Home for Dinner
A mother alone after her son’s murder by police.
Words and music by Sarah Pirtle, © 2017 Discovery Center Music, BMI
Recording to be made in 2018.
Lyrics
G Em
1. Here’s the coat hook for your jacket
C D
and the place you kept your favorite shoes.
G Em
Here’s the chair you liked to sit on.
C D
That’s the chair that held me when I heard the news.
C G C D
Every time you went out, I feared someone would take you down.
C D Em. C D G
Now I can’t go on. I really can’t go on.
G
Chorus: Here is your bowl, I lift the ladle,
G Em C D
sit down right here, come to the table.
G Em G Em C D
It’s like a war. There is no winner. In these lynching times,
C D G
I want every mother’s child home for dinner.
G C G C G
Stand out: You can go either way. You can hide it deep inside you,
C D
let it burn you to the core,
C G C D
Or you can open yourself wider than you ever have before.
G Em C D
2. I am chopping, chopping onions. Chopping finer than they need to be.
G Em G C D
I am stopping, I am turning, I am witnessing eternity.
C G C D
I have heard the worst news that a mother can ever know.
C D G C C D G
Can you still feel I love you so? I really love you so.
Chorus
Em C D
Bridge: I am staring at the water that runs down this drain.
Em C D
... How many mothers will carry this pain.
Em C D
I don’t know what to do when I’m feeling this rage.
C D
How can official hands just turn a page.
G Em C D
3. I am breathing, simply breathing, and I cannot see what lies ahead.
G Em C D
Elders line my kitchen and they’re offering their holy bread.
C G C G
We spread this tablecloth with a heart ready to listen.
C G C G
There’s a place for everyone to come into my kitchen.
G C G
Standout: You can go either way.
C G C D
You can shrink yourself to ashes like a cinder in the night
C G C D
or use all the pain that’s burning and turn yourself to light.
Chorus
Production: To be recorded 2018.
Story of the Song
In 2014 I rewrote a song originally for Cindy Sheehan on the CD “Everyday Bravery” in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.