Places We Can’t Live

Places We Can’t Live

Places We Can't Live Single Cover

All of us have places we love to visit, but will never call home. These places may be exotic, wild and beautiful, but resistant to our roots. Von Bieker’s heart is spread among such places – the cool sandy shores of Vancouver and the stark high-desert of New Mexico. The deafening life of Manhattan and the graffitied walls of East Berlin. There are also smaller places – diners and bars that hold their appeal only so long as we visit just often enough. Lastly, there are emotional and spiritual places that we must visit to stay alive but would kill us if we stayed too long. Grief. Ecstasy. The valley and the mountain top. To live is to keep moving – always between these places we can’t live.

This song took on new resonance for Von Bieker during the Pandemic. Suddenly these places became impossible to visit except by memory, imagination and music.

Lyrics

Downtown roof
I can see two folding chairs
Escaping from the world up there
We are tracing constellations
Glow of the city lights
Below us in the summer night
And you’re saying it will be alright
And I’m starting to believe you

We carve out these spaces
Nothing left to give
Our finest moments
In the places we can’t live

Four person booth
I’m holding your hands while we wait
For a burger, beers and two sharing plates
Making plans across the evening
Blues on the Bose
Under table touching toes
Worrying about the kids back home
I guess this is how we push on through

We carve out these spaces
Nothing left to give
Our finest moments
In the places we can’t live
Places we can’t live

I picture your face
While the scenery keeps changing
And I’m in a place
Where the busy world is fading

We carve out these spaces
Nothing left to give
Spending our finest moments
In the places we can’t live

Places we can’t live

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