Guest Blog: "Start Somewhere – A Work In Progress" By Kathy Hart.

Today, Ryanhood performed at the Vineyard. A concert that showcased Ryanhood’s broad-based appeal to all.

I fell in love with Ryanhood during the 40 Days of Faith season at my church – the Greater Boston Vineyard – and I play their CD on a loop in my car, randomizing the sequence. Somehow the songs always speak to me.

In the crowd today were people of all ages, races, classes, ethnicities, and national origins. The dynamic duo played a song they called a work-in-progress – “Start Somewhere” – that to them was a song about the birthplace of their collaboration (which began in Boston, MA after moving Tucson, AZ). For me, as I looked out at the diverse audience, “Start Somewhere” spoke to me about all personal life journeys, which are all “works-in-progress.”

Ryan and Cameron delivered the song with the balance of strength, vulnerability, and authenticity that’s their signature as artists. As they sang, I reflected on the similarity between different kinds of beginnings. A birthplace. A birthday. Both ways of defining a commencement; the epitome of which is captured by the first two lines of Ryanhood’s “The World Awaits.”

Moving to a new place, on a fresh venture, echoes the newness of being born, with the weight of the past and the uncertainty of the future added in; all of which “Start Somewhere” voices beautifully.

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Cameron’s notes:
For an in-depth review of this show, including photos and a full set-list, check out the Ryanhood Reader, courtesy of David D.

We’ll bring you a recording of “Start Somewhere” as soon as we have something hi-fidelity enough to share. For today, (and we reserve the right to change anything we want!) here are the lyrics:

Start Somewhere

He was living in Boston in the morning when my plane arrived
I hopped a red-eye straight from graduation day
And we took the green line in past Kenmore and the Fenway
Down to Qunicy Market where we gave our disc away

These memories, blur like the trees, behind the snow

If anybody told you, anybody told you
What you gotta go through, what you gotta go through
You have to start somewhere
You have to start somewhere

We were playing the subways
Where we laughed and learned to harmonize
Under Downtown Crossing where you couldn’t hear the sound
We had to face our fear no one would ever hear us
But we learned to sing our song when no one was around

Now, the songs we sing, run underneath, the life we know

If anybody told you, anybody told you
What you gotta go through, what you gotta go through
You have to start somewhere
You have to start somewhere
If anybody doubts you, anybody doubts you
What you will amount to, what you will amount to
You have to start somewhere
You have to start somewhere

Teaching songs at nighttime just to get by in the wintertime
He found this girl and he just knew right away
From Brookline into Back Bay, we all made our way to Cambridge
Across the Charles, where my little brother stays

He is living at Next House, and we’re flying from the West Coast now
For a sold out show at Harvard Square
We step out on the stage