April 2020
St. Louis, Missouri
I wrote a song after driving by 115 Holmes. It had been painted since I saw it last.
I met Judy when I was 8 years old. She taught piano in her home. We began lessons immediately. We preceded to meet once a week for the next 8 years. When I was about 12, my mom came to Judy and said we could not afford lessons anymore. Judy, in her elderly state and with every other option, offered a barter, which remained in place for the next four years.
So it went, Judy picked me up from school once a week. We'd go to McDonald's for tea and apple pies. She'd drive us to her house and we'd have a piano lesson under the afternoon sun coming through the South-facing window in her living room. My sister would then take the school bus to Judy's house for her lesson and during which, I’d do housework for Judy. I did her laundry, made her bed, polished silverware, watered plants in the yard. I became very familiar with every room and closet of her two-story, pale gray house. I became familiar with the way the large sycamore in the back yard looked from every window. It was during this time she gifted me her mother’s 1710 violin.
Charlie was Judy’s husband who passed away from illness long before I met her. She never took down his painting studio in the basement of 115 Holmes. I heard story after story about Charlie and their two girls. He was still a part of her after so much time.
Judy was a constant to me. A rock. She was essential to the development into the musician and person I am. The last time I saw her (she passed away in 2019), I told her that I would be grateful if I grew old to be like the person I saw in her. And I mean it still. When I was younger I remember writing in notebooks that I wanted to be like Judy when I grew up.
I decided to dub her house ‘blue’ in the song because that is the color I associate with her. She drove a blue car. She had one blue eye. Her dining room was painted blue. An art deco blue topaz ring used to live on the piano I sat at every week.
Listen to Blue House
Lyrics