ifitbeyourwill S06E11 • Octoberman

A fall day, a fresh cup, and a songwriter ready to open the door. We sit down with Octoberman’s Marc Morrissette to trace the line from teenaged mixtapes and first guitars to packed vans, TV placements, and the decision to build Octoberman as a fluid, long-haul project. Marc shares how four songwriters in Kids These Days created abundance and how the quieter, folk-leaning material found a real home once he stepped into a looser, more personal frame.

The heart of this conversation lives in process and in the pivot points life hands you. Marc walks us through his writing ritual—constant note-taking, big demo batches, and letting the best ideas rise—then shows how trust shapes arrangements when bandmates write their own parts. We dig into Shoots and why he abandoned the click track for the warmth of two-inch tape, capturing performances live in the room. The result is a record that breathes: wood, wire, and the human timing you can feel in your chest.

There’s a deeper current here too. After stepping back for family and losing his mother suddenly, Marc found proof of her quiet belief—Octoberman CDs in her car, a scrapbook of clippings—and channelled that grief into a creative surge. Half of Shoots sprang from that renewed momentum; the other half came from forgotten demos on old hard drives, bringing vivid character songs and narrative vignettes that expand the album’s voice. We talk Canadiana roots, Harry Nilsson nods, and why names like Roger and Marla can pull a listener closer.

If you love indie folk, live-to-tape warmth, and honest talk about how records actually get made, you’ll feel at home. Press play, meet Marc’s world, and then tell us what you heard—your favourite track, a line that stuck, or your own story of stepping back and starting again. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves analog recordings, and leave a review to help more ears find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Season Six Launch;
• 0:33 Meet Octoberman And The New Album;
• 2:01 Early Influences And First Gigs;
• 4:01 Kids These Days To Octoberman;
• 6:10 Lineup Changes And Long Partnerships;
• 8:16 Splitting Indie Rock And Folk Voices;
• 9:36 Songwriting Workflow And Demos;
• 12:06 Band Chemistry And Arrangements;
• 14:28 A Pause, Family Life, And Momentum;
• 16:14 Grief, Mother’s Influence, And Renewal;
• 18:20 Why Shoots Went Live To Tape;
• 20:17 Old Hard Drives, New Stories;
• 22:06 Character Songs And Canadiana Feel;
• 24:21 Touring Plans And Next Projects;
• 26:02 Gratitude And Closing Reflections

Transcript

Octoberman: 0:14

She hasn't seen him in a lifetime. She hasn't dreamed of him at night. But when she wakes up in the morning.

Chris: 0:31

Okay, good. Welcome back, everyone. We are season six here at if itbeyourwill Podcast coming to you uh from a beautiful sunny fall day in Quebec, Canada. And I'm just reaching to our neighbors across Ontario border. I have uh Marc Morrissette from October man, who just put out an absolutely stunning record called Shoots. Just dropped not that long ago, so it's still hot off the press. You can go and get yourself a copy, which I recommend going to the band campus there as well. And I'm hauling Marc in today to uh talk about kind of his musical journey, but also we're gonna pay uh close attention to this great record that he created. I just want to know all the little details, a little nitpicky details about how it came to be. So, Marc, thanks so much for taking some time out of your day and uh joining me here to talk about uh your music.

Marc: 1:22

Well, thanks so much for having me, Chris. It's really nice to meet you.

Chris: 1:25

Yeah, it's been a real pleasure. Uh so Marc, let's uh let's dive back in time a little bit. Uh I'd love to know like uh how all this started for you. Uh now I know it's hard to pin it to like, okay, this happened and then it all happened. But were there some moments that you can recall when you were, you know, growing up, teenage years, going up into your 20s where some experiences or chance encounters kind of started to make this idea of being in music a reality.

Marc: 1:58

For sure. Yeah. I'll maybe I'll just go back to the teen years since you you you referenced that. I I have an older brother, three years older. And that's a huge sort of secret weapon for people that nerd out on music, just having access to whatever they're listening to and at a later stage in teenhood. And so he got me, and he's a real music lover and a musician as well. So he got me into like pretty early, like into you know, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Government Underground. And then I sort of found my own way to uh a lot of stuff like Sebadough and Dinosaur Jr. built later built spill and pavement was always big. So I could sort of ended up marrying both of those worlds when I finally bought my own guitar at 17 and started basically learning how to play a lot of the songs that I was listening to. And that was a good start for me. I never actually took formal lessons, I just played with friends and learned a lot of other people's songs. And I was always sort of writing and and you know, drawing, and I was always creative before having access to an instrument, and even like I had keyboards and stuff, and I would sort of mess around with those. So it really sort of it was this sort of gravitational pull. And then in terms of the moment when I started sort of sort of playing out, is I was going to university in Waterloo, Ontario, and I started playing locally there. There were some local compilations. Everyone would submit a song. I started doing that. And I'd yeah, uh, Waterloo is about an hour from Toronto, and so I started playing there as well regularly. And then life sort of brought me out to the West Coast in Vancouver, and I met some musician friends there pretty quickly. Some of them I had met earlier in my my Ontario days that ended up relocating as well. But I already had a project called Kids These Days that I was more of a bedroom recording project, and I was recording sort of playing under that name in Toronto and Waterloo, as I mentioned. But in Vancouver, I started a band called Kids These Days, and we had a lot of momentum, especially when I look back on it. We didn't we had no idea what we were doing, but you know, we we toured a ton, like we had some some a lot of energy. We were young, early 20s. We toured up and down the West Coast, all over Canada, New York City, played a bunch of shows there. And I think because we were so just just playing a lot and meeting people and and just constantly inspired, just good things started to happen. We ended up on you know much music and CBC and had song placements and you know, American TV shows, Canadian TV shows, and you know, featured in the weeklies and all of that and exclaim. So it was it was just like this natural snowball effect. And uh the thing about that band is there was four singer-songwriters, and so I had some really mellow stuff that I still that wasn't appropriate for kids these days, so I just started recording that on a four-track with my friend James, and then Kids These Days, one of the members left for for school, or he was moving into his master's and just couldn't couldn't tour anymore. So that immediately came to a crashing halt. And I had this, I had already recorded this side project, and I didn't know what to call it. And the first Kids These Days CD that I I recorded early on was called Octoberman, and so I just looked at that, I'm like, okay, I'll just call this Octoberman. And then I think I took all that momentum from that band and I just put it into like you know, a quote unquote solo project that I I I made a conscious decision that the membership would be fluid. Sometimes it would even just be touring solo, just for you know, logistics and economic reasons. But sometimes, you know, local shows it'd be like eight or nine of us. So it was really all over the place. And and I'd say that was the sort of synopsis of of the launching of the project itself.

Chris: 6:02

And Octoberman's first release that that's on Bandcamp anyway, these trails are old and new. You said that there's always a varying cast of characters. Uh were some of those members that came in with these this first early recording, did they maintain throughout? Did you did they did they appear in shoot?

Marc: 6:20

Like did that continuum, that line lineage well they so that's a good question. So interestingly, some some of the kids these days, actually almost all the kids these days members are on uh the first couple of Octoberman records or albums. And uh but what happened is I in 2008 I moved to Toronto, and so that sort of necessitated a lineup change. And so I'd I'd already met Marshall Bugo, uh, who he was playing in another band that I was touring with in Europe, and uh we we we vibed as friends, and so he started drumming with us, and then uh Tob O Diaz de Bonilla, who he's he filled in on bass when we were touring with uh a band called the FemmeBots, a great band called the FemmeBots. So so yeah, so that oh yeah, they're so good. They're such good guys and such a great creative, inspiring, interesting band. So, anyways, I sort of had the rhythm section, and then my friend Ciel, who played who's playing with me in Vancouver, he moved to Toronto at the same time. So that that's where that sort of continued with a different a different uh rhythm section. And then I'd say the band, you know, we started playing with JJ Ibsen in 2011, 2012. And so JJ Tavo and Marshall have been, you know, for a you know, the last uh 13 years or so. And then my friend Annalise, who has done some recording with us since like around 2014, she's now uh playing as well and playing shows with us and recording with us. So it's it's been pretty when you look at 20 years, it's not the same folks as I said. It was sort of meant to be membership flexible, but yeah, it's been pretty steady when you think of the history of most bands, I guess.

Chris: 8:04

Absolutely. And what how do you how did you kind of break off from the kids these days in the sense of you said you had these slower, kind of more uh you know, indie folky songs that were coming out of you? Was it pretty obvious right from uh as you were penning those songs that this was going to be something that would be a part not a part of the band that you were in at the time? Like you had this vision of okay, I think I need to branch off and and put my own songs forward.

Marc: 8:35

Yeah, it was more that I I just had the songs and they were yeah, I guess I'm a little bit I wouldn't say hyper, but yeah, I just for some reason when I get a batch of songs, I I I kind of want to record them and release them just to get them behind me. And so kids these days was more I'd say more indie rock for lack of a better word, than these songs. These songs were more folky. And so I didn't even want to like pitch them and try to like add a dimension to kids these days. I just was like, okay, I'll do these over here, and then I'll bring songs with a bit more, I guess, yeah, either a faster tempo or like a bit more, a bit less folky to that project. But then that project ended. And so then my second Octoberman album, Run from Safety. There's some Kids These Day songs that just you know, we didn't have a chance to record them that ended up on that album. And that's that's sort of like closer to what Kids These Days sounded like. And I guess I was part of Kids These Days, so it wasn't a crazy departure. Oh, really interesting.

Chris: 9:34

And Marc, what's your process? Like, how do you how does a song come to you? How and I'll add on to that. When a song comes to you, when do you know I want to keep pursuing this or you know, and I'll put it with a batch of songs that I want to record versus I'm gonna shell this one because I'm just not there yet with it. Like, how do you approach your songwriting? And and is it can it be that black and white when you know you're onto something versus when you're not?

Marc: 10:01

I I find this to be a super interesting question. And uh a lot of my songwriter friends will ask that to each other because it's it's a fascinating to hear how everyone works. I don't really have a set process, and in fact, I've I've tried every way of writing a song. I don't think there's been a way that's been you know better or worse. It's just it just happens to be how it unfolds. But I'm always writing. But I I I really like to work, as I sort of mentioned, like uh I want to finish a project. So if I have like too many songs accumulating, I want to like pick the best, you know, what I do is I my my process is I'm writing all the time, I I collect them, but then when I'm ready to work on a record, I demo all of them. And that's where I'm I'm finalizing arrangements and keys and you know lyrics. And so once they're all demoed, I usually have a sense of which ones I think are the strongest, and I'll I'll send those to my bandmates, and then we'll just rehearse a few times to get you know the rhythm and the tempos finalized, and then just book studio time and and and play as a band as much as possible. And then there's room to add stuff afterwards to sort of color it, add some textures and uh and finalize it from there.

Chris: 11:14

So it's not you're not bringing it to bandmates like here it is. There's there's influences and their personalities seep into it as well. But I mean, you know those personalities just because you guys have been playing together for so long. So you must already kind of know, all right, he's gonna add this to it, or it's gonna like does it is it work in that way a little bit?

Marc: 11:34

Yeah, no, for sure. I I basically wholeheartedly trust and know them, as you mentioned. And I I don't like to dictate what their parts sound like. So everyone writes their own parts. And I will I will have ideas for instrumentation. Like there were some songs in the shoots demos where I sent them to the bandmates. I said, I said, Annalise, I'd love for you to play banjo on this one and accordion on this one. And I already know she plays those instruments really well, and she's also a producer, and so she would know where to fit them in and and what would work with these songs. So I was never concerned about that. But there were ideas I had for guitar lines, lead guitar lines that I I just demoed myself. So then when the rest of the members heard the song, they're like, okay, well, Marc's already got an idea there, and then so I won't bother writing a line for that song. I'll I'll add one over here, I'll add a part over here. So there's a little bit of both happening, but I would never tell someone how to play their own instrument or their own.

Chris: 12:37

But if you had a line that was integral to the overarching song, I was talking to somebody the other day, and he's like, Yeah, like, you know, the Guns N' Roses song, Sweet Child of Mine, you know, like you're not gonna go and change that line, you know, the guitar line, because it's like that's the song. You know. He saw it in that way as well, where certain, you know, almost like the instruments where it was another voice or another, you know, integral part of the song that you just wouldn't know. You can't change that. You know, it has to be like this, you know. Exactly.

Marc: 13:14

Sometimes the line is just there, and yeah, you're right. It's hard to do it. I wish I wrote a guitar line as good enough is that one as a child of mine, but uh such as life.

Chris: 13:24

The first song off of shoots is pretty darn close. I mean, it's such a great song, Harry Nielsen. The song that you the is the the opening. I mean it's got a great line on it. It's very subtle though, but it's there and it just threw out, and it's like the foundation I find of that song. The guitar line, which is just so I want to talk about this, but before we jump into that, uh you are a prolific songwriter, like your catalog is massive. You've written and recorded, you know, hundreds of songs. And uh you were chugging along, and then 2024 hits, right? You put out the record, let me just get it right because I want to make sure. What happened? What more, what more, right? 2024 or 20. Oh, 2014. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then things kind of got quiet for you. And then stuff only came out a little bit, you know, multiple years later. Do you mind if I ask like what what was that pro like what happened with with the musical journey at that time where it had to be kind of uh halted a little bit or or reduced um in a way?

Marc: 14:29

Yeah, no, that's that's an it's an obvious question, and I totally appreciate it. So basically, li like the easiest way to answer is life happened. I I mentioned when we were sort of bantering earlier, I've got um two two kids. So uh yeah, I'd say they were a big part of it, and yeah, you know, just you know, having to pay a mortgage and you know, new responsibilities. I just, you know, and also just energy and momentum. Like I'm I'm big on momentum, and I just had none of it. I I and also when I when I put out What More, What More, and even you know, the last songs, What More Do You Want? I honestly thought that might be the last Octoberman album, and I was totally fine with that.

Chris: 15:10

And was and touring was that a little bit okay. This this was the project, it had its legs, so we had some fun.

Marc: 15:19

It's it felt like it. And I honestly uh I had zero interest in touring anymore at that point, especially, you know, also when you're you're about to start a family. And for me, it's like why put something out if you can't really promote it or put you know, do anything to to actually uh finish the cycle. But what happened was I I kept writing. I kept, you know, I I would jam sometimes with my bandmates. I played the odd, I I think I only played one show, so not the odd show. Somebody asked me to open up for them. And then what happened was in January 31st, 2022, my mom suddenly passed away. And uh it sort of flipped flipped my my life upside down. And it was interesting. So I was going through her car, and you know, you you do all the stuff to to you know as an estate obligations, and it it it blew my mind like she had all all my romance CDs in her car, including one in the player, and and then I was going through her stuff and collecting, and she had a scrapbook of every little piece of press we'd ever got and and every show poster I'd ever, you know. I lived in Vancouver for a while, so I would just give her stuff or send her stuff, and you know, it was a way to you know show her what I'd been up in. So she was a fan and a supporter. And then I was talking to my brother, and he said, She told him once, I forget how this came out, but she told him, Oh, I will always make music. And in my mind, I'm kind of like, well, it felt like a a way to kind of work through the grief was to like, I just decided I'm like, I'm gonna write and record an album. And it happened really quickly. As I mentioned, he died like at the end of January. We'd finished rec writing and recording it by the end of May. But there was some stuff added later. It was like really a whirlwind. And I kind of wanted to just get it done. And then after that, it felt so good to be making music again and hanging out with my my my friends in that capacity and playing the odd show. And and also the other reality, my kids have grown up a bit, so you know, uh, I can actually pull it off. The diapers are gone. I go back to exactly. I I always laughed when I saw that sad man Galen album cover. It's called Diaper Island. So I was on Diaper Island for a bit, and so finally I was no longer marooned. And and so yeah, again, that momentum word I had so many songs over that nine period where I didn't I didn't I didn't put anything out. So I I had the sort of like gift of you know, at least you know, at least two albums worth, and then now I've got another couple albums worth as well. So yeah, and and for for having the songs, I'm not too precious about stylistically or or what works together. It's just where I'm at in that moment. What's yeah, you know, what's the batch and uh what what are the strongest 10 or 12?

Chris: 18:09

I like your you know go get it mentality, you know. It's like it's here, it's happening, I'm not stopping. The gas is going. Like, let's go. I love it's the only way really it's done, right? Like, or or it's always like, okay, well, next week, or we'll see, or like, no, it's doing, we're going.

Marc: 18:26

It's true. I sorry, I'm this might be too much information, but like I had this other, you know, scary thought. Like, you know, when someone close to you dies unexpectedly, you're like, life is short. Like, yeah, and and and I was just like, okay, I want to like do this now while I can. And so there was definitely like all of that swirling around. So totally, totally.

Chris: 18:46

So then come shoots. I mean, I want to drill down on this a little bit because it's such a great record. And I've read that the recording method that you use, you you know, it was live click tracks, analog, like it it sounded like you wanted it to feel like a live performance in a way, and you wanted all those kind of like subtle hisses and pops and things when you're recording live and on analog. Was your what was your mindset in approaching this record that way?

Marc: 19:18

Yeah, it's that's a that's another great question. So we had recorded all analog and almost all live for an album called Fortresses that came out in 2009. And and I'd so I've recorded every every different way, and it and for There You Were that came out in 2023, it was everything to a click track. It was yeah, we recorded in a studio and then home studio a bit afterwards, but it was very digital and and lots of you know plugins and all that stuff. And it sounds great. I I really like how it turned out. The the fellow that helped us out uh produce it, his name Chris Springer, very talented, awesome guy. So I loved how that turned out, but I I I couldn't help but want to do the opposite on the next record. So so no no metronomes, no click track. We recorded literally the two-inch tape, and it was we're in the room staring at each other playing the way we would if we were either playing on a stage or or in a rehearsal space. And I just there's there's something about that that is a bit intangible, but I like the sound of you know analog live recordings. I listen to a lot of old music, and that's how that was just the way they, the only way they could do it back in the day. So yeah, that was the mindset going in. Obviously, and then you take advantage of the tools. A couple of the members didn't even set foot in the studio and they just had their parts in the uh home studio and internet, and that was largely geographic limitations. Uh we're just we're we're scattered all over Ontario, so it's just like you do what you gotta do. Yeah, and everyone's busy.

Chris: 20:53

We are lucky too to have that capacity nowadays, which we didn't have when say your first record came out, you know, like exactly it just weren't available, so it has made making music in that collaborative process much easier on artists.

Marc: 21:08

Um exactly. I'm not against that at all because it's it's a fantastic uh totally tool and opportunity. And so yeah, I love I loved taking advantage of both in this record. Right.

Chris: 21:19

And Marc, these are like half songs that you had had kind of in on that bookshelf or in your catalog that you hadn't touched yet, and then others were new songs that were were penned for this record in particular. That's exactly right.

Marc: 21:34

Yeah, so half of them were songs I wrote after There You Were uh had been finished. And then the other half were me going through, I found a bunch of old hard drives and just out of fun, I just listened back to all the, you know, there's folders just called demos and like all different years. And I was just curious what the heck I was up to back then. And I found some songs that I just I don't remember writing, I don't remember recording the demo, and they they kind of stick out like they're different stylistically than a lot of my songs, and especially compared to the newer stuff. So I I took advantage of that, and you know, I might have changed some some some of the structure or the lyrics or uh the arrangements, but I so yeah, the other half were those. And interestingly, they were a lot of them were storytelling songs about characters conversations, yeah. And and again, those are the songs I don't remember writing. So I don't remember what inspired them. Was I watching some weird movie or I have no idea? But I that that that was a fun, a fun aspect as well for me to combine both, and it gave a bit more variety to to the record itself because it's like okay, it's not just a narrator kind of waxing on about you know what what's going on in 2020s. Uh it's just like a little bit of vignettes, so to speak.

Chris: 22:52

I like your I like the songs that have characters in them, you know, like Roger and Austin and you know, the first track, Harry Nielsen. I mean, they they they are so authentic and it's fun to kind of listen along to the story that you're telling us rather than you know, it's kind of like camp, you know, sitting around and telling stories around the campfire using guitar and stuff. And I find that that authenticity too, and it reminded me when I saw you on AG just doing your acoustic songs, you know, you'd put out a few the last month or you know, leading up to the release. And uh those songs that you just singing there uh have that same essence that the record has. And I just find that uh amazing, and I don't know how you did it, but uh the personality and and the heart of the songs just carry through whenever you sing them because oh cool. Well, you're saying who you are. But I've really, really enjoyed um revisiting those songs and kind of listening to the stories and the storytelling as it goes through. And uh my uh next question is did you have the the uh library songs that the songs from the past that you have on this record now, and those informed you as to what songs you wanted to write, or were you doing it kind of you had those and then they didn't really influence the songs, but then they just kind of fit how did did it happen accidentally that that the song it was totally accidentally, yeah.

Marc: 24:23

I just I I always just have a batch and they happen to be in the same batch, and then I'd already written the new songs when I found those those demos and and I decided to pad the options with those as well. And but it is funny, like I I played the album for my kids, and when there's people's names, they don't they don't they don't really fully understand the concept of like you know you make up a story, and so there's one song and and I'm I'm pretending that my wife just left left me for a guy named Roger, and I'm like kind of like feeling sorry for myself, and they thought it was hilarious, and they're just like who's Roger? I'm like, there is no Roger, and I I hope there isn't a Roger that emerges in my in my real life. And if I meet a guy named Roger, I should maybe look at him a little suspiciously, but uh so yeah, and then there's one about this woman named Marla, and they thought that was hilarious too. So it does it does change the way someone listens to a song, and I I appreciate that. And I listen to a lot of you know old country songs, and there's a lot of that, right? It's people's names, and just it just draws you in in a different way, I think.

Chris: 25:25

So what is coming down the pipe over the next year or so, Marc? You know, apropos to Octoberman, are you are you gonna do some touring or or are you gonna jump right back into the record thing?

Marc: 25:39

So we're just uh there's only two shows on the books right now. We're playing Toronto and Ottawa, and then hoping to add more. And again, it's it comes down to logistics. Montreal would be great, yeah. It's not far, and and yeah, we always love playing there. It's been uh it's been a while too. Oddly, a lot of my friends from Montreal have moved to Ottawa and Toronto, but I still have some friends there, so it would be fun to make the trip. And then I'm I'm gonna start on the next record. I'm gonna go into that demoing stage. I've already got the batch written, and so I'm gonna start demoing and no no deadlines or anything, but that that'll be fun just to kind of start something, start something new from there. And there was one other thing my friend Ryder told me he thinks I should record a covers album. And and my response was like, Well, I have I already have my own songs written, so why would I you know spend spend time recording someone else's? But then I was like, okay, why why is it either or why can't I just do both? So I might I might and I've always recorded the odd cover and just put them out as singles, but I thought it might be a nice challenge to uh to have that idea as a s a side a side burner. Just because I do enjoy you know that aspect. And his example was Willie Nelson Stardust, where like I think that was Willie Nelson's breakthrough to a certain degree, and and just how you can people don't do that as much anymore, but it is kind of a a cool, cool new way to think of recording an album. Doesn't have to always be your own.

Chris: 27:11

I like that. I think you do great, you know. I call your your music Canadiana, not Americana, Canadiana, because definitely has that Canadian essence to it as well. And talking with you, I mean, we're we're comrades from the same country, which is always a treat to have, Marc. So I want to thank you first off, just thanks for taking some time. I know it's a busy time and kids, family, music. So I really appreciate this little carve out that you've given me and given the listeners to hear about your music, how it evolved and where it's going. I'm excited for you. I really love this record. It's one of my no-skip records, you know, the pitchfork do the no-skip. This is one of them. I just listened to it over and over again. I also had to stop it. Like, I didn't want to wear it out, so I'm like, okay, you're not gonna listen to it for a couple days, and I listen to it over and over again. So I appreciate that you put that out there for us. And uh I wish you all the best. I would love to continue this conversation too. It's been really, really fun to hear about these stories. And I identify with a lot of what you're saying. Uh being a family man and uh dealing with music and family is not always easy, so I appreciate you taking some time.

Marc: 28:29

Well, I I'm truly honored, and thank you so much, Chris, for all those nice things and just for wanting to talk to you today. It's uh it's been super fun, very nice to meet you. And I've been listening to the podcast and I enjoy all your gets into what I find super interesting about like people's process, and I find that interesting.

Chris: 28:48

Thanks for including me in and not in person, but you know, virtually. Yeah, I mean this is the next best thing, I guess so. I'll take it. Thanks so much, Marc.

Octoberman: 28:57

All of that in the proper place to be showing the lines of time. Yes, beyond it for the beyond skies, we want I'm not to fall down I'm not to fall down for you So what the hell do you even recall On how to never gain the world that hates itself Ivy Nelson said it back Ebbe Nelson said it back Early Nelson said it best I can't live you know the rest The secrets of the open sea stand They bury us and carry us beyond here So further up beyond the skies we wander How not to fall down How not to fall down How not to fall down?