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

My little tear in the heartland

Keeper of memories

I thought that 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 I’ll come round

I will drive you I will drive you home

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 that I could do it

Believing I used to believe

Of That I’m Sure

Last summer we took the RV back to my hometown in Iowa to stay along the Cedar river. I had been having dreams about going there. It held emotional business for me. I drove and my sixteen-year-old son navigated. The trip was everything that I had hoped it would be. I spent time at the river with friends that I could tell my thoughts to. It was kind of like a pilgrimage. A friend of mine told me a story about cleaning out her desk to move her office. She came across all of these plans and ideas that she had at a different time felt passionate about. Nothing ever happened with them and now she was tossing the remains into the trash. It reminded me that not everything always works and sometimes all we really needed was the journey.

I have cried that river

Many times alone

Where have you been

And where are you from

Blood bank giving out a loan

I traveled with the future generation

Back to a place they will never call home

Decades between us

Many many moons

I found you calling

On a breezy afternoon

I went back home

After quite some time

Many many miles

Rver of dreams

You’re hang with the living

But some of us are gone

You’re sorting out your papers

Everything you’ve done

It filled two barrels

Then it filled another one

How hard you fought

In the moment how you tried

Far from anyone

That every knew your name

Back that way you were just the same

I can’t help thinking that it matters

I don’t think that I’m the only one

In the last moments of my life

I want you to know

I will find a few seconds

To think of you

Of that I’m sure

Of that I’m sure

Of that I’m sure

Of that I’m sure

I can’t help thinking that it matters

I don’t think that I’m the only one

A little bit of what’s the use

A little bit of time will tell

A little bit of leave well enough alone

Of that I’m sure

Of that I’m sure

Of that I’m sure

Of that I’m sure

KAAY @3 by Tim McFate

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. It turns out 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 and become yours alone.

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

Dark Dark Days

This song started to form the day after the Sandy Hook shootings. It is a raw look at the immediate feelings I had thinking of such an unspeakable act. The latest shooting in Uvalde Texas is still raw and hard to imagine. I thought about the moments just before the shooting. It only takes seconds to change everything.

Well the air has gone still

And the sky is gone

I just want it to be raining

There’s no train out of this shameful station

The water’s edge seems to be close at hand

I shot a bird when I was young

With my paper route money I bought a gun

And I marched right up to the edge of life

With right and wrong between the sights

If I had a hammer

I'd hammer in the evening

I'd hammer all over this land

What happened to this country?

What’s happening to my town?

Don’t see my friends out walking...

Where are the children?

Something’s going down

My TV has spoken,

Doesn’t seem to help

Nothing does

Nothing can help

I shot a bird when I was young

With my paper route money

I bought a gun

And I marched right up to the edge of life

With right and wrong between the sights

Take me back to the minutes

Just before it began

Take an old-time picture,

Make a billion scans

Just before the chaos

I know a perfect moment rose

And I need to see the faces

In order to go on

Tears came out of nowhere

Like a sudden summer storm

The wind picked up

And the trees lay down

You disappear without warning

Wherever have all of you gone?

When the wind picked up and the trees lay down?

Born to make a difference

Raised with right and wrong

I hold you in my arms tonight and I sing a different song.

Were you driving the car?

Were you washing the dishes by the sink?

Were you rushing home from work,

Were you trying not to think?

Were you playing your guitar?

Were you watching children play?

Were you swinging from a limb

On a sunny day?

Were you looking out the window?

Were you trying to get a ride?

Were you looking for someone

Or just trying to hide?

Do you want to make a difference?

Do you want to know the way?

God help us all

On this dark dark da

Old Apartment

This song was started ten years ago. I thought about how many families and stories can happen over time in the same space and what it would be like to go back, invisible, to walk through the space and remember what happened there. It kind of bothered me as I was working on it. How you can feel completely different about something once you are separated from it—even walking in the same space many years later.

I’m going back to our old apartment

Might even sleep in our old bed

Gonna wake up and look out all the windows

Gonna remember what was in my head

Oh man the sky it sure looks pretty

Looks like the back yard’s over grown

I hear it might rain tonight

Put on my coat and go back home

Funny thing about my memories

Don’t feel the same as they did before

Some things that were funny just aren’t funny

Can’t believe it was me knocking on your door

I’ve been burning bridges lately

Ever since my sister died last spring

And I’ve been looking through the ashes baby

Looking for that precious thing

I want that green grass way back down the river

Some people say I can’t go back and get her

But you know I will be swimming there

So I’ve lost it just a little

In the morning I’ll be fine

Just want to hear you say you remember

Remember when I walked the line

I’ve been burning bridges lately

Some needed burned a long time ago

And I’ve been searching through the ashes baby

Looking for that precious thing

I want that green grass way back down the river

I want that green grass way back there

Some say I can’t, can’t go back and get her

But you know I will be swimming there

Gaining Ground

When I was eighteen a friend asked me to take his girlfriend with me back to our hometown. He said he would follow in a week or two…He never showed up. She stayed with me for a few months. It didn’t occur to me at the time but I think she was only sixteen and what was really happening was that she was running away from home. It was my first experience living with someone other than my immediate family. I did what I thought I was supposed to do but I also did what I could under the circumstance. Eventually her father showed up at the bottom of our stairs and without speaking a word took her home. I don’t even remember her name now. I think of myself as a good partner but that isn’t always the consensus of those who I partner with. I have learned a lot from those beginnings.

Well I heard my ex-wife talking to our neighbor

About her new.. boy …friend

She said I’m so used to taking care of others

Well he is taken care of me instead

You know I felt a little funny

Cause i knew she was talking about me

Thats not the way I remember it

No i do not remember it to be that way

When I was 18

I took in a runaway

She crawled into my bed

On the 7th day

I played her music and I cooked her food

I did everything that I thought I could

Down stairs to mikes ohhh we would go

Find that water bed and sink right in

Yeah yea, we would begin again

For fear of choking on you

For fear of something new

Well it tears me apart and it pushes me away

I hope

I hope

I hope

I hope

I hope that i will bend

You know I’ve been mistaken

I have been down on my knees

But i never have forsaken

never have forsaken

All those things that were given to me

I look at my feet in the morning

And I wonder where they are bound

I should be picking flowers

I should be gaining ground

A Good Place to Start

I have two Bluetooth speakers that I put in the grass when we have fires in the back yard or when we travel in the RV. This song became a favorite during those times. For me it is the stereo separation between the electric piano and the guitars. Writing mood pieces with no words is something new for me and I really enjoy it. My next album might be all instrumental.This album is framed by one mood piece at the beginning and one at the end.

Dreamland by Tim McFate

DADGAD by Tim McFate