Story Behind The Song

'House in the woods' is based on the nearly two thousand year old idea of 'home is where the heart is' first put into words by Roman author Pliny the Elder. The main statement of the song is that you can feel familiar with yourself in any place may it be of great beauty or not and that it is possible to to transform an environment which first looks hostile like a degenerated house in the middle of nowhere into 'your' home. Based on the fact that the lyrics speak a lot about nature I decided to give that song a folky feel by using an open C tuning (CGCGCC) on the guitar and playing that song in a mixture of 3/8th and 6/8th time signatures. The chord progression itself just uses diatonic chords with some tensions coming from the use of the open tuning. It took quite a while to figure out the used chord progression. In an earlier version both the vers and the chorus were based on the same chord structure. This structure was then just used during the chorus while using different a different structure in the verse. Once the overall feeling for the song had been set it wasn't that hard anymore to find the right lyrics to get the story I intented to tell.

Lyrics

House in the woods
Torben Tietz

Vers 1:
And I comfort myself in this nasty house
with walls being shaken and covered in mould
winds through broken windows that carry me to sleep
I wake up to the sound of the mice and their beep

Pre-chorus:
And all that I adore is here
feelings of hope appear
no darkness, no pain and no fear
for now

Chorus:
And I'd bow to the horses, I would pray to the trees
and in front of my house I would sink on my knees
I would spread my wings and learn how to fly
the house in the woods under a clear blue sky
and I'd sing oh, what a beautiful place to be me

Vers 2:
And I'd take all the colours I see in my soul
start painting my house my skin won't stay bold
among all the people that I ever loved
no one will not fit and no one will be shoved

Pre-chorus

Chorus (x2)