I Didn't Come Here To Leave

Some Around Here

Welcome to Basically Done — the beginning of a story that bridges reality and fiction, Appalachia and modern America, the ridge-line quiet of the mountains and the restless hum of the city.
This first-chapter audiobook draws you into a world built from truth, heartbreak, and a stubborn kind of hope. It begins on the day everything changes.

Donald Pickett was a man who believed he had life figured out. For years he worked the glass towers of Charlotte, North Carolina — chasing success, wearing the uniform of ambition, doing everything the world said was “right.” But beneath the suit, something in him was breaking. He saw too much corruption, too much greed disguised as progress, too much silence from people who knew better. Then one day, without warning, the floor gave way. A false accusation, a setup inside the very company he helped build, and his entire career was gone before lunchtime.

That’s where Basically Done begins — at the moment of collapse.

When he walks out of that corporate building with nothing but a box in his hands, the skyline behind him glitters like a false promise. The highways stretch west toward the Blue Ridge, toward the places that still remember who he used to be. Back home in the mountains lies Cedar Knob — an old ridge where his ancestors once stood, where the soil still holds Cherokee memory and the rivers hum with something older than time. That’s where he heads, searching for answers, maybe redemption, maybe peace.

The audiobook opens with “Edge of It All” — a gritty Appalachian-Americana anthem by Pick’s Hideaway Players. The song isn’t just an intro; it’s the heartbeat of the entire saga. Its lyrics echo the novel’s core: what happens when a man loses everything that defined him and must rebuild from the ground up, finding truth not in power or profit but in purpose.

The tone is cinematic — a slow-burn opening like headlights on a two-lane road after rain. You can almost smell the asphalt, the damp pine, the Carolina night air. Donald drives alone, the hum of the tires blending with the rhythm of the song. Memories flash: a house that was never a home, a family fractured by ambition, the slow decay of trust in a world that sells illusion as truth. As he heads toward the mountains, he’s not just leaving Charlotte behind — he’s leaving behind the man he used to be.

This first chapter lays the emotional foundation for the entire Basically Done universe. It’s more than a novel — it’s a vertically integrated creative world: literature, film, and music woven together through a single independent vision. Every chapter carries its own soundtrack. Every song is a reflection of a moment in the story. Every scene is written to feel lived-in, like something you might’ve driven past on Highway 64 or heard whispered in a diner booth on the outskirts of Franklin.

Basically Done captures the cross-roads of modern American identity — the struggle between conscience and comfort, between faith and frustration, between standing up and staying silent. It’s about the ordinary people who still do what’s right when no one’s watching, and the cost they pay for it. It’s also about love — not the polished Hollywood kind, but the raw kind that hurts, heals, and keeps you moving when the rest of the world says quit.

Basically Done (Soundtract of Chapter 1+ Audiobook Intro)

Pick's Hideaway Players

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