T. 15--A Castaway's Prayer

I wrote the words of this song one day when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed with school, music and theater activities, church activities, questions about the future, and anything else that would occupy the mind and the time of a 16-year-old high school student at the start of his junior year. I wanted to express my thoughts and feelings in words set to a melody I wrote based loosely on the melody of the hymn, “Where Can I Turn For Peace?” (#129 in the LDS Hymnbook). Indeed, that was the big question on my mind, and I expressed my questions and desires in this song. 

I called it a castaway’s prayer, thinking of the metaphorical sense of being left alone to one’s own devices. I imagined myself singing the tenor line, with the baritone line being sung by someone who truly understands and is willing to help (No one in particular, although I think I had God in mind because that’s who I turned to in such times). In the lyrics, I capitalized some words to provide emphasis and to convey a bit of concreteness to abstract ideas (Uncertainty and Doubt as places, Nothing as a more physical object, and emphasis on Friend). The process of writing this piece proved to be a good way for me to express my emotions without being overcome by them.