Lyrics

OLD PORCH SWING

There’s somethin’ bout the Old Porch Swing, it keeps you rocking
Something bout the garden air that makes you high
Yeah and when our day is done
We’ll sit back and watch the sinking sun
And laugh the night away
I wanna dance into the dawn with you

Notice how these summer storms come out of nowhere
I guess we got no other choice but take a break
So we’ll sit and watch the rain
And let Mother Nature do her thing
And stomp the night away I wanna splash into the dawn with you

I like the way the old oak tree just keeps on growing
Seems that every year she’s stronger than the one before
And when our precious days are few
There’ll be nothing else I wanna do
Than laugh the night away and dance into tomorrow with you
Yeah dance the night away and laugh into tomorrow with you
Yeah rock the night away and roll into tomorrow with you


WRITING: August 22, 2009, or so … on one of the first days of recording with Matt Cullen for what became the Crayons sessions. Matty had just left my studio in Florence, MA for the day. Maybe I was just so psyched to be recording again, but as soon as he left, I started strumming this happy sounding thing and I had a melody, too. We started working on it within days. Over time, I cobbled some words together that turned out to be metaphor for my crumbling marriage. I thought I was just assembling verses. Either way, it was getting close to the end. Five months later, New Year’s Day, she told me to hit the street. I was gone by the end of January. I had just turned 52.

RECORDING: We had a couple of false starts when recording this back in late 2009. Matty engineered almost this entire song, save the drums. Sam Barnes played a bunch of great tracks of fiddle on this in the summer of 2010, which I finally went through in 2017. He lights up this song. He played on five tunes, all told: Three on this record and two on Crayons. At the beginning of those sessions, We had already recorded High Society Girls, a doowop giggle I had had kicking around for a few years and included on Stingy Alley (2018). It certainly informs the instrumental section. (‘Bop-she-wahli-whalla / bop-she-wha’).

09/04/09 – Drum Beat, 6-string Acoustic, 12-string Acoustic, Bass, Lead Vox, Harmony Vox
10/19/09 – Electric Rhythm Guitar 1 (x2), Electric Rhythm Guitar 2 (x2)
05/12/10 – Recut 6-string Acoustic, Recut Bass
05/17/10 – Electric Guitar, Electric Guitar, BG Vox
06/01/10 – Fiddle
02/14/15 – Piano
02/17/15 – Electric Guitar
11/02/17 – Jaw Harp, Tambourine
12/13/23 – Drums (Tommy Diehl)
12/17/23 – Mixing (Danny Bernini)



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