Duino Air

If My Violin Had Words - Songs from the melodies I never sang If My Violin Had Words is a collection of songs born from violin melodies that once existed without lyrics. These were pieces I played knowing exactly what they meant to me, but often harder to interpret as instrumental pieces, so these new song combine sampled fragments with lyrics close to my heart — fragments of memory, longing, survival, love, escape, and home. This project imagines what those melodies would become if they finally had a voice. Each track turns a sample from my violin tunes into a song: sometimes cinematic, sometimes intimate, sometimes painful, sometimes hopeful. Together, they move through old streets, locked rooms, seaside sunsets, Duino memories, beautiful disguises, and nights I almost didn’t make it through. At its heart, this album is about giving words to feelings that lived first in sound. Lyrics: [Verse 1] We came with our bags and our names hard to say From a hundred little worlds to the same little place The castle above us, the sea down below And a future we were too young to know Morning coffee, tired eyes in the sun Always late to something, always on the run We were learning each other, line by line In broken English and borrowed time [Refrain] Those were the nights Those were the days We were so alive In that golden haze Under the stars We had no fear Far from home But home was here Those were the nights Those were the days Different hearts In the same place If I close my eyes I’m almost there Young and alive In the Duino air [Verse 2 ] There were conversations over wine On the steps until the stars arrived Big dreams, small rooms, songs in the hall We had nothing figured out at all Someone talked about home, someone talked about love Someone cried, then laughed, then looked up above And for a moment, everything felt clear Like the whole wide world was sitting right here [Refrain] Those were the nights Those were the days We were so alive In that golden haze Under the stars We had no fear Far from home But home was here Those were the nights Those were the days Different hearts In the same place If I close my eyes I’m almost there Young and alive In the Duino air [Bridge] Now we’re scattered across different lives Different cities, different skies But there’s a part of me that stayed In every laugh, in every name And I didn’t know then How fast it would go The people, the place The feeling of home [Final Refrain] Those were the nights Those were the days We were so alive In that golden haze Under the stars We had no fear Far from home But home was here Those were the nights Those were the days Different hearts In the same place If I close my eyes I’m almost there Young and alive In the Duino air [Outro] Far from home But home was here Young and alive In the Duino air