Naked as we came (Iron and Wine) Guitar Cover

Covered by Joyce

I might have listened to this song many times before, before this March, before I finally fell in love with it. 

I might first discovered Naked as we came along with the discovery of David and Lara’s YouTube channel, where they covered a number of folk songs such as Streets of London by Chet Atkins, Homesick by Kings of Convenience and Another you by The Seekers. 

Naked as we came might be accidentally played when I revisited their channel over the years and played all songs in loops, though their account has been idle for almost a decade. Their version of this song was sung in beautiful harmony, woven in David’s perfect guitar arrangements, as were so many of their other songs. 

I have left comments amongst many curious listeners, wondering about their sudden disappearance, and hoping for a comeback. 

I always suspected that they were waiting for a new addition to the family, from the way Lara sat on her knees in her loose apron style dress. It is only forgivable that a baby is what keeps them away from the wonderful music they had just begun creating. 

But I was always afraid that life had taken them somewhere unexpected. The loss of the baby or the change of the relationship, all possibilities that lead to the decisions of no return. 

Later on, after watching the Garden State in lockdown, after moving to Hong Kong from Dubai, I rediscovered Iron and Wine and his two songs Naked as We came and Such Greats Heights appeared in the movie soundtrack. 

I found the movie ok, but I was hooked to the soundtrack for a year or two. 

I remembered carefully saving these two songs, exhilarated, while at the same time, strangely anxious, as if I might never find such great songs again, if I did not hold on to them tight enough. 

Though I have to confess that I did forget about them, after my playlist grew louder, after moving out of my cosy Hong Kong apartment, where the full window of evergreen mountain view comforted me in times of transition. 

In those days, when I was neither too far nor too close to where I thought home was, I would curl up on my sofa in absolute aloneness. 

I listened to Such Great Heights with a vivid imagery, in which a young boy climbing to the roof of a barn, looking over the winding country road cutting across endless farm, waving until his absent father fading away. Then it follows his free-falling onto the field of lush greens, like the album cover, a boy growing into a bearded man, lying and dreaming with a smile unexplained. 

Well, it took a bit detour to find Iron and Wine again, from Such Great Heights to Naked as we came, from the Arabian Sea, to an island in the Pacific, to a small Airbnb in a country at the bottom of the southern hemisphere, where the land touches the Atlantic. 

I almost made this trip from Brazil to Argentine, from Puerto Iguazu to Montevideo, just to take the ferry crossing over Rio de la Plata, where the river water runs so freely, indifferent to the man-made boundaries, finally greets a sea of atlas. 

This time, I was appreciating his songs not in my usual solitude, but in a different sort of quietness, still in complete contentment. 

The person who I was sharing my secret collection told me that the ocean is his favourite, as one ocean flowing into another, connecting the shores from one continent to another. 

Perhaps I simply liked that our thoughts have accidentally aligned. Ocean is always my favourite, as someone born and raised on an island. 

I once dived near the border where two oceans met and got intrigued by the abundance of life exchanging between shores that never meet,  breathing from one current into another, carried by one body of water. 

Perhaps I liked the way he described it after all. 

Even though it seemed contradictory to my curious impulse of moving, from one destination to another, with a well-organised plan.  

Perhaps I was mesmerised by the words he slowly placed, by his fingers traveling over the space between us, by the freckles within freckles, by the lines beneath lines at the corner of his sparkling eyes, that occasionally looking into mine. 

Perhaps I believed in the unspoken, a metaphoric layer that I have already seen but pretended not to care about.

We talked about ourselves as children. 

He talked about being left in a separate room, crying alone in the daycare before his mother found out. He talked about writing to his inner child, comforting the little buddy once at a time, when he was trapped in worrying thoughts. And he talked about the years in the clouds, a history I had never heard, not from anyone I knew. 

I told him about the only Barbie doll I owned, for just a few hours, before my mother took it away. I cried all night, but not courageous enough to bring her back from the community garbage bin. 

Somehow I could still picture her proudly lying on top of  all kinds of waste. Her plastic blonde hair shining, even though her head and body torn apart and clothes stripped away. 

I still miss the softness of her hair. 

Our childhood selves carried us into the night, until we surprisingly discovered how our life journeys have encompassed in places and in time unannounced. 

I consumed every bit of this conversation cautiously, recognising its rarity, affirming that it is one of the very last, knowing that there is another destination await. 

I had bid many goodbyes in life and I had been good at doing it.

Though often the reason of leaving is unconvincing, and the arrival is quite blur, my departure is always determined. 

We talked about the hardest goodbyes over the years, for me the most difficult ones are always at the airport, when my dad kept waving until I passed the security gate, until I could taste tears on my lips. 

We agreed on the goodbye that I wanted to have on the day I leave. It should be simple and short,  just downstairs, by the curb. 

It might have taken a bus ride, a ferry and two flights to let it all dim away. 

Though, for a fleeting moment, I wished the Uber would never show, and I would miss every connection afterwards. 

I had been good at bottling up people and things in the past, labelled them and sank them to the deepest, while I’m swimming away without looking back. But this one is uncategorised.

Perhaps it was in the nakedness, where the child version of ourselves noticing each other, in our fragile essence. 

Perhaps it was in the nakedness, where we whispered the lyrics and melody to each other, in perfect unison.

Perhaps it was in the nakedness, the metaphor I have seen without needing much explanation. 

I thought this would be our last song. So I tried to remember the light behind the short strands of his hair, the echoes from the empty sidewalk, and the tenderness I received by printing my lips onto his. 

Until I thought I saw the tear in those eyes, just like mine, when Iron and Wine sang, 

“I will lay smiling like our sleeping children, one of us will die inside these arms” 

I might have decided at this line, that I will not drop that bottle. Instead, I would let it drift on its own, believing that it will eventually find its way to us. 

Just like this song return to me from ocean to ocean, through unknown paths, through unmeasured distance and unaudited cost.

I might have decided at this line, that I would move towards the arrival unplanned, not knowing where it would take me, take us. 

As if I rediscovered this song years ago, exhilarated, at the same time strangely anxious. 

As if I will never find such a great song again if I do not hold on to it tight enough, 

singing: 

"Eyes wide open, naked as we came. One will spread our ashes round the yard"