Every Valley A River by Tim McFate

The Conversation

I think this entire project is really about my desire to understand what the fuck is happening to myself and all of us—all our stories.

Well I heard a conversation

Outside the CVS

About a country gone to hell

High heels sound like horses

And the flag hangs in the brittle breeze

And I can’t sleep

And I can’t wake up

Carry on this disease

This disease

I can’t sleep

And I can’t wake up

Winter’s just around the corner

I’m trying hard to understand

To understand

Sleeping in the car

In the middle of the day

I will find the goodness

And I will find my way

On occasion I will think of something new

Surprised and delighted

I might bring it to you

Today I’ll be the stranger

Swimming in your pool

And I will cross the line for you

And I will break that golden rule

I wish your fields were mine

Then all the sunrises would be in me

Everybody wants the sun to rise

Everybody want that river to flow

Everybody wants the sun to rise

Everybody want that river to flow, flow, flow

Everybody everybody wants that sun to rise

Well You said

You planned your funeral when you were 50.

And I wake up early

for the sun

For all that it does

It’s the least I can do

least I can do

You said you once had a garden

A garden where nothing would grow

I’d rather you had a bicycle

That would take you

where ever you wanted to go

There’s a story I tell about the desert

How I saw you up in a tree

How I watched you from a satellite

And sent you erotic pictures of me

But the desert turned into the heartland

And the heartland lead to the sea

And the future is mirky

at best

You said you wanted to travel

And you lost your legs

You didn’t unravel

But it changed , Yea it everything

It was a pretty good day

drove with a friend across the border

We sat on a stone wall

In the shade

And drank some coffee

took the back way

Into Monday

cried very little

About the past

I put my feet up

When I had enough

Yea, yea

Out in the back yard with the radio

I can hear all the way to Little Rock Arkansas

600 miles through the atmosphere

Into my ear

Well It seems like forever

Could conceivably arrive

Im hoping for the best

But I know better

It’s late

Most things have come and gone

The water in my tap

Seems a little bit colder

And I am happy just to see you

I’ll be waiting

I try to be cynical

What a fucking joke

I should stick to what I know

And I don’t know how to explode

I don’t know how to explode

Neon Cowboy

This is for Alan. He was a mentor, my sister’s boyfriend, and my friend . I thought about all the things he might say about me and about himself. It is a poem for him. It also has nothing to do with him. It was what I would see walking through the bus plaza on my way to buy cigarettes, which reminded me, if not for the grace of God… In a funny way, it might be what Alan and I could say about each other.

Romeo is dirtier than Juliet thought


And Juliet likes things her own way

And he thinks about her all the time


Yeah he thinks about her all the time

Three boys just about fifteen

And they’re sitting on the stoop
I know they are homeless and they have run away

Money makes the world go round

You are stuck here till you can get out of town

They've got no coats and it is ten degrees


And, and I look back at them on my way home


And I, I’m looking at me

And I, I was looking at me

I saw the future and I saw the past

Neon cowboy draws a line in the sand


Girls dance and fall asleep so far from home

I remember

The first time you came to my door

No bags

No gravity

No floor

I took a picture

Yeah I took a picture

Before you could drift away

I took a picture

Yeah I took a picture

Before you could drift away

Well You said

You planned your funeral when you were 50.

And I wake up early

To be there for the sun

For all that it does

It’s the least I can do

least I can do

You said you once had a garden

A garden where nothing would grow

I’d rather you had a bicycle

That would take you

where ever you wanted to go

There’s a story I tell about the desert

How I saw you up in a tree

How I watched you from a satellite

Sent you erotic pictures of me

But the desert turned into the heartland

And the heartland lead to the sea

And the future is mirky

At best

You said you wanted to travel

then you lost your legs

But you didn’t unravel

But it changed everything

It was a pretty good day

I drove with a friend across the border

We sat on a stone wall

In the shade

And drank coffee

Took the back way

Into Monday

Cried very little

About the past

I put my feet up

When I had enough

Yea, yea

Out in the back yard with the radio

I can hear all the way to Little Rock Arkansas

600 miles through the atmosphere

Into my ear

Well It seems like forever

Could conceivably arrive

I'm hoping for the best

Bit I know better

It’s late

Most things have come and gone

The water in my tap

Seems a little bit colder

And I am happy just to see you

I’ll be waiting

I try to be cynical

What a fucking joke

I should stick to what I know

And I don’t know how to explode

And I don’t know how to explode

History Is Waiting by Tim McFate

Little Tear in the Heartland

This song started out as a song about Ukraine. I felt self-conscious writing about other peoples’ suffering at that moment. I was also mixing in things from my own life. I am from Iowa, and “the heartland” means something to me as well.

I used to stick out my thumb

To passing strangers

I drove them home

While they slept

Now I gather up wood

A fence I helped to tear down

I built a fire

To add to the starry sky

Little tear in the heartland

Keeper of memories

I thought I could do it

Believing I used to believe

Two chairs looking out the window

A table in-between

Two hands on the wheel

And I ain't letting go

When you need me round

I will drive you home

Pass another day another sun.

When we fall asleep

Some things are never changing

When we fall asleep

Some things are just a dream

I was in the backseat

A childhood friend was singing

The radio was playing

My father drove the car

We drove through the country

Amber grains were waving

There was no war

No suffering

Yea, we drove through the country

Amber grains were waving

There was no war

No suffering

Little tears in the heartland

Keeper of memories

I thought I could do it

Believing I used to believe

Above My Head

When I had just turned sixteen I met a girl through a friend. I think she was fifteen. We spent the summer confiding in each other. I never saw her again. I would sometimes do a search on her name to see if I could find out where she landed. I was spelling her name wrong. I recently found out she died. I felt such a loss. I never told anyone about her and now those memories would only be mine. Shared memories start to fade and die as we get older.

I knew a girl

She played me her favorite songs

I remember it was summer

By September she was gone

I knew a girl

She treated me so kind

She came in through the window

She told me

Everything was fine

She told me to kiss her lips

She told me to take my time

I knew a girl

She was bright eyed

And I was under siege

With her around

Oh man I did not bleed

The stars were bright above my head

Her breath was in my ear

The final days of summer

Oh man they just disappeared

I ran across her obituary

On a cloudy day in May

It said she died in Florida

A thousand miles away

And a friend would scatter her ashes

On the gulf coast

Some day

Every breath you take

Some day

Every toll of the bell

Every moment you spend

Wading in the wishing well

Bothers and sisters

Lend me your hand

For the great unknown

Has been taken again

The all knowing

Nothing to say

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

Two Fingers

This song came from a dream about my father. I have been having more of those lately. He died of heart disease at forty-six, when I was fifteen. I was the oldest at home so was intimately involved in his last few years. Before that I hardly knew him.

I see my father in the garden

He’s wearing his khaki pants

A drink in his hand, he’s shirtless

Practicing his farewell dance

I’m in the grass and I’m watching

Two fingers measuring his drink

He has four more years

And two more inches

If I have enough to drink

HIs ghosts will come around

We tend to play catch up

And pick thru the lost and found

There is a tent in the woods

With a bike and a chair

I walk past every day

I never see anyone there

I am going there tonight

Just trying to get back home

Silly silly me

Lost in what can never be

Gardens growing, skinned my knee trying not to drown my memory.

Say hello to Joe

He’s taking out the trash

We share a bit of land

And a little wooden fence

I hear his troubles

When they spill out of his house

I would say we are

good neighbors

I’m just trying to get back home

Silly silly me

Lost in what can never be

I got the gardens growing, skinned my knee trying not to drown my memory.

The sun through the window

Bare trees and a southern sky

Birds in the air

Gliding way up high

They see the trouble

I am going to send your way

Those birds

In that southern sky

My father in the garden,1965

He’s got a drink in his hand and he’s shirtless

Practicing his farewell dance

I’m in the grass and I’m watching

Two fingers measure his drink

He has four more years

And tonight, just two more inches

I’m just trying to get back home

Silly silly me

Lost in what can never be

I got the gardens growing, skinned my knee trying not to drown my memory.