The Sunday Poem: The Land of Red Barns
Well, I just wasted like three or four hours trying to record a song, but something is off in my recording setup and everything sounds incredibly noisy. I can’t pinpoint what the problem is, so I am giving up.
That means that I am cheating today, which is bad, given that I missed two weeks of posting something for the Sunday Poem/Song — one to the blog being down and one to illness. But oh well, that’s what backlogs are for.
This song is on After the Flood, and was also the title track to a separate album that I put together but never finished recording. I wrote it after driving cross-country to attend a friend’s wedding. And all you get is the lyrics — you’ll have to pick up the CD to get the actual song. 🙂
The Land of Red Barns
15 minutes out of Knoxville, cruising through Tennessee
Weather says a cold front’s coming, clouds are battling over me
Cubed veins of rock run the ridges and farms hunker down
The barns like princes survey their land, rusty corrugated roofs their crowns
Today on Virginia’s Eastern Shore a couple ties the knot
They say their vows on a rainy day and smile a lot
They drive to a hall for a reception past old red barns
And feel secure deep in their hearts they cannot come to harm
CHORUS
You reach the top of a cresting hill
There’s a little bit of a wind chill
A valley like a basket full of houses and fields
Jumbled loose, hurt and healed
Every voyage is a rite of passage
From rock to town to farm
Here in the land of red barns
Caught a TV show in some motel, Kennedy clips in black and white
His motorcade turning left, his head jerking right
There’s a flame burning in the rain somewhere tonight
Some threshold has been crossed, someone has lit a light
Virginia state line 63 miles, road a ribbon running free
Weather says a warm front’s coming but rain is hard to see
Today in a slat white church a couple tied the knot
I turn off Kennedy and think of what he could not
CHORUS
Gotta get on the road in the morning, find north on 81
I’ll know where I’m getting to once the journey’s done
The sun will shine past the clouds, past the rain
I’ll mark my way by the green and the grain, the houses and the flame
This field’s bluegreen timothy
This field’s virgin wheat
This field lies fallow
And this one waits for seed, oh this one waits for seed
CHORUS
3 Responses to “The Sunday Poem: The Land of Red Barns”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Raph’s Website »The Sunday Poem: The Land of Red Barns
I still use this riff as a warm-up 🙂
1. You’ve probably already checked the gains, yes? Use the highest output from every source first before upping the gains at the board unless you have a power stage in there (eg, a pre-amp on the guitar or mic). If you do and it is battery powered, check the batteries.
2. The most likely culprit is a bad cable. Pull them one at a time and see if the noise drops off.
3. Are you using phantom power on the mic? If that is overloaded, it should spike at the meters.
4. Dirty potentiometers happen. Try twisting them back and forth or pushing the sliders back and forth.
5. Is it noise in the headphones and speakers or noise in the track itself?
I had one of the best nights of my life fifteen minutes out of Knoxville. A good story over a beer sometime.
[…] (more…) This is syndicated from Raph’s Website. […]