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Language:
English
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Published:
2022-02-23
Words:
213
Chapters:
1/1
Kudos:
6
Hits:
31

The Way Back Home

Summary:

A collection of my songs, inspired by Supernatural.

1. stars (a prayer): Dean prays to Cas. Written as a coda to 8.16.

Notes:

I've been writing Supernatural songs since I started watching the show a decade ago, but just realized the other day that I could be uploading my songs to ao3! Some of these are old, and some are new.

All songs will include a link to Spotify, download options for mp3s (and sheet music if I've made it), lyrics, and in the notes at the end of the chapter a little write-up of when/why I wrote the song, as well as some of the reasoning behind my compositional choices. If you like, please consider leaving a comment - I love talking about music!

Thanks, and happy listening! If you want to find more of my Supernatural stuff, you can check me out at jessicareaper on tumblr.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

stars (a prayer)

Listen:

Downloads: mp3 | sheet music coming soon
(right click to save-as)

Lyrics

I once saw you looking at the stars
and you told me they were friends that you once knew.
Well, I've been looking at the stars
Wondering if one of them is you,
Wondering if one of them is you.

'Cause all my days turn on your name,
and all my prayers are echoes of the same three words -

I need you,
and I miss you,
and I, I love -

In the middle of the night
I see your face in shadows on the wall.
But there's this voice inside my mind,
says maybe you're not coming back at all,
maybe you're not coming back at all.

'Cause all my days turn on your name,
and all my prayers are echoes of the same three words -

I need you,
and I miss you,
and I, I love -

I've kept vigil in the dark -
I am praying, and I need you to hear

...

Well - I'll be looking at the stars
hoping that no new ones will appear,
praying that you soon will be right here.

'Cause all my days turn on your name,
and all my prayers are echoes of the same three words.

Notes:

So at the end of 8.16, Dean sits on his bed and says this very heartfelt prayer to Cas, saying that praying is ‘the same as begging,’ but that he’s doing it anyway, and asking where Cas was, and there was this loaded, silent moment where he looks around, looking to see if Cas will show up, and then he doesn’t. And after that, there was a break of a couple weeks before 8.17, and that’s when I wrote this song. It’s based partly on that prayer, and partly on this headcanon going around at the time (pre-Empty, way back in 2013) that the grace of dead angels is what makes the galaxies in the night sky, and each galaxy is a dead angel. I dragged my heels on recording it because I wasn’t very good at the guitar part, so I didn’t get it recorded during the break, but when Dean dropped the “I need you” in 8.17 I just about lost it because the song that I had just written was all about how ‘I need you’ and ‘I miss you’ are just permutations of ‘I love you.’

So I kept meaning to record this song, but I just never found the time, and then I stopped watching the show, and figured ‘stars’ would just be a little something for me and no one else. But then I rejoined the fandom in the wake of everything that went down in November 2020, and figured it was finally time to record this.

I didn't have a lot of specific compositional choices that went into this one, but I knew that I wanted the music to be subdued, peaceful, but at the same time, unstopping, a counterpoint to Dean's stops and starts in his prayer. He's unsure, even frustrated toward the end, and he can't get the words out, but the music finishes his prayer for him nonetheless.