Homecoming – Careers in Science track #5

[In the coming weeks, before The Longwalls release Careers in Science on Tuesday, March 1, I will be posting short notes on the concepts behind each song on the record. For the most part, we each had very clear ideas in mind before beginning to write. Each song has a little story to tell, and we'll do our best to explain them each leading up to the release.]

Come away
break your mother’s heart
come away
come away
Come away
break your mother’s heart
come away
come away

The town I grew up in...

A song about loss,  “homecoming” was at once an easy one for me to write and a difficult one for me to explain. It’s sort of a return to an earlier lyrical style for me, a little more fuzzy on concept from the outside, way too much information on the inside. Makes it difficult for me to write about at all, much less break it all down. The rest of the lyrics are next – soak in the texture, and we’ll make our way to the music without any heavy-handed explaination of my life story:

Ground was cool
happy to be a home
blistering day
blistering day
Ground was cool
but nothing
to call your own
Come away
Come away

Painted brass and
breaths of glory
fingers at your
hem
where you run
they’ll never
follow
till I come and call
for them

Gone the way
of Dodo and Buffalo
gone away
gone away
gone the way
of Dodo and Buffalo
gone away
gone away

Dust and Steel
pistol was at your hip
terrible day
blistering day
never draw
just shot up
into the air
gone away gone away

Painted brass and
breaths of glory
fingers at your
hem
where you run
they’ll never
follow
till I come and call
for them

Great opportunity here for us to stretch out and use as much layering and texture as possible…Kurt did a bunch of cello tracks, filling in nicely where you might hear keys instead, and I got another change to play some pedal steel, and as a novice, it took me some time to find the line between comping and soloing, and then to keep my solo lines traditional enough to fit the song – or at least keep it from coming across that I am a total guitar hack. I like it though. It ended up filling a sonic void that only a steel could.

any excuse to play some more pedal steel

You can check out the final album version when it’s released on Careers in Science on March 1st – in the meantime, here is the first demo that I posted:

And just an early reminder, our release show is Friday, April 8…hope I see you there!