Recurring Dreams, Songs, and Trespassing In My Childhood Home.

“I dream a river back to that love, I dream a river…….”

Little Alela on the back porch, French Doors mentioned in “The Rifle” behind me.

For years following my parents divorce and subsequent loss of my childhood home, I dreamt of wandering through the rooms of the house I grew up in. In the dreams, I was always afraid that someone would find me and tell me to leave: it was not my home anymore. Nightly visits and confused stumbling through the house were a frequent occurrence for more than a decade. Looking for answers, but finding no resolution for the loss, I’d visit again and again while I slept, waking up everywhere but the place that I called home.

The house with the red tin roof sat atop a hill out on Willow Valley Road in Nevada City, California. Scattered along the winding country road were scraggly digger pine trees growing in the red dirt, manzanita brush, wooden houses, broken down cars, rusty mail boxes, a moss covered hollow and a snow melt creek. I recall the warm wooden ceilings, and bright colored walls of the house. I can still hear the songs around the kitchen table, and still smell the purple lilacs that always bloomed on my birthday.

1990’s cats, Oreo and Butterscotch

My Mom sold the house in the fall of 2003, and it was in my San Francisco college dorm where I sifted through the cardboard boxes of my childhood. Things up to this point in my life had been stable, and I had grown up surrounded by love and music. But, every childhood comes to an end. My Mom had fled to Mexico, and Dad was living with his new girlfriend who was closer in age to me than him. My brother had started down a hard path of heavy drinking that he has thankfully begun to untangle in recent years. It wasn’t a great chapter for any of us. Once a tight knit and loving family unit, we were scattered like boats without mooring: untethered, and rootless. Those moody, fog-encased days in the city were the backdrop to my heartache, and I cried every day for the better part of that year. But, we all know the story of the Phoenix. Terrible as it was to lose my home and family and childhood, that loss was the very catalyst for my songwriting. I had to put my grief somewhere, and so, my journey of music began.

There are at least four songs written about the loss of my home and the recurring dreams: The Red Tin Roof, The Rifle, Suzanne, and Dream A River.

THE RED TIN ROOF; Forest Parade, 2003

“Cause my mother is down in Mexico somewhere, and I don’t know if she’s ever coming back. And my father, we talk on the telephone sometimes, but the wires they're not long enough to fill this hole. And, my brother, it’s nice to hear his voice, and reminisce about how we all used to live there, under the red, red, red, red tin roof.”

The Red Tin Roof is the first song I ever wrote. In a lot of ways, it tells the same story as The Rifle, but in different words. Both songs have a chorus that mention my mom, dad and brother. Listening back now, I remember the girl that I was when I wrote it. My voice and words are honest and deeply, painfully youthful. The lyrics plainly illustrate the loss of home with a melody that meanders as wildly as that winding country road.

Little Alela checking the mail

THE RIFLE; The Pirate’s Gospel, 2004

“Papa, get the rifle from its place above the French doors, they’re coming from the woods, oh, they’re coming from the woods! Mama, you’re running too, oh my Mama you’re running too! And, brother, I’m so sorry that you watched the paintings burn.”

The Rifle was a direct result the recurrent dreams. The song was actually dreamt, and written in a half awake state. I was traveling alone in the south of France, and awoke very early in a hostel full of other young backpackers. Barely conscious and still very much in the dream about home, I scrawled all of the lyrics of The Rifle into a journal in the half light of the morning. I promptly fell back asleep, and when I woke up several hours later, all the other sleepers were gone. I found the lyrics by my pillow, picked up my guitar, and the song came out of my mouth fully formed. It’s the only song that truly feels like it wrote itself. The chords and melody were there upon waking, and I was there to catch the thread.

And, in case you were wondering, my brother actually did watch the paintings burn. My mom is a painter and in her state of grief while emptying the home that held us and the past 20 years of possessions, she asked my brother to burn her paintings. He and some friends got drunk and made a bonfire. They threw the paintings on the fire, cried, and watched them burn.

Mom’s painting of the family shoes, which thankfully avoided the fate of the burn pile, and now hangs in the stairwell of my music studio.

SUZANNE; Wild Divine, 2011

“Suzanne why do we dream of it?
Suzanne, oh, dear, Suzanne…
Suzanne, why are we taken back?
Suzanne, oh, dear, Suzanne…
La di da, Alela…
Come see the corners of the property”

My mother’s name is Suzanne. In this song, I talk of a dream I had of creeping up and peeking through the vine covered fence of the house. Through the cracks, I saw my mom, but she was suddenly young: the version of mom from childhood. By the time I wrote this one, I was really starting to question why I was still being haunted by the house. The reoccurring dream was relentless at this point, and I was still processing it in song.

Mom in the kitchen, Pasty Cline likely in the Tape Deck

DREAM A RIVER; Looking Glass, 2022

“I dream a river back to that love, I dream a river….”

Here is where things take a turn toward the bizarre.

I wrote Dream A River after returning to the house a few years back. The song tells the following story:

In early 2020, an old friend sent me a real estate listing for my childhood home. It was on the market for the first time since my family had sold it 17 years prior. There was part of me that believed the solution for my loss and recurrent dreams was to just buy the house back, but my mom was understandably creeped out by the possibility, and so was my dad. My brother and I probably would have gone in on it, had we had the money, but alas, it was not meant to be. I did, however, need to see the house.

I flew down to California with my daughter Vera, who was six years old at the time. I contacted the real estate agent, but unfortunately, I heard back that the house had already sold. They wouldn’t be able to let me tour it. So, what did I do? I went to see the house anyway.

Vera and I drove out the winding country road past the scraggly pine trees and rusty mailboxes and up the gravel driveway of the house with the red tin roof. When we arrived, there were no cars parked, and the door was not only unlocked, but wide open. So, naturally, we went inside. There were a few cardboard boxes scattered in the entry way, but otherwise the house was empty. The new owners had not moved in yet.

Trespassing with Vera

We wandered through the rooms, just as I had in my dreams. I immediately felt at home inside the familiar walls I had grown up within. The paint colors were the same bold choices made by my mother in the 1990s. The bathrooms and kitchen remodeled by my parents now looked dated, but the same as they did in my memories. Vera and I snapped photos in the empty rooms, nervous that we’d be discovered. I was trespassing in my childhood home, and it was not a dream. We kept our visit brief, but I told Vera about the bright colors, and how my mom had hand painted all of the tiles in the bathroom and kitchen. I told her there used to be flowers painted on many of the ceilings, but my mom had painted over them before they sold the house. I told her about the music around the table, and about the time I stumbled down the living room stairs, dropping an apple pie face down on the carpet. We went out into the yard to find the first blooms of spring we had planted all those years ago. I pushed Vera on a swing that hung from the same branch of the walnut tree that held the porch swing we sat on for a family portrait when I was a child.

Same Tree, Different Swing

Just as Vera and I were getting into our car to leave, a truck rolled up the dusty driveway. An older man rolled down the window and sternly asked “Can I help you?” Fear rushed through my body: we had been discovered. Dreamscape and reality collided. I nervously told him that I’d grown up in the house and thankfully, he softened a bit. I did not tell him we’d just trespassed through every room in his house, but we chatted briefly and he was kind enough. I left this stranger in the gravel by my mother’s lilacs to begin his journey in the house on the hill with the red tin roof. We drove away, and I have not been back since, in the flesh, or in my dreams.

Thanks for going on this deep dive with me. There’s a story behind every song.

xoAlela

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