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Avery County, I'm Bound To You

by Barton Carroll

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1.
into a canopy of laurel and ridgepocket pine our forefathers walked their very last straight mile into hard, hard times back in them stricken days were they looking for something or were they turning away? and the first killing frost in the fade of autumn's gold bent their backs into the winters; bent their memories into songs and with one step low, they cut their furrows in the slopes and they built their wounded homes into the stoney mountain earth and a longing was born for what always came before with a shiver in the bloodline with melody on a drone got shed of those lately ways well the heavens went aflame and a father was struck down and act of god in a god fearing town and the voices of the hymnals sung of angels in the air oh a scalded heart will see symbols everywhere so cower your troublin' mind from the praise and the shouts opposition from within and defender from without like when the mountebanks rise, cynical and vain and dosey doe upon the ground where pretty polly was slain oh the tremors of the earth never reached these dells you better keep your eyes down, son on the winding trail you can't walk a straight mile oh traveler will you understand? there's a rhythm in despair it's the price for ancient songs it's the hand-me-down sorrow of a place where there's no future but the past goes on and on! for the hills and the hollows and the silence of the pines you let me down, oh you broke my heart but I don't walk through the valley alone I always pray to Saint Joey Ramone oh sweet rock and roller, won't you set me free at last? and break open the western sky 'cause if you give me the chance I'll walk the straight mile
2.
train, train it had to be a train leavin' me here, feelin' this pain you know that trains are way outdated babe you've been furious long enough you can't be serious! where'm I gonna put your stuff? train, train you had to take a train you couldn't rent a car; you couldn't take a plane like everyone else does these days you're from Boone, not old Russia your name is Jen, not Anna Karenina I fell in love with a real cinephile you know I always wanted a girl with style and the shimmering silver screen became our truth but "C'est Finis" was my worst fear what a grand exit you've scripted here and I wish I wasn't falling for this the way I fell for you train, train it had to be a train thunder clouds and stormy rain did you pray to the heavens for the whole cliche? train, train you had to take a train belle femme pretentieux, pour vous j'ai tout fait did you think Goddard was filming your escape? there's no music, no black and white no cameraman or flickering light no audience to ever see no front row girl to cry for me in a b-list, plotless station all alone ooooooooooohhhhhhhhh
3.
Laveda 02:31
memory, oh memories, since you won't leave me alone explain to me why I feel so lost even though I've come back home I've been seeking fortune: I've been seeking slither and shimmer out in the world but nothing will cure this curling craving for a modern mountain girl I want her to see me, and I hope I have the words I want her to see me, but I hope I see her first there were city nights when I was miles away with happiness in my reach and I'd wake to visions of a hillside trailer humming with electric heat then I'd find myself back in the quiet dell where compunction took its form and with our hips we tried to push back the wretched failure of being born could you feel me down there in the lonesome low? I could swear you wanted me; I could swear that it was so who's gonna shoe your pretty little feet, darlin' who's gonna glove your hands? who's gonna know your mama made you while she was doin' it to Steely Dan? as you cling to the earth and scream for the kingdom, did you see some other face? love was a match defense for you and for me an act of shame and Laveda, Laveda loving you is a shame Laveda, Laveda loving you is a shame
4.
gather 'round boys, bring your fiddle and your bow play that old tune that gales over beechwood and pine like when the tanager sings or the snows melt in spring it's a comfort to a miserable kind she was linen and curls and Carolina soul like a journey to England or Spain whereupon she could bring you straight home where the first sign of love was when the band played that sweet Blue Ridge song the boys played the Beech Mountain Waltz oh! she swayed like a flower and we danced in the wind and the mandolin song the Beech Mountain Waltz all night I was twenty years and one when the world shook and burned and I answered the call of that awful foreign war and she plead to my heart and she cried in my arms saying, "Will I ever see you anymore?" and the boys played the Beech Mountain Waltz oh! she swayed like a flower and we danced in the wind and the mandolin song the Beech Mountain Waltz all night as the guns did howl and the bombs did roll and I held that Beech Mountain girl in my hopes she had met the contagion and sank to the tomb saying, "Tell him I love him so." now her father's grievous head hangs low and her mother weeps and moans and I spend my time with the blinding moonshine and the dream of a girl I had known so boys, play the Beech Mountain Waltz oh! she swayed like a flower and I long for the wind and the mandolin song the Beech Mountain Waltz all night
5.
Pauline 03:29
the time has come, Pauline the night will fall and take its wings a cosmic silence long overdue even pitch and stone atomize so don't feign surprise you had every day of your life didn't you? the angels called on me a job o'work was sent my way a tangle they could not unwind turns out every holy page and every parson's rage were all wrong. we've been friends throughout time and though we rarely correspond you see, my style is frowned upon I'm a loner and a soldier and a thug I get it done you were so dimly thinking as you were so grimly sinking motherhood would save your life now it comes down to an act and the miserable fact don't you know loneliness is out of style and the South closed in on you and made you the proof of a soul twisted by faith misery abounds for salvation was in little things you were too remiss to know as you fill the air with tremolo drone when you sow that much mendacity they're gonna ring my bell below gonna bring me up to speed I'll drag you wretched like an animal, moanin' like a crone you better hope and pray they never come home you won't know what to do I'll break the family out of you I promise I will not back down spinning children aching from the path well, now you've met your match victim maker, heart breaker, ruiner of lives and though every waking day you vamp a heavenward gaze in your dreams you touch the Maestro's face step along
6.
I been hidin' in the brambles and thorns just to get a picture of my love but when the rattle of that deadbolt sounds, I'll be shootin' straight and standin' up it's getting cold, and tomorrow she may find me laid out like a frozen jerk but I been waitin' on the twilight sun to lay down and do its work I want the light on her eyes. I want the blaze of an unsuspecting smile here she comes, here she comes with a clickle and a hum I got you girl when you walked out I did a scramble through the house for a portrait that I could keep left without hope I could hold your image close as I cry myself to sleep but I took for granted every pretty chance I had every photo-milesecond of time now I've been reduced to a crouching paparazzo with a beer bottle full of wine I got a focus and a frame you got a way to make it shine 'cause a picture ain't nothin' but a little ol' digital angel telling stories of the world we used to live in I'll be lookin' in on that picture when I'm feelin' down and you'll always be smiling, and you'll always be around there's another man because there's always another man I seen him around, and I can say I'm not impressed but surely he would not begrudge an ex-gentleman his forlorn request I'm gonna run like hell when this is done clutching my only image of you and he may work out or he may wash out but your heart tell you it's true that he may have you but he don't get you like I do and a picture ain't nothin' but a little ol' digital angel telling stories of the world we used to live in I'll be lookin' in on that picture when I'm feelin' down and you'll always be smiling, and you'll always be around and a picture ain't nothin' but a blue indication of the way that you felt before the bad vibrations if a picture's got a little ol' life of its own you can live there in your memories and you'll never be alone
7.
mama's making something on the loom mama's making something on the loom said when she was little as me she had a countypin to call her own now mama's out working the shuttle and the reed treadles up and down they go and the web's just coming along so we can go out kickin' in the leaves run for your life, get it while you can 'cause tomorrow the school bell rings and when we get home, there'll be something to see woven like you'll never believe when mama's making something on the loom and there's a cold snap on the air as she sings The Riddle Song I'm looking for skips and I will say, "There's no skips to be found!" she says, "Singin' helps chase the blues away, and children make you laugh out loud." as the hilltops claim the sun we can say, "Well, ain't it grand?" there's friendly shapes like a drop or two of rain on a lupin flower and row by row the color comes through when mama's making something on the loom mama's making something on the loom mama's making something on the loom
8.
that ol' drinkin' man livin' out on Tatum's land well I've known him in this town all my life he sips away his days, and he's got a kindly way and if you care to set a spell, he will abide I said, "You never look much troubled and the years are coming on. There must be some secret that you own." he said, "Son, I never fight with old Jose. You know I always hold out for Patron. So with a moment of your time won't you spare an old man a dime? We'll go down (to) the liquor store, and we'll go dancin' through the door. 'Cause you know every little bit hurts!" that ex-girl of mine had me lovesick all the time oh, boys. she was a beauty in the day and stolen from my arms by a man with vacant charm and it didn't take him long to fly away two children at home, left to mind them on her own now she's downtown dancin' on a pole she said, "It's good to see you, hon. Oh, and didn't we have some fun back before we knew the ways of the world? So you got a twenty dollar bill for me? I'm gonna make you the VIP. And for old time's sake let's go make the earth quake! 'Cause you know every little bit hurts!" I went to see the preacher, and I told him where I'd been I said, "Man, there is a sadness wide and deep." he said, "Son, you best come in and repent for all your sins and the wicked company you keep. That strong drink will make you turn, and Babylon will burn, and Jezebel will tempt you from the truth." he said, "Leave it all behind! You gotta live for the next life. Big Daddy's got his eye on you!" and I said, "Man, for what it's worth I'll take my chances on this earth. That sounds more like a trap door than the word." and on my way to his gate I dropped a nickel in his plate. I said, "You know every little bit hurts!"
9.
no rain, no wind. only Appalachian sun the first morning of freedom woke with the dulcet of the pipes and drums I know the signal of the bell tower closely and the music is a call to arms rolling headlong down the mountain for the weekend in a Bronco to a Marion farm we'll stake down our tents where the arrowheads and flints and the treasures of Catawba were laid winter and spring were so fractious and cruel when we lost the Big Two but the mournful season warms and fades cooling in the belly of an Elk River shallow is an implicated source of fire good thing we got our Old Timers with us if we rumble into the briar run down the range for the cracker box remnants that we mercilessly pelletize we built our summers on blackberry crushes and the power of the 4th of July and though we may dream of adventures downstream there's a menace on the river so vile join with me, boys. we'll meet the goblin hordes no match four our swords as the Saviors Of The World run wild!
10.
so it seems I thought that History was cheap and I could hold its cadence down so it seems I thought that I could break free from low livin' on high ground where solitude thrones all woodfire and snow and tall tails ring like the swath drone of the dulcimoor the Old World ways and the New World wish to be left alone and the stranded ache of my mountain home so far from New York or London or Rome with their boulevards and Sunday freedom was a swirling drain, was a need to gun on from a junk survival or a death no fox could outrun give you blind acceleration and easy parley made for sullen days to come by blow envy and bastard rage given a language of cinder and slag thought I could steal something to say or the diviner would speak and her secret be told for a soul without languor and a voice without vibrato looking outward and the world reverberates with home and the long harmonic of deafening dreams and dread preterition in high clarity gets in your heart, and it never leaves so I'm out. I'm gone. I'm rattled and blue but don't let 'em steal your story and sell it back you you that's what liars and phonies do Avery County, I'm bound to you and your name will always mean that beauty come by honest is beautiful indeed and your gentle wildcraft and your rough rhapsody tower over lowland acres of virtue and blame but isolation won't excuse its self just because you repeat the claim of a joysome eternity, high lonesome within and the heart song of ancients longing me back again I can't go back again and "So long" won't stand, and "Farewell" won't do "Goodbye" ain't good enough so Avery County, I'm bound to you I'm bound to you

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released October 15, 2013

Produced by Martin Feveyear and Matt Weiner. All songs by Barton Carroll copyright 2013 BMI

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