Jennifer Haase: Music

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The idea for the song came from a real piece of furniture owned by my first guitar teacher, David Boye. He had this lime green chair in his apartment where he would have me sit if we were checking out a CD or something we'd recorded together during a lesson. He'd always say "Now sit in the Listening Chair..." because it was the best place to hear his stereo in the room.

I'd only written the first verse when I played it for Steve Hanson during one of my guitar/mando lessons with him (yeah, I had multiple guitar teachers. Didn't you?) back in Lincoln NE in the mid 90's. The lyrics are all mine, but Steve wrote the chord progression for the chorus and fancied up what I'd already written for the verses, which are chords I stole from one of Shawn Colvin's songs but I can't remember now which one. I finished the lyrics and melody over Steve's chorus chord progression and we both loved how it came out. In fact, Steve's Nebraska-based bluegrass band "The Toasted Ponies" recorded this song on one of their records, too.

Listening Chair
Lyrics by Haase, Music by Haase/Hanson

Nothing's sharper than the edge of regret
Like digging at a splinter that you cannot get
Wish I may wish I might
still find you there
In your listening chair

Everything I did not say seemed so loud
Rising up inside me
screaming to come out
Held back by emotions
that you could not spare
from your listening chair

chorus:
The world keeps spinning by so fast
Like someone shook the hourglass
And sent it spilling through the atmosphere
Now the air is filled with doubt
and these words that tumble out
Won't reach you soon enough to hear
or even sound sincere

I begged for your attention like a loaded gun
but playing the victim only made me one
I must have been quite a cross to bear
for your listening chair

chorus
...or make their message clear...

If a tree falls, will it make a sound
Will its story scatter on the ground
and like me whisper of despair
to an empty listening chair