“True” - a song about mimicking
I finished this song in a bathroom in Pittsfield, MA. I barley know what I am talking about.
Story Pairing
Growing up I spent a lot of weekends and summers working alongside my dad. He is an owner-operator excavator and it was common to go with him to work. It kept me out of my mother’s hair, who had enough dealing with all my other siblings, and was a good trick to get some help on job sites where it was often just him. That’s just how it goes in a small town and a rural setting. Once you’re big enough to pull your weight and help with things, you do. It was pretty early on that I realized I wasn’t cut out for it. It’s hard, and I am soft.
One of the things that you always have to do to keep up the maintenance of heavy equipment is to make sure that not too much mud get’s into the tracks. I’m not sure exactly why, but I just begrudgingly did what I was told. My guess is that too much mud could make the tracks go off kilter or something… (I’ll call my dad about it). In Northeast Ohio, we have a lot of clay. So when it gets wet and you start getting sticky clay mud under those tracks, that is some very resilient material. In the winter that sticky mud get’s cold enough to turn into a seasonal version of concrete. That’s when the job of cleaning the tracks became even more “fun”. You get under there with a long skinny shovel and you bust all of that mud and ice off of there. You slam that shovel into those stubborn chunks and watch as just little flakes come off. Sometimes the shovel would slip and you’d hit your hand on an edge of hard metal, or you’d make a sloppy strike and the shovel would meet that same edge of metal and you’d feel the shake all the way to your bones. There were days where it was so cold, that we’d use a torch attached to a propane tank to soften up the mud a bit so you could get through it, an actual flamethrower. Eventually your relentlessness pays off and light starts poking through your frigid foe. That’s a fight I don’t miss.
Hard work isn’t something I ever want to shy away from, but the jobs where folks are out there in the elements, busting knuckles, straining muscles, sweating, swearing, pushing… it’s amazing. From years of working alongside my dad, I have such an appreciation for the individuals out there making the world turn. On the other side of that coin, I really have a lack of patience for the people pretending to be something they aren’t. I say that from running into more and more characters on the road that are playing a character. Individuals dressing like farmers, hikers, bikers, workers of all kinds, but couldn’t name any of the tools their wardrobe influencers would reach for. It’s a bit of a hot take, and I sound like a grumpy old man, but I feel like if you say that you are something or wear a uniform of sorts, it should have at least a thread of authenticity.
So enter this song. Coming from a place of my noticing a chip on shoulder, and finding frustration in people wearing work clothes that will never see a bit of dirt. From telling stories that are just stolen ideas. From claiming they’ve walked a hard dirty road but they’ve never took a single step off the manicured grass. Whatever.
Song Structure
Chords:
Verse - D / G / D / A / D / G / D / A / D
Chorus - G / D / G / A / D / G / D / A / D
Voice Memos
Notebook Page
Oct 2023
Lyrics
Never woke up at 4am
To move cattle to another pen
Never wrestled 2000 stubborn pounds
When one wouldn't go in
But he bought some snake skin boots
Dropped three bills on a ten gallon hat
Says he's a cowboy, let's us all know
What you think about that?
Never walked down in a cold dark mine
On his way to getting paid or maybe die
Never swung a pick axe for twelve hours
Without one whisper of blue sky
Says that he's under fire
The only one breaking his back
His daddy was a miner, let's us all know
What you think about that?
What you think about people saying they know better
Than the ones that certainly do
Claiming that their experts now
Cause they read an article half way through
Some may say my way is worse
Just pondering things and scratching out verse
but if you claim that your something that something you claim should be true
Never had cold mud in the tracks
Got to freezing too fast
Chipping at it with an old steel spade
But you're only making cracks
Got a nice Carhartt shirt, a truck stickers says CAT
Says he's a tough guy, lets us all know
What you think about that?
What you think about people saying they know better
Than the ones that certainly do
Claiming that their experts now
Cause they read an article half way through
Some may say my way is worse
Just pondering things and scratching out verse
but if you claim that your something that something you claim should be true
If you claim that your something that something you claim should be true
If you claim that your something that something you claim should be true