A Little Bird Told Me
But I don't want you that bad
I love Kasey Chambers’ voice and her song A Little Bird Told Me, resonates with me for its sincerity
“A little bird told me late last night
If I hold my breath and do everything right
You might come back
If I color my hair and I wear it down
And I make you laugh like a circus clown
You might come back”
I’ve never been in this situation myself. But it paints word pictures of stories I have seen with friends and family. I don’t want to share those in this post. I think this post should be about Kasey and about you, dear reader.
Kasey wrote an autobiography with the same title ‘A Little Bird Told Me, and the review says that she dealt with and talks about her inner demons that threatened more than just her career. I only discovered that today, but I bought a copy for my Kindle this morning because I would like to know more about her story and to support her buying her book.
Another of her songs, Not Pretty Enough tells a similar story.
“Am I not pretty enough?
Is my heart too broken?
Do I cry too much?
Am I too outspoken?
Don't I make you laugh?
Should I try it harder?”
But it’s not all bad. Kasey was raised on the Nullabor. The Nullabor is an area in Western Australia, which represents the quintessential ‘Outback’.
There is pretty much nothing there, between Adelaide and Perth where the temperature can range from freezing to 50 degrees C. Aboriginal settlements, the biggest sheep farm in the world Rawlinna station occupies 2.5 million acres, a desert road you might see on Outback Truckers and a train trip, one of many I would like to do one day, are features of a song that is one of my favourites.
“When it's quiet out here
A hundred miles away
You can hear the train on the line
The whistle blows just to break the silence
I wave just to break the time
I close my eyes
I think of runnin' water
I think of runnin' away
But the fires burnt to ashes
And it's darker than before
But I can see as clear as day”
When you listen to this song, you can’t help but wish you were lying there, watching the stars at night, after the fire has burned down. Listening to the lyrics, it’s no wonder that Kasey has multiple platinum and gold albums.
There are three things that characterize a great songwriter to me.
Authenticity.
Writing songs where the listener asks “How did she know that about me?
Being able to teleport you to another place and time, so that you can see through their eyes, feel through their skin, and hear that whistle blow.
Kasey does all of those things in spades.