I was talking with my friend Barbara Chusid last night. We were playing music, jamming just for joy, as we have on and off for nearly 40 years.At some point I said that there were too many songs, meaning that the world is full of amazing music, and we have easy access to it all. I feel the same way about books. And movies. And people.
I have lived my life as a songwriter since I was 14. It’s the lens I see the world through. I don’t know why, but it’s just my thing. Peter Berryman and I once talked about how someday, I suppose after we’re all dead, all the songwriters will meet, everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Neil Sedaka, from Ferron to Queen Latifah, and there will be a knowing between us. Because we will all know what it is to shoot down the rapids of inspiration, and to lag in the pools of despondency when no music will come. We’ll all know the triumph of having married some small set of words to another small set of notes, knowing that’s it a happy and lasting union.
Incidentally, Peter suggested that this gathering of songwriters would probably take place at a Motel 6.
All of which has nothing to do with this song, except to say that, as one of my creative idols Elizabeth Gilbert says so clearly and provocatively, you just keep doing the work. You just keep showing up, and, if you do, eventually, something will appear.
This is the song that appeared today. I am not sure what it’s about exactly, although I know a dream and my friend Laurie Ellen Neustadt have something to do with it.
You can’t write the next song, you can only write the song that’s in front of you. Most songs are just little blips, like dream diary entries or unremarkable selfies shrouded in fog. But I welcome each song that shows up at my door.
Long Long Way ‘til Dawn
Sun sets early in winter.
With darkness tight as steel
Clouds drift by in the pockmarked sky
With an occasional star to reveal.
One farm light pierces the night
Like a bow that’s tightly drawn
A whisper of mist grazes my lips
And it’s a long long way ‘til dawn.
One dog howls past the river
One owl hoots in the pines.
A truck takes the curve way too fast
Hear its big diesel whine
The hint of a tune is inside me
Some old lullaby song
I hum the words I remember
And it’s a long long way ‘til dawn.
Every word that I regret
Every lie. Every debt.
Every scar. Every mark.
Is waiting here in the dark.
Nothing but coals in the campfire
With rumors of maple and oak
I stir it up with my boot heel
Out leap sparks and smoke.
As long as someone remembers you
They say you’re not really gone.
Tonight the spirits are walking
And it’s a long long way til dawn
© Stuart Stotts 2014
It’s a great mood piece, Stuart-you and the night and your regrets, etc. thanks. Liz Ben
Love your use of language …”Because we will all know what it is to shoot down the rapids of inspiration, and to lag in the pools of despondency when no music will come. We’ll all know the triumph of having married some small set of words to another small set of notes, knowing that’s it a happy and lasting union.” and your perspective that brings us from pensiveness, crashing down into humorous reality: …”Incidentally, Peter suggested that this gathering of songwriters would probably take place at a Motel 6.”
We’re so luck that you just keep doing the work.