Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.

I wrote a song about you but that song isn't true anymore and then I went and put it on a record and now years later I sit and wonder what I went and did that for that's like some old photograph you don't want anyone to see that old ugly snapshot look any less like me I went and wrote a song about you but that song isn't true anymore now the stuff that we used to listen to it doesn't do a thing for me these days yeah well that'll happen a hundred thousand spins of sweet home Alabama purple haze and now the melody and the words they just sort of lay there on the page like a faded post card from another age and the stuff that we used to listen to it doesn't do a thing for me these days now every moment like no other everyone is getting older fun how we think will never change now the stuff that used to turn me on don't turn me on the way that it used to do and every day there's something that I swear I never saw before in you maybe that's just my tendency maybe it's kind of a stage maybe I'm a fine wine and I'm mellowing with age and the stuff that used to turn me don't turn me on the way that it used to do now every moment like no other everyone is getting older funny how we think we'll never change yeah I wrote a song about you but that song isn't true anymore and then I had to put it on that record and now it sits there and it festers like a sword.

My name is David Stoddard.

I am a songwriter from Minnesota and my music is lyric driven.

It is guitar based and piano based.

Every musician has a moment in time that they remember where suddenly the pilot light got lit and mine was listening to Freeze Frame by the J. Geils Band.

I was knocked out by that organ sound.

I could still picture it in my head listening to it on headphones on my parents stereo and I listened to Dolly Parton playing on Saturday Night Live and I thought this is, people do this.

This is something that individuals and human beings do and it's glorious and so I thought I want some of that.

I want to do that so this is a true story.

My father's decided he's gonna run him a marathon I only run in the figurative sense run a few errands and I've run out of gas now I frequently run out of patience I used to run a fair five-minute mile now a mile seems further away and now if you ask for just a couple of sit-ups I'm just about done for the day yeah I'm aging, I'm aging, I'm aging, I can't feel my decline by the day dad's got his own secret fountain of youth oh he's aging but the other way and now when I go with him through hill and field in the woods near our neighboring town I feel like a kid again holding his hand saying daddy would you please slow down and he's not content with some walk in the mall with a fishing cap perched on his head he keeps on running once he's hit the wall and if I were him I would be dead and I'm aging, I'm aging, I'm aging, I can feel my decline by the day dad's got his own private fountain of youth and he's aging the other way yeah well I'd go out with him but every time I just talk about my own aches and pains he must get sick of the moaning and whining but if it bugs him you know he never complains by a freak twist of fate for the first time in my life I recently saw my dad nude and it's just as I've thought and it's as I suspected the old man's a pretty buff dude and I'm aging, I'm aging, I'm aging, I can't feel my decline by the day dad's got his own secret fountain of youth and he's aging the other way now my hair is falling out and my joints get all sore and my memories won't do as they're told I reminisce now about my own good old days and it sure is a drag to get old I listen only to Gershwin and Porter his rock and roll is my chagrin I mean he is my father for crying out loud how'd I get older than him and I'm aging, I'm aging, I'm aging, I can't feel my decline by the day he's like some freakish old Ponce de Leon and he's aging the other way yeah my father's decided to run him a marathon.

Well there's love so hard it brings tears to the eyes that contemplate it and there is one so love that her merest sigh can melt the hardest heart there's a sea so large that the finest boat would fail to navigate it and she's my star and she is small and she is far but she surrounds me with her light so will you hold my heart until I see you again I'll be dreaming of our love across the miles will you hold my heart until I see you again till the moment I behold your smiling eyes well there's a fate it's so cruel that it only lives to see us separated it's a wall it's so high like a mountain you would keep me from my love it's like a rain so hard that you feel as though you surely must be drowning and it is clouds and they are high but I know my star is shining higher still so I will face that fate for forever 'cause I know my love's eternal I will conquer that wall I'm gonna climb and I'm gonna climb and I will fly and I will sport in that rain cause I know that the rain won't last forever and I will fly up through those clouds and keep on flying till I'm in my lover's arms so will you hold my heart until I see you again I'll be dreaming of our love across the miles will you hold my heart until I see you again 'till the moment I behold your smiling eyes.

David: I first began performing in high school with jazz band and, and choir and all that kind of stuff and even then when you were with a group and it was a little more of a contrived situation there was still a thrill.

There's absolutely a thrill and an energy with an audience, that's in person.

I've never toured full-time.

I'm always working, teaching, that kind of stuff and I was only out just for a month or two.

Even then there was a draw.

Still feel that pull.

Never got tired of it.

Maybe that's why, because I didn't do it as much and of course these days it's online but even before that there's a, there's a huge trend toward playing in people's living rooms, house concerts which are really, really intimate.

Most of the time there's not even a sound system.

You're sort of with a group of friends in a living room and boy that just ups that energy level.

There have been this idea of salons and playing in people's living rooms since music began and only in the 20th Century did we sort of get away from that but musicians have learned that as time goes on more traditional venues become more about the venue than about the art being presented.

When folk musicians started to return to the living room people realized that it was a much easier way to perform music and it's also much more beneficial to the performer.

You get an audience that listens to every word.

You usually get a place to stay.

You usually get a meal or two and you get an audience that really appreciates the music and everybody gets a front row seat.

Everybody wins.

It's like I said with a venue everybody's got to win.

With the living room it's the same way, just a different sort of paradigm.

One, two, three, one, two... Down through the ages the grizzled old sages would stand on their stages and give us the word we'd go forth singing yeah we'd all come out swinging and our ears would be ringing with the wisdom we'd heard yes fingers on strings be pawns be kings there's only one thing that you can count on don't you dare take a seat yeah I keep moving your feet 'cause it's a one-way street and when you're gone, you're gone dearly departed we're all brokenhearted we thought we were smart and we knew the why and the how we thought we could do it yeah but we broke it yeah we blew it and now we're all going through it and we sure need you now these times of trouble the hard times seem double we're stuck in our bubble and everything just feels wrong if I could hear John Prine sing just one line I know that I could finish this song winds just don't go blowing and the rivers just aren't there flowing there's no tune throwing they're all going somewhere if you think life's a journey and you're there on your gurney there's no more you turning 'cause you're already there down through the ages the grizzled old sages would stand on their stages and give us the word go forth singing yes we'd all come out swinging while we're desperately clinging to the wisdom we heard fingers on strings be pawns be kings there's only one thing that you can count on so don't you dare take a seat yeah I keep moving your feet 'cause it's a one-way street and when you're gone, you're gone.

David: There are songs that I've written and people come up and say, well that song was about this or that and I thought it was about a guy I knew in high school but apparently I didn't know it was about some social issue.

You know when you write a song you take an example and you try to paint a broader picture with it, find common ground with an audience and people tend to grab onto that and you go, oh I guess, yeah maybe I guess maybe you didn't know that guy in high school.

What else are you gonna, what else are you gonna find in there?

But yeah I, it's, it's gratifying and it's, it's, it's, it's very fun.

It's very fun to see people's, people's reactions that way.

Dakota girl loves the wintertime and she longs to hear the wind around the door she'll stay up till the fire is out just to feel her icy feet upon the hardwood floor she cherishes this time alone and she'll wait until the sun is gone and never feel the need to light the light it's windy and it's cold and it's dark and she's lonely and she's never felt as grounded as she feels tonight outside the wind becomes a stream that slithers in that gap between her clothes tickling on her hidden skin like water trickling down until her legs are frozen open arms she starts to float and she'll welcome with an open coat twirl around and take the coolness in and she's open all mysteries out floating on the slightest breeze in winter that's the water that she's floating in some people have a passion that their summer loving sisters cannot know summer lovers cannot understand the beauty of all those diamonds on the coldest snow and the wind is gonna make her tears to come and for a moment when her cheeks are numb the stars are brighter than she's ever seen and the way-out- there is as black as tar clear out to the furthest star and she's closer now to heaven than she's ever been Dakota girl loves wintertime and she longs to hear the wind around the door and she'll stay up till the fire is out just to feel her icy feet upon the hardwood floor.

I'm sorry about your request but I don't know piano man I agree with you that it's just the best and someday I'll learn it if I can someday I'm sorry that I let you down but I was stuck inside my head you're a verb and I'm a noun maybe someday I'll be better read someday, someday's no different than the day before an endless stream of opportunities to become more than I am Sorry I go on and on about the things that catch my ear and eye but I'm just trying to find a joy that's gone I'm just trying to keep the fire from dying somehow finding less and less that's no way to live perhaps someday I'll find that I have less to give the more of me I give to you the less of me there is I'm afraid someday there'll be no me someday I'll be more theirs than his someday sorry about your request but I don't know piano man I agree with you that it's just the best and someday I'll learn that thing if I can someday, someday, someday.

My favorite part of the music process is drinking coffee at two in the morning on the way home.

I like performing.

I like being done being performing.

I like to see what's happened with the audience.

I like to have established a relationship with the audience.

I like having written a song.

Sometimes it happens really quickly.

Sometimes it takes months to get the right phrase and even now I look at songs that I thought were done and I tear out the lyrics after two or three years and I look and I'm singing it where did that line come from?

That line wasn't in there before you know.

There's a little evolution that happens.

I like looking back and seeing and seeing the change.

One, two, three...

There's three to the measure and a quarter gets one you could say it in rhythm it goes one, two, three, one and it's easy to hear it as truth rendered in sound it's an easy surrender and its paradise found it's 3/4 time that's a comfortable groove it's the way we exist it's just the way that we move parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme and the music of love is in 3/4 time but it's harder for children 'cause it's so seldom heard in popular music it's rarely preferred but for grown-ups it's easy it's the essence of art something primeval it's the sound of your heart and it's 3/4 time that's a comfortable groove it's the way we exist it's just the way that we move parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme and the music of love is in 3/4 time there was a time that I was four to the bar but you gotta keep moving you just know how we are there are difficult changes impossible rhymes but my memories of you they're all 3/4 time, they're all 3/4 time that's a comfortable groove that's our waltz of existence it's just the way that we move parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme and the music of love is in 3/4 time.

Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.