Image: Old Paper Mill Bridge, Brookville, Indiana – Built 1914 – Brookville Library Collections
Original Song: “The Paper Mill Bridge Song” with Prose Commentary
My original song “The Paper Mill Bridge Song” was inspired by the beautiful Whitewater River in Indiana and its relationship to the beautiful relationship I have enjoyed for over half a century with my wonderful husband, native of the little town of Brookville, Indiana.
Introduction and Excerpt from “The Paper Mill Bridge Song”
My husband, landscape artist Ron Grimes, created the video featured in this article to accompany my original song “The Paper Mill Bridge Song.” He wrote the following introduction to the piece and placed his video on YouTube:
A celebration of life and love as witnessed by the Paper Mill Bridge over the Whitewater River in Brookville, Indiana.
September 10th, 2022. Linda and I walked to the middle of the new Papermill Bridge. I wanted to capture some scenes for this video. As soon as I started videoing, this Canada Goose flew right over us and honked as it if it were saying, “I want to be in your video.” It was a gift.
Innovative Chorus
The song undergoes an unusual arrangement; instead of an ordinary chorus, it features an middle octave which behaves as a second octave and chorus that gets repeated at a the end of the song.
The Paper Mill Bridge Song
Here’s where people paddle canoes
Down the Whitewater River.
I stand here on Paper Mill Bridge.
Watch the water and remember
The day we walked along the bank,
Sand so warm to my feet.
We talked about cattails, rocks, and stars
And the moss that grows on old trees.
These are the things that fill my day,
Things we’ve done together.
Sunshine streaming down through the leaves,
A storm in the clouds or snow in the fields.
River water runs through my veins.
The stars light up my eyes.
Love for you turns in my heart
Like the sun burns through the sky.
Through the years my heart has filled
With love for this old river.
I stand here on Paper Mill Bridge.
Watch the water and remember
The day we paddled down the stream,
A cool breeze on my shoulders.
The sun shone bright over Paper Mill Bridge
And I knew I’d love you forever.
These are the things that fill my day,
Things we’ve done together.
Sunshine streaming down through the leaves,
A storm in the clouds or snow in the fields.
River water runs through my veins.
The stars light up my eyes.
Love for you turns in my heart
Like the sun burns through the sky.
© LINDA SUE GRIMES 2004
Prose Commentary on “The Paper Mill Bridge Song”
My original song—”The Paper Mill Bridge Song”—focuses on one relationship that progresses from good friends to life partner. In the opening verse, the friends experience a quiet walk and talk along the river. In the final verse, the life relationship is solidified.
First Octave/Verse: The View from the Bridge
Here’s where people paddle canoes
Down the Whitewater River.
I stand here on Paper Mill Bridge.
Watch the water and remember
The day we walked along the bank,
Sand so warm to my feet.
We talked about cattails, rocks, and stars
And the moss that grows on old trees
The singing narrator is standing on a bridge, which turns out to be the subject of the song, the Paper Mill Bridge. She begins to report on the activities that are locally common to that bridge. The bridge spans the Whitewater River—a river in mideastern to southern Indiana—and from its perch one can from time to time see canoers paddling their barks down the river.
The narrator then focuses on a memory that is important to her regarding her hike along the riverbank with a friend. During that pleasant stroll, the two friends casually conversed about river-related entities such as water reeds that look like “cattails” and other features of nature such a “rocks and stars.”
The narrator recalls that her feet enjoyed the luxury of the warm sand. They also held forth about the fact that moss grows on old trees—likely that the moss grows mostly on the north side of those arbolian creatures.
Second Octave/Chorus: Recurring Images
These are the things that fill my day,
Things we’ve done together.
Sunshine streaming down through the leaves,
A storm in the clouds or snow in the fields.
River water runs through my veins.
The stars light up my eyes.
Love for you turns in my heart
Like the sun burns through the sky.
The chorus has an usual placement, standing the middle of the song and containing an equal number of line as each verse, instead of following each verse with fewer lines. Essentially the piece offers three separate octaves, even as the middle octave performs as a chorus.
In this innovative chorus, the narrator has placed a heavy emphasis. While she has offered some concrete details in the opening verse-octave, in the chorus-octave she is stating a general take on what she may likely be thinking about during this particular time period in her life.
She thus has been focusing mentally on things that she and her friend have enjoyed together. But then she adds two images in the first quatrain of the chorus-octave that allow her thoughts to show their natural influences as she experiences weather conditions—specially the warmth of spring and summer and the cold of fall and winter.
The second quatrain of the chorus-octave becomes even more generalized: she is a creature of the river, so closely attuned to river culture that it seems that the very waters of the river flow “through [her] veins.”
The narrators suggests that her happiness is enhanced as if by starlight. She then asserts that she loves her friend with the same intensity that causes the “sun” to burn “through the sky.” The hyperbole serves to suggest the strong emotion that this narrator feels for her friend, their relationship, and the natural features that they have experienced together.
Third Octave/Verse: The Passage of Time
Through the years my heart has filled
With love for this old river.
I stand here on Paper Mill Bridge.
Watch the water and remember
The day we paddled down the stream,
A cool breeze on my shoulders.
The sun shone bright over Paper Mill Bridge
And I knew I’d love you forever.
The third octave/verse again focuses on the narrators thoughts about her friend, and now it becomes apparent that they are indeed life partners. But first she places that river into her affections; she has come to love the river, and again, she is standing on the same bridge with pleasant memories coming to the fore.
This time she remembers that like the other folks one might see canoeing down the Whitewater River, she and her partner did such paddling. That day she recalls that she felt a breeze on the skin; it was a “cool breeze”—indicating that it was likely early to mid-spring.
However, she then asserts that over that bridge the sun was beaming down in bright rays. And suddenly, her heart told her then as it is telling her now that she would continue to hold her partner in her heart “forever.”
Second Octave/Chorus: Recurring Images Again
These are the things that fill my day,
Things we’ve done together.
Sunshine streaming down through the leaves,
A storm in the clouds or snow in the fields.
River water runs through my veins.
The stars light up my eyes.
Love for you turns in my heart
Like the sun burns through the sky.
The purpose of the repetition remains the exact same purpose that is held for all choruses in songs: to emphasize the sentiment expressed in the verses and perhaps add an extra image or two.
Linda Sue on the new Paper Mill Bridge – Constructed 1977– Photo by Ron W. G.
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