This is the song I sang at French’s funeral. He heard it about two weeks before he died and it wasn’t finished yet. It was inspired by the story of a young man who was lost on a mountain, and I told French about him. “You have to finish it,” he said. I didn’t know I was really writing it for him.
FRENCH’S SONG
Out here in my garden
I made you a hole in the ground for a grave
It wasn’t anything special
Just some locks of hair that I saved
These are your remains
You walked up a mountain
All alone in the rain
Prayer flags and rocks they whispered
and called out your name
All of the tourists had gone
And there’s no place on earth you belong
They brought back your camera
And bits of a poem you wrote that you saved
Discarded post cards finished except for the names
These are your remains
Why’d you have to go?
I don’t know
I don’t know
You walked off that morning
But you left a trace
Your vanishing footsteps off to
some better place
But what’s lost can never be found
Now that you’re no longer around
Now I sit in your garden
And stare at the sky
Look at your rocks and your flowers
And I wonder why
Guess I’ll never know
But it’s too soon for you to go