Syracuse - Story Behind the Song

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The music came first. One time after warming up my fingers on the piano with scales. After the warm up sometimes fingers just want to keep going, and catch on a cord or a pass that really gets to something, speaks to something going on deep down in there.

I loved this tune and would play it to myself like candy sometimes, that emotional fix that feels so good.

Often when the music comes first you don't want to force the meaning out of the song, or try to force something or use the mind too much, it's gotta come on it's own. The music came from a simple and true place, and it takes patience and grace to allow the same thing with words, so much more cerebral. You must open the window and see what shows up, maybe in just a few minutes, maybe months later, something will be waiting there, plain as day.

We were on the road, on tour for Blue Cotton Skin, when we turned from the East Coast to come towards home. Like when you're on a trampoline and there's that moment when you're just floating, not up or down, but in the air, between both movements. It was such a freedom.

The sky was gray, there had been floods because of so much rain, all across the country. May. And the tune came into my head and the moment was right, Syracuse, NY was coming up and the words floated down into the music of this tune.

I felt such a tenderness toward the semis and truck drivers. We had a big van at the time (named Valerie) and we sat kinda high and I could see their faces. They drove as much as we did, much more, and it was interesting to have a little bit of a parallel life with them. The trucks seemed gentle and slow, the fields around us so quiet and green. I was grateful.


Valerie our tour Van/house

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Syracuse Next 6 exits

Truck drivers bend in my mirror
Square noses curve like the road
By purple fields and farms
Green from the rain doesn't stop


It will be spring six weeks ago
Water is rising level to the road
Geese flying over us
Going back home

Slow mothers carrying loads
Blue cabs, gray clouds hanging low
It's quiet out here on the farmlands
Quietest part of the run