Waiting

On Your Side

You Can Close Your Eyes - James Taylor

About 8 years ago, I took on the task of recording several public domain stories for Librivox.org.  This was one of them, but it never made it into the collection I was reading for, because another volunteer beat me to it.  I just found it yesterday, and decided I'd share it with you.  I tried to clean up the audio a little (I was very new in recording, and had very minimal equipment), and I wrote a quick little piece of music to go at the end.  I hope you enjoy it.  I loved this story as a child.  If you have kids, feel free to download it and play it for them!

The Velveteen Rabbit

A brief clip of my conversation with my mom a couple of years ago where she reminisced about a favorite college English professor who liked to teach in memorable ways, thoroughly terrifying homework assignments involving Chaucer, and a spot of Middle English thrown in for good measure.

Shakespeare, Chaucer, and make believe swordplay on desks

A brief clip from my conversation with my dad a couple of years ago where he described his youth in 1950's Clearwater FL, hanging out at the $0.19 burger place, watching the streetlights, and the always-present, open, and normalized racism in his town, and the night it became especially real for him.

$0.19 burgers, streetlights, and racism

What makes this a neat track isn't so much the song or my performance of it.  It's the origin story that is memorable.  I was scheduled to play at a wedding of a couple I met through my booking website, gigsalad.com.  The daughter had a very specific request for her father daughter dance, and I didn't know it, so I looked it up and fell in love with it.  Neil Young's "Here for You" is a beautiful song that he wrote for his daughter, when she was 21, during her last year in college.  He says, "Yes I'd miss you, but I never want to hold you down. You might say I'm here for you."  

So here's the thing.  I had to learn it pretty quickly, and they wanted  a demo before they decided on it.  I had just finished a long day and it was well into the night when I got the email requesting the demo, so instead of waking up my wife, I took my guitar and digital recorder out to my car and scrunched into the front seat and busted this out.  I just ran across the file recently while going through some old files on my computer, and it really brought back some fond memories.  I hope they're all doing well.

Here For You: Neil Young Cover

An appropriate sound clip I ran across today from a show I recorded 5 or so years ago.  When I heard it, I immediately thought of my gutter on my garage that needed to be fixed, and about 3 weeks ago, I fixed it.  Yeah, do the math.  I also painted the garage, mowed the grass, and recorded 4 interviews for my podcast, Flies in the Kitchen.  I also realized I need to take a break though, from the constant "doing", even in a time like this quarantine, when there's a little more time to get things accomplished.... A break, in order to remember to make time for the important things, like my marriage.  Productivity isn't always the best option.  Sometimes it's fine to stop and take inventory of the things that matter, and focus on that.  The gutters can wait.  After all, mine did for over 5 years!

Fun little poem about Gutters by David LaMotte

I wrote the music to this beautiful poem written by my friend Frank Parmir.  The original poem is below.

I am odd, I am new
I wonder if you are too
I hear voices in the air
I see you don’t, and that’s not fair
I want to not feel blue
I am odd, I am new
I pretend that you are too
I feel like a boy in outerspace
I touch the stars and feel out of place
I worry what others might think
I cry when people laugh, it makes me shrink
I am odd, I am new
I understand now that so are you
I say I, “feel like a castaway”
I dream of a day where that’s okay
I try to fit in
I hope someday I do
I am odd, I am new.

Odd & New

Such a great classic song that has been in my ears for most of my life.


Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.

'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh! Hard times come again no more.

'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh! Hard times come again no more.

'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times come again no more.

Hard Times Come Again No More - Stephen Foster

Just another fingerpicker trying to tell a story.

Dan Heidt

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