A Single New Star

One winter’s night, I was locked out of a gig in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. I wandered over to the beach, a couple of blocks away. As I stared up at the night sky, hanging over the dark Gulf waters, this song was born. Years later, it was turned into a sermon by Rev. Walt Brewer at the Austin Center for Religious Science.

When I was a young man, I used to go walking at midnight.
Some things appear clearest to eyes that aren’t blinded by daylight.
I’d look to the sky and I’d search for a sign
That would show me the road to be taken,
Till a single new star rearranged a whole constellation.

Now I am a sailor with ocean on every side of me.
And the stars look so vast, they are frightening and yet they are lovely.
There’s times that I thought I would drown in this darkness,
No map and no compass to guide me.
For there’s no night that’s as dark as the one that’s inside me.

We look for a path, for a path makes the wilderness safer.
We follow our maps, but our maps are just made out of paper.
It’s only our minds that keep drawing these lines,
And it’s only our hearts can erase them,
When a single new star rearranges a whole constellation.

Our watches we set by the sun, but our hearts run on moontime.
We wait till some miracle comes, turning night into noontime.
But the only true miracles I’ve ever seen
Are those sudden and silent occasions,
When a single new star rearranges a whole constellation.

Now I’m not a young man, but still that old midnight keeps calling.
I still follow a star, even when all my stars are a-falling.
Till the stars fade from view, and the whole world seems new
In the light of the morning that’s breaking.
When a single new star rearranges a whole constellation.

Words and music © 1994 by Steve Brooks and Frog Records
(512) 440-7668
[email protected]
www.stevebrooks.net

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