Annika Jayne
Singer-Songwriter // Auteur-Compositeur-Interprète // Liedermacherin
There's No There
© Music and Lyrics by Annika Jayne
(Written on 7th May 2023)
There’s no there
There’s no place where
You can finally lay back
It goes on
It's never done
As you go and pack our bags
Each day is a new journey
On uncharted territory
Each day's a new beginning
with new uncertainties
You're dreaming of the day
When you think you made it
But that day's far away
As new mountains are waiting
Cause there’s no there
There’s no place where
You can finally lay back
It goes on
It's never done
As you go and pack our bags
Each day you're on a new quest
You never know what's next
But whatever happens
You always do your best
But when you feel you have arrived
It's likely a stopover
Where you can rest a while
But your journey isn't over
Each day we learn
And we go on
Three steps up, and two steps back
Yet we stay right on track
And there’s no there
There’s no place where
You can finally lay back
It goes on
It's never done
As you go and pack our bags
There’s no there
There’s no place where
You can finally lay back
There’s no there
Thank God, there’s no there
No place you can finally lay back
There's no there
There's no there
This is a song that has been in my drawer for a very long time and I only took it out now because I thought it fit perfectly with the concept I had unconsciously chosen for the album. The idea came from an essay by Mary Gauthier, A Letter To A Young Songwriter. It's still available here:
diymusician.cdbaby.com/music-career/letter-young-songwriter-mary-gauthier/
Like so many things Mary Gauthier writes about, this essay resonated with me and I took it to heart. In this essay, Mary basically says that if you take songwriting seriously, it's a job, not a dream, and that there's only the path, not the destination - there's no there. Even then I started writing the song but never finished it. But here it is now!