by Savannah Thorpe
If there were a better guy to feature on a blog called Stage of Life, I’d have to question my own existence. Connor Garvey is guitar-toting folk singer-songwriter with one mission in life: to encourage what he calls “intentional living.” Between the people he’s met and the places he’s been, Connor has spent his life building up a repertoire of stories and life experiences that he incorporates into his very personal, touching songs. Now that he’s been singing stories and poems for a few years, he’s found that he find the most joy in writing and performing songs with meaning that encourage people to live intentionally. He noted that many of his songs deal with doing what you can in the here-and-now, and then moving on to wherever life takes you, be it a move, a loss, or the discovery of a new passion. “It’s all about transitions,” he said. “Life doesn’t last forever, so you’ve got to just keep moving through it.”
Though Connor himself is currently in more of a “Living on your own” stage, he continues to remember and draw on his past stages of life. After spending his high school years in New England, his parents moved down to Arizona, and he went off to College in Oregon. “I come from a family of travelers,” he said, “so going all over the country never bothered me.” Having come to know people from the East, West, North, and South, he has discovered something he’s come to love about northerners. “Because they have to deal with more inclement weather, the people [of the north] really have to rely on each other more and be better neighbors.”
I stumbled across his song “Pencil Frame” on a free sampler, and what caught my attention was the simple story of life and love it tells. I asked Connor how he came up with this tale of a couple who found a run-down house and made it into a home full of love and memories. He giggled a bit and recalled some friends of his in Summerville, Massachusetts on whom he based the song. His friends, a young couple at the time, bought a house in need of some love and prepared to turn it into a home fit for a family. The song spends time moving through the various stages of this couple’s life, from “living on their own” to “raising children” to “empty nesting,” as well as tracing the transitions the house goes through with them.
A special song with a heart-warming story, I present to you “Pencil Frame” by Connor Garvey.
There’s an empty frame about head high
except eggshell paint there’s nothing in side
but oh, what great potential, so much can fit
in this frame of pencil once you commit
A young couple moved in a real fixer-upper
made renovations, good love and healthy supper
but oh, what great potential, so much can fit
in this frame of pencil once you commit
And once a year they’d climb the stairs to the unfinished room
they’d grab a chair and sit and stare and wonder what to do
to put a mirror or a window in their frame on the wall
or nothing at all
So they got engaged and they chose a date
for June the 4th why should they wait?
because oh, what great potential, so much could fit
in this frame of pencil once you commit
The family grew and they built new walls
and little feet ran down the halls
but oh, what great potential, so much can fit
in this frame of pencil once you commit
Chorus
Now they all grew old as all things just do
halls and walls and little shoes
kids moved out on their own
And they left the folks in the unfinished home
Now they spend their time atop the stairs
with the same sight from the same chairs
but the empty frame each day it changes
as their life slide show rearranges
And oh, what great memories, so much they fit
in this frame of pencil without touching it
Check out his website here: http://www.connorgarveysongs.com/
And listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBSIrGAmh7s
