These recordings are recorded in my own home and mixed by a friend, or come to you straight from a phone mic. They are not intended to be considered on par with commercially released mood music, but are presented as songwriter demos of thought provoking folk songs.
I was in a song circle once, telling stories of my songs before I performed them, and one fellow said: “I think if you have to tell a story to explain your song before you sing it: you failed in writing it.” At the time I simply said: “I have heard that idea expressed” because I didn’t want to continue his fight, but I strongly disagree. I feel if a person does not need to explain a song to an audience the first time they hear it in a live format: the writer failed at writing it. Because they did not say anything worth saying. They simply said the same thing as 50 other songs before it. Sure, the audience will understand the song immediately, and enjoy the song, and buy it, but when the 52nd version of that song comes along the audience will forget the 51st. I try to write my songs so that people will still be listening to them, and thinking about them, in 50 years.
That said, I think this song is pretty obvious what it is about, the first time you hear it.
Lyrics
A friend got married a few months ago.
And I couldn’t wait to fly back home, And hang around
I’d go check out the neighborhood
And show all the boys I’d been doing good, in my old town.
But I was surprised when I touched down
At who I’d been, in my old town.
I feel again, how I felt back then,
In the space between the buildings,
Bringing back the old cold memories.
The high plains brick, railroad tracks
And western wind it shows me,
I no longer like the way I used to be.
When I saw old friends I used to love,
I knew inside what they were thinking of. I’d let em down.
It’d been all about me and how to get ahead,
But all I ever got was lonely instead. In my old town.
I feel again, how I felt back then,
In the space between the buildings,
Bringing back the old cold memories.
The high plains brick, railroad tracks
And western wind it shows me,
I no longer like the way I used to be.
And it ain’t my town, it brought me down, my old town.
That town I love for who you are,
Tradition and your honor,
Will you overlook the boy I was back then?
I want to be who I am,
And who I was no longer.
Please let me be a part of you again.
Will you be my town, when I’m back around, in my old town?
Can I make amends, for way back when? Sheridan?