Friction Farm's Song of the Week

For the record, we finished this at our Tuesday dealine. But it was a little late to record in our apartment. (we like our neighbors) It was a challenging week for writing. If you understand this song, sorry.

Is it my imagination
Or did we cross a line
Somewhere west of Georgia into central time

Did we gain an hour
Following the sun
No I feel tired before the day is done

The highway calls
So we roll on

Cross the Mississippi
An unfamiliar sight
Water flowing south and river growing wide

The plains go on for miles
See the mountains far away
We think we can’t reach them for ten thousand days

Chorus

Suddenly they’re looming
Their shadows are so black
We can’t stay here but there’s no turning back

Snow is on the high peaks
The journey’s almost done
At the shore we’ll see the last light of the sun

Chorus

As always, tell us what you think. (and I appologise for messing up that list line of the final verse)

Not all good ideas make good songs, at least not yet. Its only a couple days old, but this song is really short, kind of trite, not very creative. UGH.
We don’t have kids. I don’t know how parents do it. We witnessed this scene in our neighborhood and suffered emotional whiplash as uninvolved bystanders. There was a girl on a bike, Dad holding on to the back running beside her. He let go. She makes her first solo ride, no training wheels. Dad is visibly proud. Then his expression changes, he starts to run. We turn around suspecting she has fallen. Nope. She’s fine, still riding, getting further away.

Don’t be frightened but I’m gonna let go
Don’t think about falling just let it roll
Keep pedaling steady keep your eyes straight ahead
You’ll be surprised how far you’ll go

Now the world’s wide open and before you know
You’re riding twice as far as a week ago
Once you taste freedom once you feel
You can‘t wait to see how far you can go

On a dime I turned from pride to fear
And I tried not to surrender
But the only way to keep you near
Is to let you ride forever

I’m a little bit frightened please take it slow
I never really though about how far you’d go
You keep pedaling steady keep your eyes straight ahead
I’ll try to remember I’m the one who let go

Go ahead, unleash your inner music critic.

If you are just tuning in, here’s the scoop. We’re writing and recording one song every week. And when I say “recording” I mean one mic in the living room, no EQ, effects, mixing…really rough.

Dead Reckoning

A while ago I had an interest in the number seven, why it appears so often in religion, mythology, etc. And I was thinking about how fear holds us back. I wrote the first two lines and lost interest. Finally worked it through, deadlines are a good thing I guess.

Seven sins, seven years
Careful don’t break the glass
New life begins when we face our fears
Dark days will surely pass

When the winds blow
You won’t get lost, let go
You will find home
Dead reckoning

See the wonders of the world
Unlock their mysteries
In foreign suns your sand makes pearls
Every moment sets you free

Chorus

All your fears and all your superstitions
So much time you waste on endless repetition
Of familiar things that only serve to keep you down
Weigh the anchors on your ship of discovery
Cast off the comforts of the ordinary
Take seven steps and turn around

Sail the oceans east to west
Feel the water on your skin
The laws of motion have you possessed
The sirens draws you in

Chorus

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!

We took a short vacation on the north fork of Long Island and started talking about vacations we took when we were kids. Some how that led to this:

We drove south a couple hours, highway 1 in July showers
Northern California fading slowly
A country bar every country mile, we could be out here a while
These kind of places used to scare me
’till I saw knowing glances on unfamiliar faces
In these wide open spaces

Ocean air fills up my lungs, cool green grass and white hot sun
Let the crashing waves hypnotize me
Sunny days bring sunny smiles, running barefoot like a child
Laughing when the shifting tides surprise me
In a million years I never thought I’d find my saving graces
In these wide open spaces

Forty years and a million miles
I’ve grown so far from that simple child
Who built sand castles just to watch them fall
Or maybe I haven’t grown at all

I stood here before I knew you, they shot a rocket to the moon
Back then anything could happen
Endless summer turned endless years, toook me far away from here
Reaching for the stars gave way to reason
But I found the sense of wonder that I had lost for ages
In these wide open spaces