american trash 2011

I don’t where this one came from. Lyrically, it doesn’t fit with anything i’d done before or since. But, god, I still love this song. This was the first song I was able to write with the Capo on the 2nd fret with the E open. That sound always hits me in the gut.

9/11 happened when we were in college. Dave and I turned on the TV that morning in our dorm on the Park side of Baker Park at Mizzou. I still remember watching NBC as the 2nd plane hit the tower in the background.

I can’t write about that. It’s too big and too far away. But, what I could write about was all the boys from the mid-west that left. Volunteered the next day, and the days to come soon after. I set this in ’92, but it’s about ’01. I thought about Caleb. I thought about the hilarious Donnie Ryan. Serving in the aftermath. How do you make sense of such madness? How do you make a difference, one man in the midst of all that oil and all that sand so far away? I still can’t wrap my head around it.

Those left behind, here, frozen in time. A snapshot of the last look on our faces when they turned to leave. I thought about the person in that image still at home. I tried to tell that story and paint that picture. What you’re going to come back to will never be the same. Time will move people along.

Billy got home back in ’95
He was still standin’ but barely alive
He said, “She was supposed to wait for me”
So he had a few drinks at the street side liquor
And he had a few more as he kept on missin’ her

That’s the verse that kills me in this one. When we would play or practice this, I could see the fellas singing this one along, whether they realized it or not. It’s the saddest love song I think I’ll ever write.

14 American Days

Billy met Annie back in ’92
They were both coming up it was so brand new
He said “Are you gonna wait for me?”

“Cos I got a long flight out in front of me
To the blood and the bullets and the oil overseas
Are you gonna wait for me?”

He said “Annie don’t miss me when I’m gone
Cos I know your feet will move your heart along
Past the green green grass that covers this place
Where your hands once moved across my face”

And it’s been fourteen American days gone by
And there’s only so many ways
To say “I love you please stay”

But Annie headed west to find a brand new way
And to take it in from the bay
Cos the only thing that ever came into this town
Is the train from St. Louis
And it don’t ever stick around

Billy got home back in ’95
He was still standin’ but barely alive
He said, “She was supposed to wait for me”
So he had a few drinks at the street side liquor
And he had a few more as he kept on missin’ her

He said, “Boy I don’t think I’ll ever be free
Form the blood and the bullets and the oil overseas
But she was supposed to wait”

And it’s been fourteen American days gone by
And there’s only so many ways
To say “I love you please stay”

But Annie left a letter by his boyhood bed
He picked it up and it read
It said, “Billy don’t miss me when I’m gone
Cos I know your feet will move your heart along
Past the green green grass that covers this place
Where your hands once moved across my face”