KAAY

When I was a teenager in the Midwest we were isolated from what was happening on the coasts. The cultures used to be pretty divided. It would take months for music, fashion and ideas to arrive in our midwest town. I could go into the back yard late on summer nights and pick up KAAY out of Little Rock Arkansas, six hundred miles away. It is where I first heard a lot of the west coast bands. Clyde Clifford would play full albums. It is where my interest in music became serious. At the time my father, at forty six, was dying. His behavior became something I was tasked to watch out over. I felt isolated and alone. In the summer of 1969, on my fifteenth birthday, he told me he wouldn’t be around for my next one…he was right.

In the back yard I could hear the radio

All the way from Little Rock Arkansas

I could close my eyes and never see the end

I didn’t know I could do it so I did

Or at least I think I did

I have a hard time going back there

But I go back just the same

Last time I saw him

Was on the master bedroom bathroom floor

He was crying

Oh my god I’m dying

It’s a kind of shame

It’s hard to explain

Its just so early

And winter settled in

Sometimes it seems

Hardly worth the risk

Of losing what I know

To find out what I missed

What I missed

But in the back yard

Along the fence line

I will always think of him that way

In the garden

I never grew

Just plowed under

The thoughts of you

We were not close

But I watched him day by day

Somehow I knew

It would turn out this way

Well the ground is frozen

Can’t dig a grave when the ground is frozen

I bounced a ball off of the house

I remember that kid

It’s different now, I’m not that kid

Most of the time I’m you

Sitting in the sun

Like a breeze in the wind

Or the flames of a fire

Or shooting stars

Rushing in