That Quiet Place (Feel Like a Whale)

Finding that centered place inside that endures.

Words and music by Sarah Pirtle, © 1989, Discovery Center Music, BMI

Lyrics

1. Sometimes I feel like I am a whale

guns and harpoons are closing on me

trying to keep me from my home.

 

Chorus:

In that quiet place where nothing can harm you.

In that quiet place we carry in si-i-ide.

The heart of the world. The heart of the world.

 

2. Sometimes I know that there is the ocean

holding her big arms open for me

and she whispers, you can rest.

 

Chorus:

In that quiet place where nothing can harm you.

In that quiet place we carry in-si-i-ide.

The heart of the world. The heart of the world.

 

3. Sometimes I know that there is a whale

calling me out to ride on her back.

We go rolling high and low

 

Chorus:

To that quiet place where nothing can harm you.

In that quiet place we carry in-si-i-ide.

The heart of the world. The heart of the world.

Production: On the recording, “Everyday Bravery,” Joe Podlesney engineer. Lui Collins adds harmonies. This song also appears on Sarah’s first recording from A Gentle Wind called, “Two Hands Hold the Earth.” It was recorded by Gordon Bok, Ed Trickett, and Ann Mayo Muir on their CD, “The Heart of the World.”

The Story Behind the Song:

I wrote this song in 1979 while directing a theater program about whales for the Living Poem Theater. Members of the group painted a hundred-foot-long whale along the barn roof in order to comprehend its mammoth size. As we created poems and did research, the preciousness and wisdom of the whales became achingly real. I helped design an eighteen-foot puppet of a humpback whale that children could get inside and move, something which I visualized in a dream, inspired by the large puppets of Bread and Puppet Theater. During this time, I began to search for what it meant to be centered, to go within and find a place of inner safety, and this song was born.

The song can surface feelings about power and safety. Sixth graders at the Campus School in Northampton were asked by their student teacher Jason Anderson, what they thought of the first verse; he posed the question, "Does the songwriter feel like an actual whale?" One student responded:  "It's a metaphor. Sometimes you feel isolated, like everyone is out to get you."

Discussion: Where do you go and what do you do for comfort? This song can be used to explore the places which provide comfort, safety, or solitude. Use the basic pattern and tune to write non-rhyming verses of three lines to answer three questions -- what prompts you to seek comfort? Where do you go? How do you feel there?
e.g. Sometimes when I feel the world closing in,
I go to a willow tree by a stream
and I stand with the branches all around me.