Feb 2022 folk western guy-with-guitar
I'm in Colorado for most of February. I began singing this to myself when I was outside last Thursday. The lone hawk really did fly overhead.
The beauty here is unmatched. At the same time, the sky has the weight of a debt unanswered. My mother's family arrived here from the East in the 1880s. All the settlers to this day live on un-ceded Arapaho and Cheyenne land. The debt is still there.
I've tried to reflect the dilemma of the beauty and tragedy: mountains and prairie, sky and water, old and young, birth and death. In the end, the singer dies too, but the creation remains. The expression "Creator" as direct address (rather than the more aloof "the Creator") is one I've only ever heard Native Americans use. It has an intimacy that seemed right in this context.
I played this for my daughter and she made a number of suggestions that improved the song and helped focus the message. The recording is just a guitar & mic (loaned by my son this morning) and me, doing a quick and imperfect take.
If you're not familiar with the Sand Creek massacre, here's a link:
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/unum/playlist/remembering-the-sand-creek-massacre
February 17th, from my parents’ front terrace, somewhere in the Colorado Rockies. Just below the near trees, there’s a trail (still walkable) that the local Arapaho used to use, and later, wagons going to and from the trading post on our road. The past is very present here.
I’ve sailed across the Mare Nostrum
Heard the ice crack on the Great Lakes shore
Seen the fire of a Blue Ridge autumn
And watched the Andes condor soar.
I’ve walked the trail of the Orinoco
Crossed the mist fields where the Highlands lie
But I never saw another
Like the Colorado Sky.
The mountains move me
The high streams cool me
By their waters I am blessed
And like the bright trout
I praise Creator
That I was born here in the West.
The old ones crossed the Kansas prairie
Until their hearts were lifted high
They made their homesteads the best they knew then
Under Colorado Sky.
I hear the death songs of the Cheyenne young ones
On the banks of Sand Creek I see them lie,
I feel the burden of a debt unanswered,
Under Colorado Sky.
The mountains move me
The high streams cool me
I’m their child here and I’m their guest
And like the Cheyenne
I praise Creator
That I was born here in the West.
The lone hawk flies above the valley
Where my bones too will someday lie
And like the lone hawk
I praise Creator
for the Colorado Sky.
@wylddandelyon Mar 2022
I really like this one. Very nice singing and guitar work, and a gentle memorial for both the history and the beauty of Colorado.
#tit4tat
@richaaaay Mar 2022
Fitting tribute. Nice to read the liner notes before listening. Great snowy picture. Seems like a truly special spot.
@crutherford Mar 2022
stunning.
you're a chameleon. i love a great musical chameleon. and you definitely fit in that category.
your song bonjour was already haunting my brain for a few days now (this is a good thing) - now i've come across two other stunners...
this could've been just a beautiful hometown song - but you decided to not shy away from including the darkness. the line "I feel the burden of a debt unanswered" is perfection. if we don't acknowledge our history - we're doomed to repeat it.
there's a lot of hope in this song. it's a real beauty.
@jsini Feb 2022
Very well done. You voice suits this. Very descriptive writing creating some wonderful imagery. I miss Colorado.
@scottlake Feb 2022
I’ve lived here in CO for 13 years. COS specifically. It’s easy to lose sight of the history. South Park is my reminder when I see one of the Buffalo herds there. My pastor once preached a sermon on his experience visiting the sand creek massacre memorial. I need to get there
@nancycunning Feb 2022
Wow. This is beautiful. The words and the music and the way you sing and play it all give that feeling of soaring through that sky.
@hbusse Feb 2022
Such a meaningful song, grounded in history and place. Interesting modulation into that chorus, grabbed my ear! Grateful that your songwriting here acknowledges both the beauty and goodness you experience in the land there, as well as the tragic wrongdoing towards the original inhabitants of the land. Fully-orbed writing.
@cleanshoes Feb 2022
This has a wide open feel, just like the skies you sing about. It's love letter to a place, but one that acknowledges the complexity of feeling attached to a place that was ripped out from under someone else.
@tamsnumber4 Feb 2022
A beautiful write and melody and your connection comes through your playing and vocal. Wonderful song!
@andygetch Feb 2022
I like the shifting chorus and the story in the verses is well told. Wonderful delivery of the song.
@beat Feb 2022
Very moving story and a beautiful singer songwriter track.
@coolparadiso Feb 2022
Beautiful John the quality is in the pictures from the lyrics! The delivery is very good and have a gentle touch feel! but the lyrics sparkle it!
@kadmad202 Feb 2022
I was born in Colorado, though haven't been back for a long time. I've long thought, though, that whatever is happening in the sky there is just as much a part of the spectacular-ness of the scenery as the mountains. I saw a documentary a while ago called "The West." It was absolutely fascinating, and yet it cured me forever of that romantic feeling I had had whenever I thought of the settling of the west. What happened to Native Americans, their land and culture ripped from them, is inexcusable and appalling, and when I realized then that I am a benefactor of those atrocities, it broke my heart. Anyway, all that to say thank you for this beautiful song, that has touched this Coloradan's heart.
@middlec Feb 2022
I really love how you are able to use specific images without it feeling heavy handed, precious, or forced. It's a fine line to make it work and you do it without any seeming effort at all (which I know is not the case, but it comes across as effortless). The open and uplifting music fits the expansiveness of the west.
@tseaver Feb 2022
Great write! The land acknowledgement is most fitting.
@mikeb Feb 2022
What a beautiful ode to those who have gone before and the wonders of the Rockies!
@rayboneor Feb 2022
Well that is some classy songwriting and a lovely performance. You have such a great voice, and that simply strummed guitar sounds fantastic. You do a great job of walking a sort of tightrope, acknowledging your deep connection to the land and your debt, your status as a sort of interloper. Lovely and poignant and thought-provoking. (I thought you were British. My family homesteaded in New Mexico. My mom still lives on the ranch. Every year there's a big Old
Timer's Day celebration--the old timer's being the Anglo-American settlers. I don't think those folks acknowledge the debt very often)
@billwhite51 Feb 2022
this is magnificent. the simple beauty of its surfaces is overwhelming, and your deft interlacing of human wickedness with the open hearted sense of wonder the singer shares with the birds and fish begins to unburden jhumanity of its guilt. the melodies reach deep into the river and high into te sky and your vocals have te beauty of unvarnshed truth
@majordanby Feb 2022
A beautiful love song to your home. Lovely words, especially the chorus. Really well performed and sung too. All round a lovely track. Really enjoyed the listen. :-)
@hornesgiftshop Feb 2022
As big as the sky, with a real arc; the modest ending like a sunset. Excellent stuff. Reminiscent of the Eagles of course (and their harmonies on this would be pretty fantastic) but with humility instead of their cokey smugness.
@jackketch Feb 2022
This is a great song! I'm a History teacher and I teach about the American West and the Sand Creek massacre, and I think you've captured something of that era. There's something timeless about it. Nice one mate.