There was an ancient oak behind our old house.
She wasn’t just a tree, she felt like a presence. A quiet place where the world softened and time loosened its grip.
I used to sit beneath her for long stretches, looking up through her branches, watching light move in ways that made everything else feel small. There was nothing to achieve there. Nothing to fix. Just breath, stillness, and the slow remembering of myself.
Somewhere along the way, I grew apart from that kind of silence. Life became louder. Busier. Full of movement and expectation. But the feeling of sitting beneath her never really left, it lived quietly in the background, waiting to be returned to.
Under Her Branches came from that remembering.
The verses are gentle and finger-plucked, like footsteps back into stillness. Slow, spacious, unhurried, the way time felt under her shade. The pauses matter as much as the notes, because silence was always part of the experience.
Then the chorus lifts to feel the spirit rise, like the moment you exhale and realise you’re safe. That shift from holding on to letting go. From thinking to simply being.
This recording is raw. A scratch track. Imperfect timing, imperfect angles, imperfect hands, but maybe that’s the point. The feeling itself was never polished. It was honest, simple, and real.
This song is my way of returning to that place.
To the ground beneath me.
To the calm that grows when nothing needs to be forced.
To the quiet sense that something sacred lives in ordinary moments.
If you listen, I hope it carries you there too, even for a moment, beneath her branches, where everything slows, and you remember what it feels like to just be.
Under Her Branches
Verse 1
Ancient Oak behind our old house
She leaned into the sky
I’d lay back in the long grass
And watch the daylight climb
Sunlight through her fingers
Fell dancing on my face
Praying in the silence
Transcended in time and space
Chorus
Under her branches
I was quiet, I was small
Didn’t need the answers
Just let go of it all
The wind would turn the pages
Of a sky so wide and blue
Under her branches
The calm within me grew
Verse 2
No phone, no ticking hour hand
No somewhere else to be
Just the ground beneath me
God’s presence in her leaves
The world felt less demanding
When I listened to her sway
She never tried to change me
But she did anyway
Bridge
Now the days are louder
And the nights don’t fall the same
Sometimes, I close my eyes
And whisper out her name
If I could find that silence
I know just what I’d do
I’d lay down in her shadow
And let myself be new
Final Chorus
Under her branches
I was steady, I was free
Nothing left to measure
Just me, being me
Under her branches
I was quiet, I was small
Didn’t need the answers
Just let go of it all
The wind still turns the pages
Of a sky so wide and blue
Under her branches
The calm within me grew
Copywrite Music & Lyrics by Natasha Hurst-Shilling (13.02.26)
