This was the first waltz I ever wrote. It came from noticing how much we want the freedom to live our own lives, while still feeling entitled to tell everybody else how to live theirs. Sometimes I wonder if anybody’s mama ever told them to mind their own business.
I can hold my beliefs without making them the rules for somebody else’s life. If I want room to live freely, I ought to leave that same room for other people. I wish more people felt that way.
Lyrics
I believed what I was taught
Long before I questioned why
Heard the same things all my life
And learned to call them right
But years have taught me certainty
Can carry too much pride
What I was taught to believe
Ain't a rule for someone else's life
I can hold what I believe
Without demandin' of you the same
I can walk the road I know
Without tellin' you yours has to change
I haven't lived your story
I haven't carried all your pain
A life that ain't mine to live
Ain't mine to judge or shame
We inherit more than memories
More than faces, blood, and names
We learn who's right and who is wrong
Before we understand the weight
Then one day we meet somebody
Who was taught another way
And find the world is bigger
Than the truth we learned to claim
I can hold what I believe
Without demandin' of you the same
I can walk the road I know
Without tellin' you yours has to change
I haven't lived your story
I haven't carried all your pain
A life that ain't mine to live
Ain't mine to judge or shame
You can answer for the harm you do
And I can answer for mine
But bein' different ain't a wrong
And faith don't make me right
I don't know all that brought you here
Or what it took to stay
So I won't make myself the judge
Of how you walk your way
I can hold what I believe
Without demandin' of you the same
I can stand on what I know
Without puttin' you to shame
I haven't lived your story
I haven't carried what you've faced
Your life was never mine to judge
And mine was never yours to shape
I can hold what I believe
Without demandin' of you the same