Tracing the Trail

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Download Song (Right-click or control-click to save) Length: 8:15. A song with 600+ words recorded 2003 w/vocals, harmonies, and acoustic guitar.

Tracing the Trail 2003 draft

This song started a project in 2003 which I was gonna call Lawn Chair Clinic. Each lyric was an exercise in free writing, and my thinking was that it would motivate me to write some music quickly without too much forethought. If I had some free structures setup, it’d give me room to experiment and try things I don’t normally try. I got around to finishing a handful of the tunes including, Hypervowels, That’s A Mile, Tune to the Afterday, May She Comes, an unsatisfying Failed Lesson Lawn Chair– but never did finish Tracing the Trail and I Hope it Heals.

On a very hot day in early summer, I went outside with a glass of scotch and a spiral notebook, sat in the direct sun, and took my time writing a couple pages. I really had no idea what the best way of turning these mushed words into a song would be– how best to divide them into sections or if to divide them at all. Picked up the guitar and tried finding progressions that could cycle a bit and transition into each other for lengths at a time. It was pretty fun.

Because there were so many words, without a set cadence, it left a lot of room to play with the melodies and have them travel off in different directions before repeating. The melody and chords came quickly enough, in one long sitting. I typed out the words and sectioned them to make it easy to follow the progression– I’ll post them later– they’re an awful mess with chord symbols and thoughts littered all over the words. It’s a bit hard to make any sense of at first glance and anytime I try and look over it, it takes a while for my eyes to stop bouncing and settle. I’ve been working on a large arranged version of the song off and on over the years– I’d like to finish it soon.

Lawn Chair Clinic

Tracing The Trail

Grocery aisle, like in a library book
Pages are clear. Not sure if it’s just glasses I need or shock therapy.
Prescription dummy, subscriptions are for magazines
Obsession with preoccupation paralyzes the head to a thick atmosphere still and stale.
Entering a car is entering heat stroke
Yer a single plant amongst a concrete world.

The secrets are given after payment to live off classifieds and uncollected assets
Toxic gases on the hour– is that cat urine or mold in your room
Afraid I’ll never know what I don’t—

Your whole life squeezed into the cap of your pen.
Each cut-out houses thoughts as innumerous as the weeds that take the earth.
Qualified and willing to start—analgesiacs jumping from rafters
Salt shadows and hoses and heat—layers of skin absorbing

Tomatoes in metal strung cones
Opening gates to free the deaf dog
A con man of circuits spending money I demand back.
Kept the box

That tree is starting the season or encouraging the rest to bloom
Our turtle malfunctioned and so we borrowed yours

Primed and clutched the drug
The light will light your grass and fan will square up and cool

Out writing on his arm—not as harmful as lead
He’s writing pamphlets and hiding his thoughts
He’s an opinionist but you’ve gotta guess em.
He’s not so lunar after all.
She is. She most certainly is.
Ya, he runs off gasoline
She runs off heat. She’s hot.
He’s hiding.

The counter clerk checked each item out and noticed a society of engineers silk screened
She was very pretty, but very old and her make-up was cracked
Pleasant, not unpleasant, but not needed

Boy comes home from school. His teacher chauffeurs. She gets locked in pantry. Golf club. We see the boy’s parents marinating his teacher on a boxer’s grill. He refuses to eat his teacher and is banished, but not before the dad gets a steak knife in his sternum. The parents blow up and the house falls down. Grandpa n grandma take the boy in. They tuck him into bed and leave a meat sandwich and a glass of water by his bedside. That’s what you call performance. Still she has you get on a stepladder and erase the ‘h’.

Sledging joyces from window frames and piling webbed-wood
Rack rides and 2-dollar toll-booths
Drive unconscious. Arrive. Sleep. Wake. Shop.
Walk to a persimmon tree and peel the tissue.
Stuff it up your nose.

Cloth-wad your ears
Tie a string to either side
Babe calls for mommy. Help me. Moh…………….mee.

He calls to his nurse
I call to the clouds

Life swirling in a glass dropper—she’s the teacher—wouldn’t she know if she had homework.
People fly overhead as I become aware of my legs.
Fiddle with the key.
Teeth at the lock.
Notice her rolling dough and gazing out the window to recognize cars and ex’s—they’re all in Texas
You refer to a state, you refer to a person—you refer to a thing, you refer to a concept.
Comprehension gets tangled up.

Wood-chipped blocks burrow under veins that wrap around.
The pupil approaches and takes to each with a piece of paper.
Socks fill up with sweat and shoes start leaking
The pool shark bails you out and you land with your face in the sand
You try and swallow as much as you can.
You chew it and break your teeth.
You feel no pain and take a rock and slam it in your jaw.

Yer jaw is in pieces. It grates and cracks at each attempt to open
You try and wrap a towel around your tongue.
Swallow it.

Your stomach leaps out your throat and seizes your tongue on the way back down.

Who would’ve thought you to swallow it.
You drown as you run to the nearest office complex with your tie on.
Fill out an application and are guaranteed a paid service.
“You got it all wrong!” you cry.
And everybody drops down dead in agreement.
Don’t let her see it.
She’ll toss it in the garbage.

©2003, Ryan Houck

Tracing the Trail Freewrite pg.1

Tracing the Trail Freewrite pg.2