"carry that ball, break that chain" pt. 2

fifth: a song called "grand life". one i wrote about the character of noah, who, upon arriving in california, decides to stay and live on a river instead of continuing to work in the fruit trees. two acoustic guitars and michael doing slide in between verses. also, the line that i'm quite proud of: "he turned to me, said 'eventually every man makes it to his promised land'". the most traditionally folk of all the songs.

it ends on a slowly-plucked chord, and abruptly the next song starts with two guitars and then stops after one measure. then an electric-fuzz guitar comes in with a constant kick drum punch on the beat. this one's called 'three cries'--about how history shows what happens to a group of people oppressed and poor and hungry, and who don't own any land. the most rockin' tune.

last 'official' song is michael's "carry that ball, break that chain" for which the album is named. just him and acoustic guitar and me playing banjo, with a good ol' workers' chorus: "carry that ball, break that chain, make that effort if you want that change". the catchiest damn thing we have.

lastly, we weren't sure if had captured the overall significance of the text, so we wrote a song with banjo and mandolin called "the overall significance of the text". the lyrics are as follows:

john steinbeck was a really great guy
he wrote lots of books in his lifetime

he wasn't liked in california
but he was just trying to warn ya

he liked plato's alegor-i
he won the nobel peace prize

his book's called "the grapes of wrath"
it's a blast from the past
his book's called "the grapes of wrath"
it's gonna kick your...butt

john steinbeck
john steinbeck

it's a great read if you have time
and you're not assigned twenty chapters every single night.


i'm so proud of this thing; can you tell?