A song I wrote for my wife on our ten-year anniversary trip. We were super out-of-shape, and could barely make it up a relatively "easy" hike to the top of "Tent Rocks" State Park.

But, as it says in the song, all along the trail folks encouraged us to keep going, and literally said the words that are the title to the song. 
It was too great a metaphor to ignore, it's still a great for us...and hopefully for everyone trying to go the distance. 

Marriage can be hard at times. But if you can find the way to "make things last," the view really does get better the higher you climb.

Better The Higher You Climb

This is a demo version of Tom Prasada-Rao's amazing song, "$20 Bill."
This song has been covered hundreds of times during the past year, and is a key song in the movement for social justice for African Americans.
As a White man, I wanted to honor the voices of African-Americans in this version, and have included the voice of Rev. Al Sharpton (speaking just after Floyd's death a year ago...) and the crowd in Denver at a rally last summer.
They are reminders that we not only remember George Floyd, but also continue the struggle for justice and equity in his name.

$20 Bill (For George Floyd) written by Tom Prasada-Rao

A song written on New Year's Eve, 2021.
The year feels like an exercise in Sisyphean philosophy for us all.
But let's keep believing....we'll leave this grieving.

One rock chip at a time, we'll break through to a new tomorrow.

ROCK HAMMER TO THE STONE 
Been a groundhog day of a year.
Equal parts of sadness and of fear.

You hobble toward a cold and bitter end.
And worry what the coming days portend.

But every day, just wake up
Put rock hammer to your stone.
Though it rarely breaks up
Each chip leads you home.

Just keep on breathing.
Keep on seeking.
Keep believing.
We’ll leave this grieving.

It’s Sisyphean time for everyone
And we wonder when the waiting will be done 

When it seems a mountain blocks your way
Just take one small step….every day.

Every day, just wake up
Put rock hammer to your stone.
Though it rarely breaks up
Each chip leads you home.

Just keep on breathing.
Keep on seeking.
Keep believing.
We’ll leave this grieving.

Every day, just wake up
Put rock hammer to your stone.
Though it rarely breaks up
Each chip leads you home.

Just keep on breathing.
Keep on seeking.
Keep believing.
We’ll leave this grieving.

WORDS, MUSIC, VIDEO: © ERIC FOLKERTH.

Rock Hammer To The Stone

Fifty-years-ago this month, Dan Fogelberg released the incredible album, "Souvenirs."

During the pandemic, the members of Connections (well, mostly me) had the idea to record "Gambler," and put out a video. We never got the project done. None of the video was shot, and some of the tracks never recorded....

But I assembled what we did have, and here you go...not great...but an homage to the man who helped us start our band...and the great record that came out, 50 years go, this month.

EF

Vocals: Eric Folkerth, John Stenger, Rusty King, Jennifer Rawlinson.
Piano: Jeff Black
Keyboard: Brian McPherson
Acoustic Guitars: Rusty King, Eric Folkerth
Bass: Randy Locke
Drums: John McCarty

(Other tracks: Eric Folkerth)

Place In the World For a Gambler -- Connections Demo

A song about the absolutely true ways in which my wife and I might have met, long before we actually did...in Preston Hollow. I've had the idea for this song for more than twenty years, and got it written and a demo tracked this week.

Important message for our time now....EF

THE STREETS OF OLD PRESTON HOLLOW

On the streets of old Preston Hollow
In that sweaty Summer air
I’d play fungo ’till the Sun went down
A boy without a care.
Gulpin every Slurpee I could swallow
I’d trade my baseball cards
In the shade of the Mimosa trees
And those St. Augustine yards.

And did you see…
Me as I was back then
Long before we…
Walked our common road?
Now, we are family
Here on this big blue ball
We found some way to find each other,
through it all.

For, on the streets of old Preston Hollow
That-same hot, Summer air
You helped your Dad mow rich folk’s lawns
With all his many cares
Gulpin every Slurpee you could swallow
And a hotlink for a buck
Conjunto on the radio
In that rusty pickup truck

And did I see…
You as you were back then
Long before we…
Walked our common road?
Now, we are family
Here on this big blue ball
We found some way to find each other,
through it all.

In case it isn’t clear, this is the story of our life.
I’m the clueless little White boy, she’s my tough Latina wife.
But lately, as we look back, at all our road behind.
Is that path we got to travel then, one lovers still can find?

Cause now, the streets of old Preston Hollow
They’re all that still remains
The ranch style homes have been knocked down
The mailbox names all changed.
And it’s such a hard pill to swallow 
That behind those McMansion gates
Some fear the ones who mow those lawns
No one sees our common fate…

Can we still still see…
Each other as a friend
And can we…
Still walk some common road?
For, we are family
Here on this tiny ball
Could we find some way to find each other,
through it all?

Like started on the streets of Preston Hollow…
Once upon a time in Preston Hollow…
On the streets Old Preston Hollow…

Copyright, © Eric Folkerth. 2025
All Rights Reserved.

The Streets of Old Preston Hollow

A song about a trip back to my grandparents hometown many years after they had died.

The picture here is actually from Frank's Cafe on New Years Eve, 1950.

The song is basically about the entire evening and happened just about how I sing it....

FRANK'S CAFE
The Sun’s not shining bright,
On the road back to the old Kentucky home,
Tree coated with ice,
And across each field, a light dusting of snow.

And with every mile, old ghosts reappear and gather round.
And I’m suddenly aware of what is lost and what is found.

And those voices from the past are all around me
And they echo up through time, right to today.
So say hello, and say goodbye
And sing, “American Pie,”
And toast it all tonight at Frank’s Cafe.

An hour down this road,
I find the old red brick house I still recall
Giant in mind, but today in real life
Strangely small.

We used to walk across that bridge to watch the “Big Red Machine.”
Rummage through that attic, filled with old Time Magazines
Sled Devou Park hills in a deep midwinter snow
And watch the seasons turn, as Ohio River flowed

And those voices from the past are all around me
And they echo up through time, right to today.
So say hello, and say goodbye
And sing, “American Pie,”
And toast it all tonight at Frank’s Cafe.

Now, once upon a time, 
This old bar and grill bore my grandfather’s name.
I step inside for just one night
To the sounds of karaoke Don McLean.

And these locals raise their beers to a barkeep they’d never known
And the guy behind the tape machine hands me the microphone
As they gather in that pub, like they’ve done a thousand nights
I stand in that small spotlight, and sing with all my might.

And those voices from the past are all around me
And they echo up through time, right to today.
So say hello, and say goodbye
And sing, “American Pie,”
And toast it all tonight at Frank’s Cafe.

Copyright Eric Folkerth, ©2016.
All Rights Reserved.

Frank's Cafe

The audio of my  speech at the Anti-White Supremacy Rally in Dallas, Texas: August 19, 2017.
Many thanks to Sometro Talk for the permission to repost this audio here.
Sometro is a part of the Get Global Network. You can find audio from the entire Dallas Rally here:
https://www.spreaker.com/user/thebwegroup/dallas-against-white-supremacy-rally-aug

Thanks also to "InSolidarity" for planning Dallas' rally. And to Alan Gann for the picture.

Eric's Speech at the Anti-White Supremacy Rally, Dallas TX

The song I wrote when my daughter was born, that appeared on "Songs fro the Time Being."
I have often said that from the moment she was born, whole new rooms opened up in my heart that I never knew were there. She has taught me that this is how love works. The more we love --not just our families, but the world-- the bigger our hearts get. Yes, they get broken more too. But if we open enough doors in our heart, the rooms are always bigger than the breaks.

Songs For The Time Being

These Rooms

This isn't a song. It's audio from an old reel-to-reel tape of the day of my birth, September 21, 1962. The main speaker is my grandfather, Frank Folkerth....speaking TO my parents (Pat and Dick Folkerth).

In the days before iPhones, my family used to exchange reel-to-reel tapes with each other, and this recording is a little slice of life. Except, and average day is interupted with news of my birth.

What I love about this is how the day starts out so ordinary....Frankie is washing storm windows...repotting pots...getting ready for winter.

He's narrating a story about how the mail comes, including apparently pictures from Mom and Dad, when suddenly you can tell that his whole world has changed.

Rarely does anybody get to hear the audio of how their grandfather came to know they were a grandfather for the first time. But I've heard it....and now, so can you.

Pretty fun, huh?

The Day I Was Born- My Grandfather's Tape

This a very old of mine that appeared on "Songs for the Time Being."

This song was, quite literally, inspired by a moment at the North Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, in approximately 1998. 

I was a young clergy then. I was ready for a denomination that reached out to the poor and marginalized. I was ready for a church that welcomed the LGBTQ community, and looked to the future, not the past.

But I looked out at that room...filled with grey hearded delegates debating minor changes to pension plans and budgets for administration....and I thought...

"My God, this is a dinosaur convention...."

That inspired the whole song.

Obviously, in our time the song is relevent today in so many NEW ways. We so many more groups of people denying the future and clinging to the past:
Racists and Confederate sympathizers.
Climate deniers.
Immigrant haters.

What if they are the dinosaurs of our age?

My Brontosaurus Threw A Potluck

This song is a hopefully faithful retelling of Rabbi and Therapist Edwin Friedman's short story, called "The Bridge." 
This story has been extremely influential to me in dealing with all people, but especialy with those struggling with addictions.

For folk music fans, you may note the beautiful background harmonies, These are from the lovely Rachel Bissex...a dear songwriting friend who is still dearly missed by all who knew her. Tim McLemore is on  piano.

Friedman himself calls the man on the bridge "The Other." And in a seminar with him once, I heard him suggest that sometimes "The Other" is an actual *person* who is keeping us from our "destiny." And sometimes they are simply a part of ourselves.

Sometimes, the most loving thing we can do for the "Other" is to let them go, and trust that they will be OK.

Free My Hands

I live track from concert back in the early 2000s, at "Gloria Dei Nights" Coffee House in Garland. It mashes together favorite hymn: "This is My Song,: and then morphs into my song "The Birches of Moscow."
In a sense, "Birches" is a song from a bygone time now. It was written about my trips to Russia mid-to-late 1990s, when the wall was falling and we were overcoming the old "Cold War" divisions between "us and them."
The line "Faces of the Enemy" is a direct invocation of Sam Keens' powerful book of the same name. That is one of the most influential books my life, as Keen powerfully describes the far-too-prevelent way we "Otherize" entire nations, tribes, and races. This process is cross-racial and trans-national. The process of making the "Other" into "The Enemy" is perhaps as old as humanity itself.
But on our very small planet, we've got to find another way, or else we shall all perish. 

So, while our relationship with Russia has strained again....that deeply important calling...to make "friends" out of our old "enemies" is still the more important work any of us can do.

This is My Song/The Birches of Moscow

Survivor’s Guilt.
Imposter Syndrome.

Two words for relatively similar experiences that, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized many people have. Including me.
The older you get, you start to look right and left, and sometimes you see folks who used to be standing beside you…aren’t. Somehow, you’ve “made it through” some life-trial, or tragedy. Somehow, you got the break, and they didn’t.

And it makes you ask “Why I am the one, and why not you?”

There are very *good* and clear reasons why in some cases of course…they had addictions you didn’t…you worked harder…

But then, there’s just the part that’s pure dumb luck. Or blessed luck. There’s the good timing you had, and the bad they did.

You can’t spend you life, of course, looking backward like Lot’s Wife. But it’s foolish to believe you never will or do. And if you’re honest with yourself, it can call up a wistfulness. Hopefully, that wistfulness can lead to a gratitude. As Stephen Colbert said in that interview the other day, “It’s a gift just to exist…”

Yes.

So, I love this song, and feel it speaks to these pretty deep issues. Been in the studio off and on the past few month, and am very please with how it’s come out.

The point of the song is that these are universal experiences, not unique ones. 

There IS a guilt that we survive.
And…it’s a gift to exist.

These are two sides of the same coin of existence that God calls us to embrace and wrestle with throughout our lives.

LogicProDemos

The Guilt That We Survive

For reasons not clear to me, I felt compelled to cover this Who song. I wanted to see what I could do with *just* the acoustic guitar. All instruments besides the drum track are acoustic guitar with very little EQ or compression.
This song is played before every Dallas Maverick's game...as the dancers writhe and the strobe lights pop. And I always think "Is anybody actually listening to the lyrics?"
A powerful song that eviscerates the empty facade of much of contemporary life...and probably more "on point" today than when Townshend originally wrote it.
All gratitude and thanks to Pete Townshend for his original brilliance.
Enjoy.

Scratch Demos

Eminence Front (The Who Cover)

"Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed?"
-- William Shakespeare

I wrote this soon after the Obergerfell decision, legalizing Same Sex Marriage....that's the inspiration for the line "who we choose to love."

A song inspired by the fact that, under the skin, we have so much in common.

The Same Blood

This is a song I wrote to honor all my many social justice friends, who are standing up and speaking out in our time.
The title comes from a minister friend, who said it to me once. After a sermon where I had preached an especially prophetic word of social justice, he said "Eric, you really stood up to your full height."

There are definitely forces of darkness and despair that are seeking to destroy People of Color, the LGBTQ community, the poor, and immigrants. There is SO much to stand up to, and it can be terrifying to do it, even for those of us who feel a special "call" to it.
Don't let anyone ever silence your voice. Keep standing up to your full height, no matter the cost.

May we all "stand up to our full height."

YOUR FULL HEIGHT
words and music by Eric Folkerth

Your Full Height

Stand up to your full height
Shine out with your heart light
Raise your fist, and join the fight.
You’re not alone.
You’re not alone.
You’re not alone.

So your pushing up the covers to the top of your head
And your spending every moment lying here in the bed
Cause the news on the television fills you with dread
Every day.

Well, I know the future seems dark and unclear
But I pray you can listen, I hope you can hear
The way to get your hope again, and conquer your fear
Is to say…

Chorus

Millions of us showing up, we’re out in the streets
We find the intersections where the causes all meet
It’s a power that you just cannot put down with a Tweet
Any more.

The power of the people where we all lend a hand
All cultures and religions, every woman and man
The “tired huddled masses" have a place in this land
We adore.

Chorus

Your Full Height

As We Go On
Words and Music: Eric Folkerth
12/29/20
(Video: https://youtu.be/EdcUUj8EryQ)

the turning of the year
the turning of a page
listen and you’ll hear
all this restlessness and rage
sadness in our eyes
hearts still in grief
we say our goodbye
to the Orange-headed thief…

as we go on…we go on…
we go on…we go on…

so, nurse up your aches
but listen to that rage
and follow your heartbreak
for all those
children in a cage
find a forward road
but keep the question why
the story we were told
of how thousands
had to die…

as we go on…we go on…
we go on…we go on…

old acquaintance 
are forgot
and never brought to mind
so drink that cup,
but keep your thought
on who we left behind
so promise that you’ll mean
a promise that will last
a promise to redeem
all these failures of our past
for all yet to come
for pain we can ease
for the race we still run
for the ones
who still can’t breathe…

as we go on…we go on…
we go on…we go on…

the turning of the year
the turning of the page
listen, and you’ll hear
the restlessness…
and rage

as we go on…
we go on…

(Copyright, Eric Folkerth ©2020. All Rights Reserved)

Notes:
I’ve been wrestling with how to move on to 2020. Not that I am unready the change. I’m as sick of 2020 as anybody.

But it feels like there’s so much unfinished business…or so much business that we’ll carry forward with us into 2021. In fact, I truly believe that we’ll be reckoning with the year 2020 —politically, socially, spiritually, MEDICALLY— for the rest of our lives.

So, while we go on…as we must…let us remember the lessons 2020 needed to teach us…and let’s commit ourselves to all of its unfinished business…EF

As We Go On

Eric is a musician, minister, writer and blogger, who has performed throughout Texas and the Southwest. He's an engaging live performer whose first CD was released in 2000. His songs have won honorable mention in both the Billboard and Great American song contests; and he's been a finalist in the 5th Street Festival and South Florida Folk Festival songwriter competitions.

Eric is also a leader of Connections, a unique band comprised of United Methodist clergy and layfolk from throughout North Texas. Connections performs "cover shows" of artists like Dan Fogelberg, Chicago, Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor and others. Their shows draw crowds of between 300 and 1,000 fans, and have raised more than $360,000 dollars for worthy charities.

Eric Folkerth

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