the darkest night of your soul
Through storms, through the cold
Clinging ever tighter to hope
Love ain’t found you yetI keep my Gotta keep your faith
By walking straight
Straight
I’ve come to believe songs are time travelers. They get written at a particular moment by particular people about particular things, but can pop up years later thousands of miles away as fresh as the day they were made.
“Walking Straight” made its first appearance while I was living in Oxford, England. My Voice Memos app—the archival trove of modern singer-songwriters—shows two files recorded on October 17, 2022. The first is a four-minute garbled exploration of wistful feelings and phrases like “I don’t understand” and “just keep walking.” Then, a few hours later, there is a second memo, a genuine first draft. My voice is delicate, unsure. Searching with hope but clearly lost. A chorus lamenting, “the past for me is dead, a giant sleeping peaceful…”
Skip to April 2024, and a new, empowered version of the song pops up in my Voice Memos. This time there is a backing band, and I sound bold, decisive, committed. A changed chorus proclaims: “Through the fire, through the rain, through the darkest night of my soul…”
This is the version my dad heard and decided was a hit. He asked me to play it at his retirement service in November 2024. With my brother backing me up, the song became the anthem of my father’s transition into retirement.
Less than a year later, my father entered hospice with aggressive stage four pancreatic cancer. On one of the slow days sitting by his side, my mother asked me to play a concert. I like to believe my dad’s soul traveled with the songs for a bit as I sang. To little house show nights in Boone with his grandkids gathered around. To three-hour-long bar gigs at the Grandover Resort. To the retirement service where he was honored for a job well done. To the car speakers humming as he and my mom made one last move together for a retirement that would end before it began. To the CD release party in Winston-Salem when his back hurt—cancer silently creeping in—but he came anyway.
My dad always wanted to know what my songs were “really about.” He had endless curiosity about my metaphors. Yet he never asked me to explain what I meant by “walking straight.” I think he knew that the walk of life is never straight. Like a river, it’s twisted and winding. But through it all, we can still choose to move forward and to go on living even when the ones we love pass away. On hard days, I like to imagine my dad is the one singing the song to me: “All you gotta do is keep walking straight ahead.”
Enjoy this AI remix of Walking Straight. If people love it, maybe I should go into the studio to create something like this? - XOXO Tiffany
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