What We Carry | Emotional Soul Blues About Love & Memory - Eli Rowan

[Verse 1] There are things I gave away Things I lost without a choice Things I thought I’d leave behind me That still answer in my voice There are habits from your laughter Little phrases that I say Ways I hold a coffee cup now That I must’ve learned your way I used to think that letting go Meant leaving nothing there But some love doesn’t stay beside you Some love Becomes what you carry [Chorus] We carry what we loved In ways we never planned In the stories that we tell In the kindness of our hands We carry what we loved Long after it is gone Not as chains around the heart But as something We walk on We carry what we loved And somehow We carry on [Verse 2] There are rooms I haven’t entered In a house I’ll never see But I still know where the light fell At a quarter after three I can hear the old refrigerator I can see your sleeping face Memory has funny ways Of keeping architecture in its place Maybe home was never walls Maybe home was being known And maybe some of what we lose Still teaches us How to become [Chorus] We carry what we loved In ways we never planned In the stories that we tell In the kindness of our hands We carry what we loved Long after it is gone Not as chains around the heart But as something We walk on We carry what we loved And somehow We carry on [Instrumental Turn] Low Hammond, brushed drums, warm blues guitar answering the vocal melody. [Verse 3] I’ve met people since you left me Who will never know your name Still, they’ve met a little of you In the man that I became In the patience I have learned In the way I listen now In the things I finally understand That I couldn’t understand then somehow So if love leaves anything behind Maybe this is what it leaves Not a monument Not a promise Just a different way To be [Bridge — nearly bare] I don’t need to hold the ashes To remember there was fire I don’t need to keep the doorway To remember my desire And I don’t have to stay broken To prove something once was true Some of what I carry forward Is because I once had you [Final Chorus] We carry what we loved In ways we never planned In the stories that we tell In the kindness of our hands We carry what we loved Long after it is gone Not as chains around the heart But as something We walk on We carry what we loved And somehow We carry on [Outro] Not everything we lose Leaves us Some things Stay Differently