Baymah City

What are you doing tonight in Baymah City?
What's on your mind, as the sun goes down?
Will you hide out where you can't be found?

Who's gonna hold you tonight in Baymah City?
Will you be somebody's dream come true?
Will you leave somebody crying for you?

I know you hear the streets calling your name;
The lights are summoning you.
Hear the night beckoning you
To let yourself go like never before;
But who are you looking for
In Baymah City?

Broken hearts abound in Baymah City.
Out on the streets, lonely shadows roam;
Some don't fit in, some feel right at home.

They're turning the beat around in Baymah City;
And you're in the heat of the action now,
Wondering if this is what life's about.

I know you hear the streets calling your name;
The lights are summoning you.
Hear the night beckoning you
To let yourself go like never before;
But who are you looking for
In Baymah City?

I know you hear the streets calling your name;
The lights are summoning you.
Hear the night beckoning you
To let yourself go,like never before;
But who are you looking for
In Baymah City?


© 2009 David Acosta



The idea for this song came about as I was thinking about fast living in city life, and how easily one can get caught up in the bright lights and loud sounds, the "scene" that compels and repels, all at once. When you're young and determined to have a good time, at all costs, the compelling part often wins out. I believe we are supposed to enjoy life to the fullest, and there are definitely elements of music, dancing and "the scene" which have always appealed to me, to some degree. But in my song I wanted to capture the dark side, the loneliness and alienation mingled with the neon and the beauty all around.

I think I also wanted to write my own version of a song I gravitated to back in the mid 80s: "Lamu," by Michael W. Smith. It depicted that idea of wanting to get away from normalcy and run off to some secluded hideaway, as far as possible from something all-too-familiar and predictable, or from hurt. I wanted my own version of that feeling, that lostness, that tropical-paradise remoteness, that supposed perfect getaway.

I grabbed a Bible and concordance, and I began to look for city names or places which I might want to incorporate into my song. After considering several locations for my title, I landed on this, in Ezequiel 20:27:

Therefore, son of man, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: In this also your ancestors blasphemed me by being unfaithful to me: When I brought them into the land I had sworn to give them and they saw any high hill or any leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, made offerings that aroused my anger, presented their fragrant incense and poured out their drink offerings. Then I said to them: What is this high place you go to?’” (It is called Bamah to this day.)

I was intrigued by this high place of idolatrous worship, and it hit me: in so many ways, so many of us are drawn and driven to places like that, literal or not; they seemingly call out to us, attempting to mesmerize and absorb.

Anyhow, I grabbed that word immediately; then I modified it, so that it would become "Baymah City," which gave it a more modern spin. I liked the "bay" part, probably because of MY city-by-the-bay, Miami (or, as I often refer to it, Pretty City), which in some ways also inspired the idea for "Baymah City.".

I purposely avoided attempting to resolve the dilemma of "lostness" in the song. There is no answer, no spiritual release, no real redemption in it, just an open-ended question in the chorus; it is what it is: a place I wanted to depict.

David Acosta