The Fallow Days
This took me ages – you guessed it – I kept flaming well procrastinating… Anyway, got there in the end, the song ended up being about an old retired farmer drinking wine in the sunshine and musing about his life – the procrastination link is that he is not sure he'll ever get around to getting up and doing anything. Bit tenuous, but nevermind.
Looking forward to listening to everyone's songs now (I don't like to listen until I've finished my own…)
//Slave to a Somerset farm
//Turning my seasons my days on the land
//Good Mother Earth and God in the sky
//And the sun and the rain and the strength of my hand
//
//So now we’re going down below the lower field with a barrel of wine
//Tip back our heads in the orange Autumn haze
//She flicks that battered hat over my eyes
//These are the fallow days
//
//Hey days for wild oats
//Shaking that Apple tree one kiss at a time
//Sally Brown was my windfall girl
//I gathered her up and the heart was mine
//
//So now we’re going down below the lower field with a barrel of wine
//Tip back our heads in the orange Autumn haze
//She flicks that battered hat over my eyes
//These are the fallow days
//
//Hard years my harvest bride
//We raised a crop of babies -oh the cradle was blessed
//These Somerset working days are done
//And now is our time to lay it to rest
//
//So I’m chewing on a broken stalk of summer corn
//Tomorrow lies way across the fields
//This year, next year, sometime, never
//Not sure whether I’ll ever get round to stirring these limbs again
//This is an old man letting it slide
//there’s no shame, no guilt no blame
//
//So now we’re going down below the lower field with a barrel of wine
//Tip back our heads in the orange Autumn haze
//She flicks that battered hat over my eyes
//These are the fallow days
Excellent Kris, nice lyrics and well told story.
Lovely Kris. Some really nice imagery there and tune to go with it.
Oooh! I love this, Kris. You capture the lazy, hazy heat of summertime procrastination. Great imagery & lyrics. I always know if it’s your song, I’m going to be captured. Beautiful performance as usual. Thanks for sharing.
Hiya, I was drawn to listen to this because of its interesting title. I’m glad I did – I love your voice, I can’t quite remember who it reminds me of, but no matter. I do like the melody, which is catchy, but doesn’t intrude on the lyrics, which have some smashing images ‘Shaking that Apple tree one kiss at a time’ being particularly memorable. Nice one, Cheers.
Love this Kris, fantastic!
Nice interweave of voice and groove: got my head boppin’ as I listen 🙂
Wonderful Kris – the picture you paint with the lyric and a great guitar arrangement are so high quality ?
Thanks all. My second foray into open D tuning -but strummy this time. After I had posted the song my sister pointed out it’s most glaring flaw. I thought a “barrel of wine” sounded nice. She, however, was overtaken with hilarity at the thought of an elderly couple trying to haul a great big barrel off down to the lower field! Oops. So easy to get focused so close to the lyrics that I miss the accidental comedy! Wood for the trees and all that….
Hi Kris, yes I get the point about the barrel of wine lyric but it works beautiful and paints an image in keeping with the song. Much more bucolic.
Lovely, Kris, enjoyed it all, really nice mellow feel… open D is quite wonderful, isn’t it!
Kris, as always, I love the imagery and the story. But what is coolest is your take on procrastination as a beautiful thing… time to not do the “required” and rest in the fallow days. I will be thinking on that for awhile! New tuning? And, I found this to be quite optimistic and hopeful?
I could listen to this all day.