Steve Parry

This song was written about several articles I read in the paper about several different individuals.   It was penned to show that sometimes people get kicked around and have a lot of trouble getting back up.   However, it also shows that you can make a choice to turn whatever you going through into a better situation.

I grew up in a town next to nowhere
And nowhere's where I'm moving real soon
You can come along if you want to
Just pack your bags I'm leavin here by noon
My daddy never had no words to give me
Cuz a bottle was his one and only friend
I wonder where he went when he left me
I'm sure his life came to a bitter end

Chorus

Can't you see
How the world is turnin round
Don't you know
That people hit the ground every day
And that's where they stay

I had an lost a chance to go to college
When passion took that choice away from me
And one dark night fate took away my family
When a drunk man ran their car into a tree

Chorus

I don't know if I'm gonna like this city
But it seems the only place that I'll fit in
So I'm gonna play the cards that life has dealt me
And see if there's a hand that I can win

Chorus X2

This song had its start in my memories of bailing hay and working in a hayloft in my youth.   I can vividly remember how awfully hot and humid it was in the top of the barn.   The air was thick with haydust and sound was about the only way you knew a bail was coming across the top conveyor and ready to drop on your head.

It's also a look at how so many people are relegated to the life their parents lived and that they expect from their children.   By the time someone realizes they had dreams, it is too late to act upon them.

Summers in that hayloft

Were full of dust and dreams

I wondered if those furrowed fields

Would ever let me be,

would they ever let me be

 

I sit upon this tractor

And the sun beats on my neck

It sweats the dreams from my soul

And never gives ‘em back

I just want a couple back

 

I watched my daddy break his back

Workin on this farm

He did it when it rained or snowed

Didn’t matter it was hard

I’ll follow in his footsteps

Cuz he expected that of me

He said you can’t fee your family

With a pocket full of dreams

 

Every day’s the same damn thing

I wake before the sun

Grab my cup of coffee

And start my morning run

Trust me it ain’t fun

 

My hands are hard and calloused

As the leather on my feet

They’re like the boots my daddy handed down

When he sealed my destiny

He told me what to be

 

Chorus

 

I’ve got a wife and family

That I can’t leave behind

To chase a fleeting memory

Born in another time

That was a different time

 

So tomorrow when the sun comes up

You’ll find me in the barn

Milkin cows and doin chores

And tryin to get along

Just tryin to get along

Aw heck... it's just a silly love song for my wife

 

The sky’s full of trails

Made of vapors and white

But they all fade away

Like some husbands and wives

 

So I’m reachin’ for you

I’ll never let go

I’m stuck to you darlin’

Till we’re gray and old

 

Chorus

I’m stuck to you darlin’

I’m like gum on your shoe

When you start to wonderin

If I’m tired of  you

Remember gum is still sticky

When it’s stale and old

It can hold things together

When there’s not much to hold

 

Our love isn’t perfect

And our road isn’t straight

It’s got all the potholes

That’ll make you irate

With love we will fill them

they’ll all go away

We’ll travel forever

Down our mended highway

 

Chorus

 

The trumpet has sounded

In my heavenly home

I’ve been called by the angels

To stand in front of the throne

But I’ll wait with St. Peter

At the gates high above

And I’ll enter heaven

With the one that I love

Chorus

And to tell you the truth dear

I'm stuck to your soul

Over Labor Day weekend in 2010 I attended the Storyhill Festival in Deerwood, MN.   One morning, I woke up late and took a walk down to the lake.   It was a beautiful morning and the sun was shining.   There was no wind, and the lake was like glass.    However, there was a thin mist rising from the lake's surface.   I remember how vivid that picture was.   

I tried writing several songs about it, but none seemed to work.   After reading a book about a guy in Alaska, I thought about writing a song about a mountain man who is meeting death on the edge of a lake.   The picture from Storyhill Fest came to mind and seemed to be the perfect beginning to the song.

 

I sit on the bank of this ole mountain lake

Reflecting where my life has been

The mist on the water’s like the fog in my head

Obscuring the mess that I’m in

If I’d known long ago that I’d turn out

A worn out and crippled old man

I’da stayed right where God had set me

And been making a different last stand

 

 

Lida Aye  Eee  sings the cowboy

When he howls by himself at the moon

Why oh why me cries the old man

When he knows that his life is in ruin

 

 

I pulled outta Waco a long time ago

To follow a young selfish dream

I left her right there in the front yard

With nothin much more than her name

But my dreams turned into mirages

And my hopes were nothing but holes

Filling themselves full of water

And drowning what’s left of my soul

 

Chorus

 

I guess that the sun must be setting

Cuz it’s getting much harder to see

And the taste in my mouth is much different

And drier than I remember it to be

And my legs have lost all their shiver

And my hands are surprisingly numb

And I know that I’ll soon meet my maker

To answer for the things that I done

 

Chorus