Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people, November 4th, 2008 [Music] I leave it as I came all the bluster and the rain It may fall apart it doesn't mean anything At all Imagine there's a place where things we do and say Are safe from unintended consequence and pain for the lovers The fathers and the mothers The hated and the loved ones just the same You better check your halos They look a bit askew Where the rage goes it's going to sicken everyone around you Oh Oh Young angels at the gates too early 'cause you were late Trade the honor of your office, for the coffers of campaigns Oh When universal truths are so gutted and confused And we tolerate the fools, we melt the golden rules and commonplace becomes cruel We send the kids to school You better check your halos They look a bit askew Does your heart still know What your mind has hidden from your view?

Oh... Oh... Oh... Music has always been a pretty essential, you know, part of my life.

I, going to sleep at, you know, seven, eight years old remember my dad staying up playing piano.

Sometimes kind of the same songs over and over again.

Wasn't really until I moved to Minnesota in '98 that I met another local musician named Steve Wold and he just really introduced me to, you know, a lot more kind of a deeper Dylan catalog and some just really good music and we started playing together and I learned a lot from him.

And really in the last, you know, so it's kind of been an ebb and a flow journey, but really in the last eight years I've been kind of intentionally trying to write songs and just hone the craft and get better at, you know, both songwriting and playing guitar and performing.

[Music] You say good morning I say good night You'll work a whole day before I even open up my eyes Two hemispheres two continents Two hearts separated only by space and time I start my dreams you start your day Yeah this is love 4,000 miles away I'm still at work you're at the pub yeah Oh you text me tipsy and I can tell you're a little drunk We talk about the trips we'll take All the things we'll do by day and all the things we'll do at night I start my dreams you start your day This is love 4,000 miles away 3,994 is a little more precise [Music] I start my dreams you start your day Yeah this is love 4,000 miles away There definitely has to be that kind of grand gesture, you know, where you set aside time or go to a location that is fitting.

I think that's why it's hard, you know, if if you're at a party and there's a guitar there and somebody says oh, you play guitar, play the guitar, you know, play music now.

You know it doesn't, it's not as easy.

So I think really getting to a space, a location, and a time of day where you can be in a creative, you know, mindset I think is really helpful.

As I feel like I've learned more about songwriting and performing I feel like I've been able to take more kind of world events and other things that, you know, are outside of me just to understand them and kind of craft something.

You know and again that love or romance or you know metaphor, you know, something that, you know, may sound like a breakup song is it necessarily?

It could also be, you know, some trying to deal with world events or something that's really distressing.

My partner Jessica and I have been splitting our time between the Twin Cities and Tower, Minnesota.

And Tower and that area have been just, you know, really great for creativity and just, you know, really good, good medicine and a good creative space.

So sometimes it's, you know, intentionally creating that space and then sometimes it's really just world events and trying to kind of for yourself digest them and, you know, come to some kind of understanding.

Three hours before, you caught your flight You finished packing and we tried to Finish that fight I don't know who was wrong this time But I think we were both a little right It sometimes happens with these little Airport, these airport, these...Airport goodbyes This silence in the car like you're already so far away from me these Airport goodbyes You know it's always hard that final moment in the car You know these Airport goodbyes It's only seven days why don't you text me from the gate I never really mind When you have to be away Sometimes it's good for both of us to get a little space And then I start to think after yeah two or three days yeah how much I miss you and hate these Airport, these Airport, these Airport goodbyes You know it's always hard that final moment in the car Airport goodbyes It's only seven days why don't you text me from the gate Airport goodbyes Now you're, over the ocean And the mountains capped with snow Chasing sunsets on a westbound flight heading home yeah You know these Airport goodbyes You know it's always hard that final moment in the car yeah These Airport goodbyes It's only seven days why don't you text me from the gate Airport goodbyes Airport goodbyes You know performing used to be more challenging for me.

I didn't feel I think early days of playing and performing.

I think it's natural open mics and things like that to feel like you know should I be here am I supposed to be here am I, you know.

Maybe some impostor syndrome kind of sets in or you're thinking about what you're singing and the words and what you're playing and it's all very mechanical I think you know early on.

And then really over the last, you know, 10-15 years I think it's been gradually more and more fun to perform because you're less focused on the mechanics of it and more focused on the meaning and the feeling.

And I was at the Cedar Cultural Center, I was a acoustic open for Lucy Kaplansky, and played one song and one of the songs I played, afterwards a gentleman came up and said, you know it was a song part of the song was about it was about conversations and the desire for long nice conversations less distracted conversations but at the end I talk about the loss of my mom and kind of a metaphor and wishing I could converse with her again and so afterwards you know a gentleman came up and said hey I just lost my best friend a few months ago and that really, you know, that really struck me.

And you know that's, I feel like, you know, that's just extremely rewarding.

Each time being able to connect with, you know, even two or three people about a certain song, that's what it's all about.

So performing is I enjoy it more now than I ever have.

All the time you spend looking out Never bought you anything Only pain and suffering Now you're here on your own Ready to take on the great unknown And you're free and you're fine yeah Baby there's no such thing as time And you're full in the now And you hear all the sounds yeah Landing planes uphill in a cross wind Setting out to sea in a storm yeah Always chasing promised land When it was right there your chest Now you're here On your own yeah Ready to take on the great unknown And you're free and you're fine Baby there's no such thing as time And you're full in the now And you hear all the sounds And you hear all the sounds And you hear all the sounds Used to be, you know, being at home, coming up with something that you kind of know it's cool when you get like a you know goosebumps on the back of your neck or you feel, you know, maybe it's something that makes you feel sad or something that, you know, you stumbled on a really, you know ,cool metaphor that helps you understand something a little bit better for yourself.

So it used to be kind of more internal, at the moment.

Used to be more about that and now my favorite thing actually is, and if you had asked me 10 years ago I never thought I would say this, but my favorite thing right now is actually performing.

You know when you're on the stage, whether it's solo or with a band, and things are really tight and you know.

I had a good friend that I used to play with at one point said, you know, when you're on stage together and for five minutes like the sky could be falling all around you but it's just it's okay because everything sounds good for that, you know, that five minutes.

So yeah I think performing is and meeting new people and connecting with new people around the state and outstate is my favorite thing.

Playing music around the Cities.

Whereas it used to be, you know, I'd like to play that club or I'd like to play that place and check that off the list, you know.

Yep, First Ave mainroom, you know, that'd be great to play.

For me, now, it's more about gosh I would love to collaborate with that person, I love the way that person sounds, I would love to see what my voice sounds like with that person.

I'd love to write a song for that other band.

So it's kind of become less about the venue and just recognizing all the talent and good things that are happening.

I was the bane of your existence You were a wounded deer I found The truth was somewhere near, the middle of perspectives Failing to the weakness in our hearts Every move I make is in response to the doors that you leave open And the dangers on the other side The window that you broke, to push me out to a thousand foot Fall into a corner blind A dwindle to a dripping thread of hope And I know that door's already closed Closed Closed Closed You were the shivers up my back The honey and the bees that roam the city The foxes in the garden giving chase The colors in the spring after the gray In London the rain it always soaks And I know that door's already Closed Closed Closed Closed I think it's natural and sometimes easy to try to compare yourself to other people in the Cities and that's just really not a good place to go, you know, because there's so much talent and so much good art.

So really, for me, just being able to focus on getting better at the craft and in doing so I've met a lot of really generous and talented people.

I, you know at one point, you know, feeling kind of a plateau in songwriting and, you know, limited options.

I took some songwriting classes from Adam Levy of the Honeydogs and Turn Turn Turn and, you know, a few of those sessions and having to work with other people, you know, it kind of inspires something new.

I can't remember all the places I left me Younger days boy, free spirit, high seas And the thoughts I had were not quite yet my own Oh no no no Every lesson learned harder than the last More possessions, the more you lose it goes so fast Marooned like a sailor all alone Alone, with my instincts fading fast Carry me home, lifeless wrapped in gauze and ocean grass Sometimes I just can't take it, we got debt stress and medical bills, and old wounds that just won't heal We got bad bad medicine, bad information, trying to keep our sanity, God save humanity and science can't tell us what we got to do through Fox News hate and the CNN blues and You clench your teeth and pray the storm will pass Alone would my hopes be all but dashed Carry me home, in your arms baby found at last, found at last [Music] Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people, November 4th, 2008