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Floating
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1 We got this one in one take - which is fitting because I wrote it in less than 5 minutes. I don't recall whom it is about but I have my suspicions. Charity Morning cuts so gentle and low through curtains in an open window There's no telling how much further you can go Before you're dancing with skeletons and ghosts So won't you come back down you've been high too long On solid ground landing here where you belong And don't look down on all these wrongs without charity The high wire has been your home above these broken streets up there on your own looking out across this great unknown knowing that you have to walk this line alone home |
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2 Adjala is a township not far from where I live. Recorded two takes, this is number two. At Puck's Farm you can look out and see Adjala township - I was so happy that this song was recorded there. I don't pronounce Adjala the way the locals do. Adjala Adjala sweet songs ringing like a silver horn blasting across the fields home out on the highway sunsets flashing violet and crimson like a drifter's soul And all your troubles come up calling and all your worries get carried so high Adjala step from your fortress won't stop this darkness until You let yourself shine Adjala moonlit river weeping willow behind the driving shed tornadoes twisting paradigms shifting rain squall lifting off this tired land |
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3 Recorded the guitar in my living room and the vocals and cello at Jeff's place. I used to live at the base of this ski hill and we used to hang out up there. It seemed miles away from everything. Slow Turn Around Crab apple bloomed where the trail cuts as we walked along the spillway earth dodging laser beams through the sumac trees picking up pretty stones we found in the dirt And it's a slow turn around sun dance summer days in the hills outside of town it's a slow turn around and you think you're further than you really are think you're further than you really are The distant brown roofs were lined up below in these bottomlands where our lives lie and no one down there knew we were up there listening to the wind high in the pines We were stepping stones across the glades watching gasoline rainbow in the ravine then lying low along the reach as we shiver she said please don't make me like my sister |
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4 Wrote this after reading BLACK ROBE. We recorded out at the Tragically Hip's place. We all sat together in one room and put it down. I believe this is take 5. Land Of No Goodbyes Ice was forming on the river so we pulled out on the bar We couldn't take him much further left him to the hands of God He had come with a message he had come to spread the word Now he's lying on the shoreline hoping his prayers are heard In this land of no goodbyes the devil wears a godly robe And rivers run without names in directions completely unknown I'm going to take my rifle and I'm going to take my true love Cause I can't see past these trees to the sky up above |
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5 Carried the first two verses of this one for a couple of years. The departure of the drummer from my first band is what I'm talking about in the last verse. I love Colin's guitar on this - unbelievable. He's playing his '59 Les Paul. The Fence We were moving on even further inside the jounce of miles opened me up split me far and wide and we weren't pretending just intending to find our own in this mystery trying to keep our love from growing cold now I can run across these years like driving through this fallow town close my eyes keep it rolling still not know where I'm bound they're blowing smoke at the frozen stars watch them drag down Davis Drive got to keep your engine rolling got to keep your wheels pressurized Cause everybody knows the tables never turn half as much as they promise to and I tried swinging for the fence but nothing ever falls straight and true I could head to Alliston find a place on that rivet line and if your not watching where you lean the line might become your mind and if I only get one chance make sure it comes from in my bones don't want to end up a hollow man cause an empty heart's too hard to hold and I can't recall when this signal struck now I can't hear anything else at all I'm looking four ways at once trying to decide where I should fall call my ghost up from the fields let the clock tower ring don't want to be someone who just can't see a possibility in anything Now I hear that your leaving heading across the border line tired of this thing we made tired of the way your life unwinds got a bunch of new friends now found a new way to stand I'm sorry this never did work out sorry we were also rans now I'm floating madly back to where our plans were first hatched smoking hash in the back seat of my father's Pontiac I never thought that we would end up like this I never pictured us taking a shot and having it miss |
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6 Finished this one when I was in Nashville. Tim Bovaconti came up with this great lick and put it on his answering machine so he wouldn't forget it. Finesse Life levels out and you feel written off and this direction that you’re on is just another total distraction we were boys of wheels driven and beautiful now the way gets so worn out and you feel so faithless and everything's so brutal What ever happened to your finesse your hands are greasy on the handle What ever happened to your finesse you're fitting a square peg into a round hole We've got no plans no place we got to be and it's so hard to stand up when you got nothing but a broken down dream |
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7 We got this in one take. I used Kim Deschamps' National on it. I wrote this song when I was 23. The characters are all real. You can still go back to my old hometown and see the 81. Old 81 No one heard it coming but every one knew it would the whistles would stop blowing and leave this town for good now the rusted old skeleton of the 81's remembered emblazoned on a crest of an old hockey sweater My best friend's father he worked on the railroad he was a big man torn hands did everything he was told spend his nights drinking at the Palmer Hotel saying here's to you boys cause you know you just can't tell No when I was young I engineered the old 81 'til she ran out of track 'til she ran out of steam and nowadays she haunts my dreams Never thought that much about it you know it always was there small town pride defined by a roar and rumble in the air now the pig iron's rusting and there's weeds in the tracks big man in the city says son it ain't coming back Lightning strikes the iron bridge thunder strokes the sky the day has come this train is done this town is gonna die and there ain't a smile to be had on any of her streets no farewell parade no company speech |
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8 This is my favorite song on the record. We got this one about 3 in the morning. It was one take on the piano that used to be my great grandmother's. We overdubbed Kevin Fox's cello at Jeff's place. Seven Years Seven years and I'm still standing here watching the sky turn blue and I'm wondering where I might be if you hadn't left this rain in me to fall so gently in the fields I'm 28 and still chasing tornadoes and rainbows the taste of your grin I recall standing at the station you looking back at me waving Seven years It could've been Tucson could've been Mexico could've been Alberta could've been the great big sea but I get lost sometimes on highways of yesterday always looking for me In a dream of America I found my lost shadow standing by the roadside thumb in the wind in a dream of America I took feathers and jaw bones and put myself back together again Seven years So I recall your dark hair in the sun your bare feet, Levi's, peyote buttons now I'm a wreck and still I can't see what it was you left lingering with me Seven years |
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9 Finished writing this one on a plane from San Francisco to Toronto. The second verse is all about my Grandfather. He built a sailboat one time and lost it when he went bankrupt. Still Coming On Feel like I'm all lit up tonight like Yonge Street shining on a Saturday night when the home team wins and the crowd spins and explodes One day I'll be pirouetting down the promenade sipping vodka and pink lemonade but I'm still marching in that pay-day parade and there's a few blocks left to go Gonna keep my hands hard on the wheel and go for the rise as the way unwinds some things I can't get myself around I've been leveling down but I'm still coming on My old man never said goodbye he left here with things untied passed away on a Thursday night by the loading dock door he had the kind of beauty that you find that resides in the smallest darkest places never gave himself a whole lot always thought he had a little more So my heart rumbles for all the pickers in the fields and all the barstool patrons all gloomy with excite and every lover slipping gear and every trucker out there driven into this road yeah my heart's on a plane into YYZ looking down longing on the streets below Up here above all those city lights I'm gonna watch it all flow |
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10 Jeff and I recorded this one on his back porch in the summer of 2001. We did two takes; this is the first one. I feel that a good song is a good song no matter how much money you throw at it. My Heart Wanders My heart wanders like flames across a field when summer is blooming and the air's as thick as steel my heart wanders beyond distance and sound across divided zones the signal washes down My heart wanders when the code cannot be broke and I can't find my teeth and courage just won't hold my heart wanders in spite of all my doubt when silence has taken over and the drive is winding out My heart wanders like water to the stars rises from its footing and squeezes between the bars my heart wanders in and out of time shifting through the phases and swerving across the lines My heart wanders like the wind through the cracks blazes with the changes comes steaming down the track my heart wanders further than I can stand soars above the rabble then comes back down to land  Andrew Walker Newmarket, Ontario |
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