It is a reclaimed life. It is seeing OUR story as THE story we should watch at night instead of the TV.

Big Old House

Writen By Ezra Vancil
Feat. Cozy
Video Below

We'll put Francis in the yard
Grow some ivy
Wrap our saint in flowers
I’ll quit the band and take a job
Still write music
In our den for hours

In a big old house
We will mark our days
When the floors are cold
Get the coffees made
Light a fire
And when the snow is gone
We will still be here

I’ll mend the roof
You decorate
Thrift store paintings
Nudes of Paris
Plaster
And maybe Friday for a date
Make some children
At our party, after

In a big old house
We will mark their age
On the door jamb
By the white bookshelf case
On the morning
When they're moving on
They will still be here

Let’s turn the barn into a shop
Make your art
Sterling silver feathers
We’ll make due with what we got
We can weld
Any break together

In a big old house
We will make our way
And the drafty windows
Oh I wouldn't change
In the morning
When the winds are blown
We will still be here

We'll put Francis in the yard
Hear our blessings
Wrapped in flowers
Singing

In a big old house
We did live our days
It was cold and small
But a warm heart blazed
And the morning after we are gone
It will still be here

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Behind The Big Old House

When I decided to make this series, my marriage was on the rocks. I was newly sober, living in recovery, and my marriage was falling apart.

You can watch the video for Big Old House below.
The story of this song is too long for this day, maybe a series of posts would more represent why I think I was inspired to write this song. But for now, I just wanted to share some thoughts about the album in general and its making and passage through time.

Big Old House is the first track from my NEW album, The Family Songbook.
Yes, 'album'.
If you're a musician in this day and age—you probably have debated the idea of albums vs. singles too many times.

I love albums and will always be involved in making an album because I like the creative process involved in making an album, but more important to me is the spiritual process of making a themed or fully fleshed-out work.

A Series Of Loves: You

This album was to be the 2nd in a series of albums that explore my history of love in three sections, or three albums.

This is where the 'spiritual' process of making these albums comes in.

When I decided to make this series, my marriage was on the rocks. I was newly sober, living in recovery, and my marriage was falling apart. No wonder that in the first in the series, I wanted to explore my romantic history.

At that time it felt like my marriage would end in divorce any day and it basically did but was resurrected.

It would have been my second divorce. So I wanted my first album in this series—eventually titled, YOU—to explore my love life and why it's so fucked up.

In the process of making 'You', we did go into the divorce process, and we went our separate ways. But, I kept working on the album. Strangely enough, she came back. It is a story for another day, but in short, by the time I finished the album about my history of romantic love; we were back together. And not just 'making it by', but in a new awakening of our marriage. A kind of love that we thought marriage was supposed to be when we first got married. That album came out in 2018 ... and that awakening still lives on.

You can listen to that first in the series album here >>

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A Series Of Loves: The Family Songbook

Then came the second in the series—The Family Songbook.

... at that time, we were also greaving for my cousin who also shot himself a few weeks earlier. It felt like the world was collapsing on our heads ...

The second in the love series albums was going to be an album exploring the 'big love'; love of God, love for our fellows etc ... but something happened that changed the theme of that album into what it is now; an exploration of my family and the love that has got us through.

Self-destruction And The Healing Of A Family

The event that happened was that my son—who was then a teen—went over to his friend's house after their high school graduation, to find him dead. He had shot himself.

The suicide was an utter shock to the system of our family not to mention the devastation to my son who found the body.

Especially because, at that time, we were also greaving for my cousin who also shot himself a few weeks earlier. It felt like the world was collapsing on our heads. There was another suicide attempt and another during that month as if it was a chain reaction. Then later that year another successful suicide by a good friend and music fan. It was a horrible hurting time.

In that period, I sat down and wrote what would be one of the tracks on The Family Songbook, called Mighty River Soul, for my son. That's how the theme came to be what it is now.

The Family Songbook

The events of those years were strangely related to what happened in my years working on the YOU album, but, where then my marriage almost crumbled, now, it felt like my family might crumble during the making of the family record.

In all, it took almost three years to make. Released in October 2020. During the release of the Family Songbook in 2020. I found myself in the 2nd parallel to the first album, but where then our marriage had healed, in the second album; I found many things in my extended family had healed.

I was experiencing a true awaking to the need for family. Mainly the need to forgive them and to be near them. I had always been the family rebel. I would not even wear a wedding ring for years! I disavowed the concept of family in many ways or at least deprecated it to a very low level.

In reality, the importance of family is closer to 'the secret of life' (which is not a huge secret)—i.e. live closer to, rather than farther from your nature, and your life will go better. We are family making beings. We must embrace that scientific truth to feel whole.

Of course, my realization of being nearer to my family was in the so-called pandemic year; where we are told what is best for us and our families by officials who have so entirely sold their souls to the culture that they are barely human themselves. So, of course, it was an extra pleasure to disobey those government maniacs and love and hug my old mom and dad as much as I could during 2020.

That we let so-called officials tell us how we should live and when we should and should not see or touch our family is pure evidence that we have let our natures stray too far from our natural family mindset. Now the officials are looked to like grandparents and parents should be looked to. We're far astray.. and that includes me. Part of this album was me starting back on the right path of building a strong family for my generations.

The Family Gets Involved in The Family Songbook

My mom is the beautiful grey-haired woman in the Big Old House Video playing the piano. That is my daughter Cozy singing with me, my nephews, and the rest are family and friends and the band.

The song Big Old House is a picture, the best I could, of my family. And what my family is. It is a reclaimed life. It is seeing OUR story as THE story we should watch at night instead of the TV.

Part 3 In A History Of Love

And so the series goes on. The next in the series is that Big LOVE; God and the spirit within me. So, we'll see what happens there. I've already started work on the third in the series and hoping it releases—if the world is still here—in 2022 or late 2021.

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Thanks for reading. I'm Ezra Vancil a Texas Songwriter and Performer and sometimes writer and artist. You can check out more at www.ezravancil.com