America is a vast place. I read last week that barely 30% of the land that in the contiguous United States has people living on it. I have no reason not to believe it. Depending on where you are I supose one could think there is a place you could go if where you are isn’t safe, or if you needed to run, you could escape. “The West” can be visualized as rolling short grass prarie with mountains in the back ground. It can feel like you are the only person in the world out there.
I like that feeling. I need to be alone to do some of the things that feel essencial to my being. I woodshed with a little pile of guitars and a typing machine and a recording machine and come up with things that I think are good, things that it might benefit the world to have, but the whole thing depends on a quiet place I can get to.
I guess I'm lucky. I grew up in a town I could walk to a deep woods from. I live in a town where a relatively short bike ride can put me at a crossing of dirt roads with no houses in view, or a long unimproved hill of old trees with a walking path where I might only meet a person or two on a sunday when the weather is nice.
Maybe not everyone has thought to themselves, where would I go if I lost access to everything?. I’m not prepping for the end of the world, but I did grow up in the cold war 70’s and 80’s and I did have teenaged nightmares of nuclear holocaust. It's back there in my mind, and it’s not uncommon in my generation. The preppers are out there, buying big Tupperware tubs of MREs and checking the dates on their flares and piling up ammunition.
The history of America starts with a few bands of hillbillies with rifles that shoot straight and a working knowledge of the land chasing off the most powerful army on earth at the time. The hillbillies were all immigrants and first generation folks who got it in their heads that how they were being treated by their government wasn't right.
If I had to I’d go where there aren’t any people, or where there aren't many- the Driftless. I’d eat a lot of trout and move around a lot. The creeks are the only flat thing out there. The bears are small.
I’d come out tho. I’d come out and play. I’d make a good show of myself when I came to town.
When I am sad about how things are going and I don’t know what to do I imagine myself thriving there but when I think of it for long I imagine coming to town, then being in town and having town things and then living there. I’m a townie through and through, a nature boy.
I like to go to the woods and then have shells with pesto artichokes and speck and a pear and a nap with squooshy pillows.
Safety is a many splendored illusion.
Where the Cover’s Deep
Pack up your supplies and run to where the cover’s deep. Turn my head to make your fun my heart your soul to keep. A paper boy delivers the news. Sweet and loud, guitar playing slow, some old man tucked behind it who ain't got no place left to go. He makes a parade all by himself, better than the 364 days he spends up there on the shelf. Maybe it’s you exactly where you’re supposed to be..It’s no mistake that I am here. I am exactly where it is I’m s’posed to be. How about you. why are you here. Maybe the ris something you’re supposed to see. Maybe it’s me. Pack up your supplies and run to where the cover’s deep. Turn my head to make your fun my heart your soul to keep. A paper boy delivers the news.. You've got to rise up singin’ like in the old song. The old man says its a new song, but he’s done said his piece and gone. King of the road to where you can’t go. Drivin’ like a bat out of hell down the back roads and pullin’ up slow so everyone can see exactly where you’re supposed to be exactly where you’re supposed to be.. Pack up your supplies and run to where the cover’s deep. Turn my head to make your fun my heart your soul to keep. A paper boy delivers the news. Maybe it’s you exactly where you’re supposed to be.. Maybe it’s you exactly where you’re supposed to be.. Maybe it’s me exactly where I'm s’posed to be…exactly where I'm s’posed to be.
Justin LaDuc plays drums..
I did all the rest of it. I am the whole choir singing to microphones from the other side of the room.
It is the title track to what I guess I am calling an album that you can buy on Bandcamp. It's good. You can click on it and just listen for free. Then, if you like it enough to want to be able to download it and listen whenever you want without going through the whole process of going to Bandcamp or calling me on the phone to send you links you can just have it in your devices forever by paying for it here:
Sometimes continuing to do the work fells hollow, but singing feels good.
