Out with the old

Anybody else just floored that it's already Thanksgiving? Sometimes, I just don't know. Of course, with the holidays comes the attending logistics of doing two Thanksgivings and two Christmases... but after two years of coordination, we're getting pretty good at it. Plus, there's nothing wrong with having two Thanksgiving dinners.

This year, we're going up to Lake Geneva for Thanksgiving day and then having my parents over to our place on Sunday for another Thanksgiving. In between, I'll be (gulp) trying my hand at hunting pheasants up in Wisconsin. Something tells me, the birds have nothing to fear from a guy who's gone to a shooting range exactly once. I'm sure there's some old nugget of wisdom about spending time with one's father-in-law and guns...

I did manage to push through the final page of my writing book. And it yielded the final verse to the song

Someday We'll Watch the Highway Burn. Saw the light on the city behind Saw the firefight in your eyes Just another day coming on Just another restless dawn Someday We'll watch the highway Burn Thought that maybe I would stay As the morning slipped away Thought that maybe I would break The midnight spells you couldn't shake Someday We'll watch the highway Burn As you would say, this is the end Of what the heartbreak couldn't mend And then And then and then you will be free To light the fires of your dreams Someday We'll watch the highway Burn

*************

Feels like a good way to end a writing book that's been as productive as any I've had. I went looking for my first writing book from high school, but I think it's packed away in the basement. I did find a book from 1997... boy is that interesting. The strangest thing about looking back at old writing books is that there are things I don't remember writing. I usually go through a book every six months depending on how big it is, so I can generally remember writing almost everything in my current book.

Not so much with the older books, which feel like they were written by somebody else. The other strange thing, is that from all these books, we play exactly nothing I wrote from before 2001. And very little written before 2003. So there are about 8 years of books with nothing but... well... crap. I'm not being hard on myself. Actually, I am.

My point is just that it took me almost 8 years of writing to get to the point where I was consistently writing songs that held my (and the band's) attention. But that's how I've developed whatever work ethic I have today. Most of the Bottle Boy album was written in one book. And this book I just finished produced a good dozen tunes, most of which will become Burn Rome Burn tunes.

So... I guess that really puts it in perspective. Or as David St. Hubbins said "Too much fucking perspective."

jbg