We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

I Come From

by Melanie Ida Chopko

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Magic to hold in your hands as you listen. Featuring photos of my great-grandmother Ida performing in the Sells-Floto Circus in 1920, lost and rediscovered one hundred years later in my family genealogy.

    Includes unlimited streaming of I Come From via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 6 days

      $11 USD or more 

     

1.
LYRIC I felt the cold wind pick up that day 
 Blowing from the shadows 
 Ringing every bell in the way
 A song for all that's still broken 
 Truth only ever partly spoken And with the darkness growing stronger 
 We could turn away no longer In spite of you
 We will continue
 We will continue to love life more 
In spite of you
 We will continue
 We will continue like never before Even if you never approve
 The tides will rise each morning
 Dawn will break with light streaming through 
 And roots will crack through every wall
 It’s only time before they fall Who could keep a fog from fading? 
 Who could keep the sun from blazing? In spite of you 
We will continue
 We will continue to love life more 
In spite of you
 We will continue
 We will continue like never before And though you’re the front of every paper
 We are made from something greater
 And what if we came here to right every wrong 
 What if we came to fill the sky with our song? 
 We don’t know the end but we know who to be 
 A change we want to see In spite of you
 We will continue
 We will continue to love life more 
In spite of you
 We will continue
 We will continue like never before, never before In spite of you
 We will continue
 We will continue to love life more 
In spite of you
 We will continue
 We will continue like never before
2.
If It's You 03:20
LYRIC When I’m feeling blue All I want to do Is lay my head down and be with you Three whole years have passed Since I held you last One day here at home Quiet and alone My mind was filled with colors Like Big Island sunsets A peace I can’t forget Is that you surrounding me? Here to tell me you were free If that’s you If it’s you can you stay Red and brilliant blue My secret gift from you You know my mind is usually busy I still have your chair Would you meet me there Now it’s all a weight All most every day My body needs to feel your colors I’ll be coming soon I’ll get to be with you Is that you surrounding me? Here to tell me you were free If that’s you If it’s you can you stay If it’s you can you say If it’s you can you stay While I’m on my way Can you stay
3.
I Come From 03:30
LYRIC I come from Apples and maple sugar On my tongue Tongues of fire around me I come from A god who ordered Right and wrong I come from Snow high above my head Frozen numb And frozen speechless always I come from A body scared of Temptation But somehow beside you I made my way to the light And somehow someway I came to be Happy joyous free Miraculously Lost my faith All my questions rising In the way The way split down the middle Lost my home The only truth I’d ever known Every song I knew was wrong Burning in my throat so long Verse by verse unlearn them all And it locked my jaw Held my breath as I fall But somehow beside you I made my way to the light And somehow someway I came to be Happy joyous free Somehow I promise You’ll come to be Happy joyous free
4.
PSA 02:33
LYRIC I like open
 Open seas and open window panes 
 How your brown eyes open at my name 
 I like the jars I that I don't have to bang
 On the edge of the table 
I don't need the struggle
 And babe I was able
 To stick around and see
 What came from you and me
 Just don't ask me please
 To open, open my bed I like complex 
Long division on the restaurant bill 
 Is just my special kind of skill
 I like the twenty-six ingredients
 I'd use to make mole
 And lemon curd soufflé
 The night of your birthday 
I’d rewire your TV
 From notes in Portuguese
 But just don't ask me please 
To re-complexify my bed I don't like your type of enlightenment 
I know it would be to my detriment 
 'Cause I already did that experiment Monogamy your dreary word
 Of straight jackets and chains absurd 
A caged and captured flightless bird 
 With feathers clipped and song unheard
 But disembodied rhapsodies 
Hide Peter Pan proclivities 
 A spiritual mythology
 To rise above biology 
It’s not my practice to unlearn
 The wisdom when my stomach churns 
 My cheeks go flush with aching burn 
I won't lose it for this concern Because I like freedom 
Free from nights awake and worrying
 And free from endless processing 
 Oh I let the sleeping dogs just lie around
 And wake up without you 
In mornings of clear blue
 And baby it’s still true 
That I'll be sad to see
 That I'm the one to leave
 But it won’t work for me
 To let your freedom take my bed
5.
Kaleidoscope 04:47
LYRIC Truthfully I didn’t think 
I’d write another one of these 
 'Cause we were what I’d prayed for 
 Almost two years on my knees Probably we couldn’t know 
Love would mean reshuffling 
 To become wider people
 Picasso forms and coloring And even though you’re gone now 
I hold close to me
 That kaleidoscope
 Of shining tones I remember our last fight 
In the house built on the bay
 The smell of salt and coffee 
We sat on the bed I’d made How your left eye always squinted 
Listening even to my fears 
How we were like an exhale
 Your nose right there beside my ear And even in those moments
 The light stood out to me 
 A kaleidoscope
 Of shining tones I know you well enough to know 
 You probably really had to go 
I know us well enough to see
 We weren’t so broken And even after all this time 
I can’t help believe 
In our kaleidoscope
 Our shining tones Those shining tones
6.
Waking Up 03:27
LYRIC Quite contented I can be
 In my solitude happily 
I can see stars at night
 Despite the city lights Lately winters gone too long But thankfully you came along Now that I’ve found my muse I’ll tell all the world the news Waking up next to you I finally feel the spring I hear a radio across the fire escape A world away But I want to waste the day In your arms, different Somehow familiar too Your clothes on the floor along with mine Still intertwined As in my mind Someday I may forget This morning sun The hand of fate For dishes in the sink Your laundry left once more on the floor When I do, come to me And hold me close again As when the cherry blossoms filled the air Along the square And I woke beside you there As when the cherry blossoms filled the air Along the square And I woke beside you there

about

I come from the wildest dreams of my ancestors, their courage, their unlived lives, their best possible choices and mistakes. I come from stolen land and stolen bodies. From the violence and lie of whiteness, the fear at its root.

I come from a long winding path back to myself, my center, my soft and wild heart. I come from the quiet miracle of willingness, and the gift of everyone who has loved me into being.

This is what I know to be true: When we make space for all of it - the joy, the grief, the anger and yearning - we are vast, powerful and strong. We are whole.

credits

released September 2, 2021

MELANIE IDA CHOPKO - voice, piano, acoustic guitar
MAX JUDELSON - acoustic bass, cello (2)
GENEVA HARRISON - percussion, drums (1, 3, 6)
JORDAN PERLSON - percussion, drums (3, 4)
COLIN HOGAN - organ (1)
ILUSHA TSINADZE - electric guitars (3)
JAMES SHIPP - vibraphone (2)
JEAN ROHE - vocals & shakers (3)
KOFI Q - background vocals (1)
MOOREA DICKASON - background vocals (1)
NIKBO - background vocals (1)
NORA STANLEY - tenor saxophone (4)

All songs by Melanie Ida Chopko, except "If It's You" written with Renee Kirk (1953-2018)
© 2021 Piney Ocean Music / ASCAP

PRODUCED by Melanie Ida Chopko & Jean Rohe
Vocal Arrangement for "In Spite of You" by Moorea Dickason
Piano Arrangement "Waking Up" by Carl Oser

ENGINEERED by Jay Pellicci at New Improved Recording, Oakland
ADDITIONAL RECORDING by Moorea Dickason at Raze the Maze Studios, Ashland, OR and Jordan Perlson at Saw Room Studios, Nashville
MIXED by Layla Moheimani at Women's Audio Mission, San Francisco except "If It's You" mixed by Kelley Coyne & Veronica Simonetti
MASTERED by Piper Payne at Infrasonic Sound, Nashville
PHOTOGRAPHY by Brooke Porter
SPECIAL THANKS to Moorea Dickason, Rachel Efron & Briget Boyle

CREATED in unceded Ohlone, Bay Miwok, Cherokee and Lenape territories. Learn more at www.nativeland.ca

PROFOUND GRATITUDE to all the musicians and engineers who helped me complete this record, mid-pandemic. Your excitement, encouragement and badassery are such a gift. Most especially to Jean, my dear friend and co-producer, for holding up the lantern along the way. I love you.

To my fellow creators, you who treasure the magical, the absurd, the beautifully unproductive, the untold. Thank you for your friendship, and how you inspire me to greater courage and devotion to my craft: Paris Hurley, Carl Oser, Max Judelson, Nikki Bonsol, Morgan Maudière, Dean Stuart, Kate Mink, Grégoire Vion, Neela Miller, Ilusha Tsinadze, Cal Brett & Roxy Rawson, Moorea Dickason & Jean once more.

To the writers at the Oakland Salon and on Tuesdays, especially Rachel Efron, Joe Kornfeld, Eleanor Kleiner, Ali Boyce, Paul Heumiller, Aaron Wade & Clay Blevins. Thank you for listening with such care and keeping my songs from getting lost in the woods.

To my family: Mom & Dad, Aunt Jan & Uncle Wayne Morse, Kimberley Morse, David Cicerchi, Neela Miller & my friends in recovery. To the teachers and healers who support me in my hero’s journey, the journey out of my head and into my heart: Missa Bayne, Anastacia Nutt, Shilpa Jain, Marguerite Chandler and Moorea once more.

To Monson Arts/The Libra Foundation and The Freight & Salvage, for the gift of time and space. And to my elders and guides, especially Brené Brown, Chani Nicholas, Desmond Tutu, James Baldwin, Joanna Macy, Jenny Odell, Julia Cameron, Morihei Ueshiba & Rebecca Solnit.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Melanie Ida Chopko Asheville, North Carolina

Songwriter Melanie Ida Chopko writes “little jewels,” exploring our relationship to the natural world and to one another. Her songs are as interested in the world around her as the one within herself, lush in melody, lyric and arrangement. If Joni Mitchell, Sufjan Stevens, and Ben Folds were neighbors and made music on Sundays, it might sound like this. ... more

contact / help

Contact Melanie Ida Chopko

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Melanie Ida Chopko recommends:

If you like Melanie Ida Chopko, you may also like: