Two Country Songs

Playing a lot of weddings in more rural areas, I've been listening to some country music lately, and I kind of like it. There is a kind of stubborn insistence on clenching tightly to certain cliches (Jesus, Beer, Pick-up trucks), but I admire the literary quality of the lyrics. They seem to fit a lot more story into their songs than other forms do.

I was driving through Southern Ohio, where a lot of my family comes from, and I was really affected by the beauty of the place. It seems like that region is having a rough go of it right now, and though I don't agree with much of their politics, sometimes I'm jealous of their way of life. The first song is kind of about that.

MY HEART IS IN THE COUNTRY

My family moved up here from a town down south
Cause all the work dried up when the paper mill shut down
I want to move back to the country and find me a girl
Rip the boards off a farmhouse away from the world

Buy me a little plot of land
Plant some corn and watch grow
Dig my fingers in the soil
Feel my heart burn in my chest like coal

CHORUS
I want to move to the country where the girls are pretty
Their little jean shorts are teenie weenie bitty
My mailing address may be here in the city
But my heart is in the country

Have a stable full of horses and a house full of dogs
Wake up in the morning, get lost in the fog
Go swimmin’ in the earth, fishin’ in the creek
Show my boys how to shoot like my dad done with me

Well the smog climbing from the smokestacks
Look like Heaven flying up to the sky
And TV Tower on the hillside
Beside the cross, they shine so bright

CHORUS
I wanna move to the country where the speed limit is 50
But on them county roads at night you can be a little shifty
My F-150 may be parked in the city
But my heart is in the country

Down on Main Street it ain’t safe at night
The shop windows are broken, can’t afford the streetlights
Out roaming in the fields, you can sense the ghosts
In your headlights you can see the deers shredded in the road

The frozen wind is blowin’
Through the skeletons of abandoned cars
But the lights are so bright in the city
At night you can’t see the stars

CHORUS
You can tell them city folks that I don’t need their pity
High class ain’t got nothin’ on that down home nitty gritty
I may be pumpin’ gas up here in the city
But my heart is in the country

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I've always had a kind of fantasy about being a truck driver, and many of the great musicians either were truck drivers, or sang about being truck drivers. This song is kind of about what that life may be like.

ENDLESS HORIZON

I’m burning down the miles, just torching them up
When I get behind the wheel of that big old truck
I’m a man on a mission, best get outta my way
I’m a concrete cowboy riding for my pay
And the days go by
like the painted lines
And all night I’m looking
for a lit-up sign
That says three miles left
to the roadside rest
I can lay down my load
Til the sun peaks the crest
Of that endless horizon
That’s just a-risin’ everyday

In the morning I’m plowing through the midwest corn
When the evening comes around I’ll be pulling my horn
For them pretty little women that they got down south
But the very next day I’m in the Rocky Mountain Clouds
And the days go by
like the painted lines
And all night I’m looking
for a lit-up sign
That says two miles left
to the roadside rest
I can lay down my load
Til the sun peaks the crest
Of that endless horizon
That keeps getting further away.

I got a beautiful wife and a baby back home
I heard his first words on a long distance phone-call
Sometimes I wonder what I’m missing on that road at night
As I’m staring at their picture in the soft-dome light.
And the days go by
like the painted lines
And all night I’m looking
for a lit-up sign
That says two miles left
until my hometown
And for a couple days
I won’t have to go down
That endless horizon
I’m gonna reach the edge someday