Brandi Carlile’s ‘You and Me On The Rock’ Lyrics Make It a ‘Queer Domesticity Anthem’—Her Wife Sings On The Track
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A sweet dedication. After being nominated three times at the Grammys, many people might be wondering: what do “You and Me On The Rock” by Brandi Carlile lyrics mean?
Carlile won five Grammys to date and was nominated for seven more at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for In These Silent Days and Record of the Year. In addition to fronting her own band, she’s part of the group The Highwomen, along with Amanda Shires, Maren Morris and Natalie Hemby. Carlile’s song “You and Me On The Rock” is nominated for Record of The Year, Best Americana Performance and Best American Roots song.
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So what is the meaning behind “You and Me On the Rock” by Brandi Carlile. Read more below to find out.
What is the “You and Me On the Rock” by Brandi Carlile meaning?
What is the “You and Me On the Rock” by Brandi Carlile meaning? Carlile tweeted the song’s meaning when the music video was released on June 29, 2022. “This song is for my wife, Catherine. When life changed during quarantine, I wrote this song and realized that even the most intensely self-identifying things can go away, but what my life is really built on, which is faith and my family, it’s a rock, and it’s solid.” In fact, her wife sings on the track on the re-release. The Rock is specifically a biblical reference to building homes on a solid foundation.
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In an interview with Variety, Carlile talked about the song’s popularity. “When the album came out, Joni Mitchell said “You and Me on the Rock” sounded like a hit. And Harry Styles texted me and said it was his favorite song … Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe that is indeed pop. To Joni, it would be popular. To Harry, it would be fuckin’ pop, you know? But I guess I want to be tried by a jury of my peers. I want the people in my community to let me know from their perspective whether or not I’m trying hard enough… I think it’s about where you cast your lot in life, and there are certain decisions that you make around who produces your album and what kinds of instruments you play and how you record it that maybe a person listening in a room [deciding] whether or not you fit into a genre wouldn’t necessarily get.”
She also talked about why it’s an important anthem for “queer domesticity”. “It’s not that LGBTQIA people should have to be overexerting ourselves to come across as more wholesome than anybody else, but when the culture wants to overtly sexualize and demonize queer people by calling us groomers and making out that we just live these lives of total sex-focused promiscuity, which couldn’t be further from the truth, a song like “You and Me on the Rock” is important, if you recognize it as an anthem of queer domesticity. It’s about building your house on a foundation that you can be happy in. It’s about the right to not be alone for all of your life. And to those that would kind of dismantle that dream and that inalienable human right, I think that song is a protest song, just in its sweetness.”
Of course, Joni Mitchell definitely has a direct influence on the song when she was producing the song with frequent collaborators Phil and Tim Hanseroth. “It used to sound so Joni-derived, because we wrote it on a dulcimer,” she told Variety. “Because we were having a hard time breaking out of our usual rhythms writing our up-tempos, they sounded like us, so we were like, let’s really just embrace the Joni thing on one song. Let’s get this dulcimer out and just try something. And Timmy came up with the [riff], and it just gave me this good, grateful, warm and fuzzy feeling, and I just started writing a love song. And we completely didn’t shy away from the Joni-isms at all. I remember sending the demo to [producers] Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings that day. Shooter was like, “I love it. It’s perfect.” And Dave goes, “Whoa! Way too Joni.” [Laughs.] And so they pulled me over the center line in the triangle that gets created between the three of us, and we met in the middle of “I love it. It’s perfect” and “Way too Joni,” and we took the dulcimer out and played it with acoustic guitar. And that is why you work with producers, even when you are one.
“You and Me On The Rock” by Brandi Carlile lyrics
Read the “You and Me On The Rock” by Brandi Carlile lyrics below via Genius.
[Verse 1]
They build wooden houses on frozen ponds
In the summertime when the water’s gone
Diagonal lines in their rolled-out lawns
And the sage always smells so pretty
But nobody cares where the birds have gone
When the rain comes down on Babylon
The stone mason’s phone rings all day long
And you gotta get back to the city
[Chorus]
I’ll build my house up on this rock, baby
Every day with you
There’s nothin’ in that town I need
After everything we’ve been through
Me out in my garden and you out on your walk
Is all the distance this poor girl can take
Without listenin’ to you talk
I don’t need their money, baby
Just you and me on the rock
You and me on the rock
[Verse 2]
I built paper planes when I learned to fly
Like a 747 fallin’ out of the sky
I folded ’em crooked, now I’m wonderin’ why
I could always end up in the water
But nobody’s askin’ why she lookin’ so thin
Why she laughin’ too hard or why she drinkin’ again
A fallen star, she’s a paper plane
She was goin’ down when you caught her
[Chorus]
I’ll build my house up on this rock, baby
Every day with you
There’s nothin’ in that town I need
After everything we’ve been through
Me out in my garden and you out on your walk
Is all the distance this poor girl can take
Without listenin’ to you talk
I don’t need their money, baby
Just you and me on the rock
[Bridge]
It’s an earthquake, it’s a harder wind
It’s a record breakin’ tide and it is rollin’ in
It’s a big sea, but it can’t touch you and me
It’s just a water view
And what a view
I don’t need their money, baby
Woo
[Chorus]
I’ll build my house up on this rock, baby
Every day with you
There’s nothin’ in that town I need
After everything we’ve been through
Me out in my garden and you out on your walk
Is all the distance this old girl can take
Without listenin’ to you talk
I don’t need their money, baby
Just you and me on the rock
[Outro]
I don’t need their money, baby (I don’t need their money, baby)
Just you and me on the rock (Just you and me on the rock)
You and me on the rock
In These Silent Days In The Canyon Haze by Brandi Carlile
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