My AI narrator explains it all.  I wrote this in 2020, so some of the details are already out of date (Queen Elizabeth died, Tom Brady retired), but I figured I would leave it as-is since at some point Jimmy Carter will die as well.  Dammit, I just did it again.  I will have to come back and rewrite this after he passes away.  Remind me when that happens.  Thanks.

Noviceworks

Cicada

This is a true story that happened my junior year of high school.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent, and the guilty cheerleader who laughed in this poor guy's face when he asked her to prom.  Some of my friends laughed at "John", but I became an advocate for him being the ballsiest person to ever walk the halls of our high school.  #Respect

John Asked Whitney to the Prom

John Asked Whitney To The Prom

I wrote this song after reading "Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage"  by Jeff Guinn.  There was a chapter about his time in Los Angeles, when Koresh (formerly Vernon Howell) spent time recruiting cult members under the guise of putting together a rock band.  it was fascinating, frightening, and kind of ridiculous.  It justified all the times I met someone off of Craigslist who wanted to start a band, and I thought "this guy is weird, I'm out" and never called them back.

Vernon Goes to Hollywood

Vernon Goes To Hollywood

Dedicated to Adam Lloyd Poteet - August 12, 1976 - July 10, 2023.  Adam and I were college roommates many years ago, and one day we took a road trip to Austin and I hit a vulture and it went through my windshield.  We hitchhiked to Evant, Texas, a tiny town we never gave much thought until that day.  We ended up stuck there for what seemed like forever, so we sat in front of an abandoned storefront (pictured) and watched this tiny town buzz all day while we waited for a ride. As the day went on, we became fascinated with every detail of these people's lives.  The people there did not seem to have much interest in what went on outside of their little town, but we found beauty in the simplicity of it.

Home of the Fighting Elks

Home Of The Fighting Elks

I wrote this about my Grandfather, who bought a lake house (okay, it was a trailer) in Granbury, Texas with his retirement money.  He was a kindhearted fellow, but there was always an underlying hint that you were in big trouble if you messed with "his stuff".  Luckily no one ever did.

Rock Harbor

I started writing this in my early 20s, at a time when I was single.  The idea was that I was born and immediately started looking for my predesignated future mate, and each verse checks in on a different phase of my life before and after meeting her.  I have added and removed verses to this over the years as my real life caught up to the song.  I guess that's easier than writing the verses of the song and then altering my life choices to fit the lyrics.  "Sorry honey, we need to sell the house and move into assisted living.  The song said so."

Looking for You

Looking For You

This TOTALLY NOT DEPRESSING song is about when my grandfather died when I was 10 years old.  I didn't really get the gravity of the situation, but I could see my parents were very upset.  The thing that really stuck with me was when they started to go through his "things" in the attic.  He had these boxes of random items, and my parents had to figure out what importance, if any, each article had.  With every notepad, tool, or piece of baseball memorabilia, they would ask, "why did he keep this?" or "what was it's meaning", and it would often break out into some story about his life that I had never heard before.  In the end, they had to put each item in a pile for "Keep", "Donate", or "Toss" and it seemed really difficult for anyone to actually pull the trigger and put something in the Toss pile.  Now that I'm much older, I think I get it.  Unless I meet an untimely demise, I will be making those same decisions for my parents in the not-so-distant future.  Anyway, sorry for the momentary emo - I promise the next song will be about something light and fun like Star Wars.

Legacy Attic

I was just old enough where I got to see all the Star Wars original trilogy in the theater.  Since then, I have seen every single one on opening night, so I could fanboy, complain, adore, question, and overanalyze each of them.  It seems like every situation in my life can be mapped to some part of Star Wars.  I have learned NOT to say all these observations out loud, but if you see me kind of looking through you and seeming distracted, that's probably what's going on.

Alderaan By Morning

This is a true story about when I heard Van Halen's "Jump" for the first time and freaked out that I wanted to be a keyboard player.  I was 10 years old at the time, and wrote this silly "song" that sounded suspiciously like Jump.  I performed it at various family get-togethers, and they politely nodded.  My family were all musicians, so they were more than likely thinking, "You're rushing the beat!  Stay in the pocket!".  Anyway, I sucked at keyboard and switched to guitar later that year.  That song somehow got in my head decades later and decided to put some lipstick on it, write some lyrics, and record it.  I thought it would sound like Jump, but it kinda sounds like a Weezer tribute band doing Jump.  Oh well.  Recording this song was the most fun I have had with home recording to date.

My Very First Song

I was always a very anxious person, and it got worse and worse as I got older.  I finally decided to work on it, through a combination of sobriety, exercise, writing music, reading, meditating, whatever it took.  One spring afternoon it was perfect weather in Jersey, and I was laying on a hammock and started coming up with ground rules about how I wasn't going to let anxiety (and people) get to me anymore.  And it actually worked!   But it is SO nu-metal of me to talk about my mental health. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm not "down with the sickness".

Random Thoughts from a Hammock

Random Thoughts From A Hammock

This is a true story about a dresser I bought from an antique shop before I went off to college.  It apparently belonged to an admirer?  lover?  of someone who appears to have died in the Battle of the Bulge.  I actually looked for a J.R. in official military records, but there were 19,000 people killed in that single battle!  This started an interest in history for me that I wish i would have had when I was struggling with history class in high school and college.  RIP J.R.

This song really disparages the city of Tulsa, which is not actually what the song is about.  This is about when I had to take a job on the road after 9/11.  The economy was in shambles, and I was just lucky to have a job at all.  But that didn't keep me from falling into a deep depression.  This song could easily have been about one of the other 10+ stops I had to make on that extended work trip from hell.  A couple of years later I started playing shows in Tulsa from time to time, and I found out it was a pretty cool town if you knew where to go.  So once again, my apologies, Tulsa.  I was just sad and lonely.

WIth Apologies to Tulsa

With Apologies To Tulsa

I am a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist based in New Jersey by way of Granbury, Texas.  I bounce around between alternative, rock, metal, and occasionally country depending on the mood swing du jour.  I am a big supporter of anyone creating music so follow me, tweet me, like a track, and I will gladly check out what you're doin'.

Brad Erickson

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