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An exploration of songs and songwriting via the music of Scott Simpson and Dancin' Moon Studio of Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills of South Dakota
Episodes
Friday Mar 13, 2020
Friday Mar 13, 2020
Featured song from 2012's Nebraska Catfish LP
Winter Fields
Out here in these winter fields
silence is the only thing that's growing,
even now when it's not snowing
and there's nothing but the wind.
And I want to know--- do you remember
weren't those seeds that we were sowing?
Didn't our bodies ache with knowing
that our love would never end?
Hey-hey-yey-ee-yey-ee-ay
Hey-hey-yey-ee-yey-ee-ay
Upstairs where the children sleep
and dream of their tomorrows,
do you think they know our sorrows---
how hard it is, sometimes, to break the ground?
Down stairs, we are in our chairs
with nothing to disturb us,
but the thing that makes me nervous
is how hard it is, sometimes, to make a sound.
Hey-hey-yey-ee-yey-ee-ay
Hey-hey-yey-ee-yey-ee-ay
Out here in these winter fields…
Out here in these winter fields…
Out here in these winter fields…
Out here in these winter fields…
There's nothing but the wind.
Hey-hey-yey-ee-yey-ee-ay
Hey-hey-yey-ee-yey-ee-ay
Hey-hey-yey-ee-yey-ee-ay
Hey-hey-yey-ee-yey-ee-ay
There's nothing but the wind.
Original version
Feat. Sheryl Simpson appears on...
Link to Scott's "Winter Fields" performance
on Season 2 of White Wall Sessions!
Friday Mar 06, 2020
Friday Mar 06, 2020
Featured song from 2010's Letting the Sunlight Back In LP
Don't Grow Away
I watched the sun come up this morning
just like a million times before
but when I watched your face awaken
it was like something I’d never seen before
You’re ever growing ever changing
just like a river on its way
and don’t you ever stop that growing
but don’t you ever grow away.
I know the world is full of mystery
full of pleasure, full of pain
like the burning ache of friendship
or the gentle kiss of rain
but before you see the truth unmasked,
look into my eyes
I don’t want to hold you back,
I just can’t bear to see you cry.
You’re ever growing ever changing
just like a river on its way
and don’t you ever stop that growing
but don’t you ever grow away.
Don’t you ever stop that growing
but don’t you ever grow away…
don’t you ever grow away…
Friday Feb 28, 2020
Friday Feb 28, 2020
Featured song from 2010's Letting the Sunlight Back In LP
Signs
I went down to New Mexico
with my father and my little girl
it was unreal and it was dreamlike
it was like another world of enchantment
--just like they say on the signs.
It was rainy and it was gray all across the Rockies
I drove the pickup truck my father slept a lot--
he’s getting older now, so am I, so am I
And my daughter, well, she isn’t little anymore…
she’s seventeen and riding behind these two old men
in the back seat with her headphones
and we’re stopping once again for a bathroom
and another cup of coffee.
And my father knows how painful life can be
so we just talk about the signs we pass along the way
but he reaches across the front seat to put his hand on my neck
and he rubs it, just like he did when I was just twenty-one
and my fiancée broke up with me and I was on the run from myself,
or at least who I thought I was gonna be,
who I thought I was gonna be…
So we drop off my daughter with her sleeping bag and her guitar
for two weeks at camp, and there’s laughing kids and there’s cars
and there’s parents and they’re huggin’ their children
and the sun finally begins to shine…
And we are what we are, not what we were gonna be
and the road stretches from bathroom to cup of coffee
and my father and I, we trade off driving and sleeping
and he rubs my neck, and I rub his
and we can see all the peaks this time
all back through Colorado--
it’s so full of color
--just like they say on all the signs
it’s so full of color
--just like they say on all the signs,
on all the signs.
Also appears on...
Click Here to watch the
2020 Tiny Desk Concert Entry,
Signs by Scott Simpson
Friday Feb 21, 2020
Friday Feb 21, 2020
Featured song from 2015's Circuitous & Before the Great Divide Double LP
What I Got
I’m the poet without a pen,
and the priest who can’t hear God;
I’m the dancer with two clubfeet,
and the farmer who can’t break the sod,
yeah, I’m the farmer who can’t break the sod.
Mine’s the wagon with square wheels,
and the house without a door;
my only hat doesn’t fit my head,
and my feet won’t touch the floor,
no, my feet never touch the floor.
I got the key that fits no lock,
and the kite that has no tail;
I got sand when I needed a rock,
and a plan that’s already failed.
If I lost all my teeth but two,
they’d be both on the bottom side;
If I played hide-n-seek with a blind man,
I’d still have no place to hide,
because, some folks get the short end;
I’ve never even seen the stick.
Well, you might feel some sympathy
if you saw the wounds I sometimes lick.
My true love said goodbye to me
on the day before we met;
the life I dreamed was stillborn,
but I ain’t through with dreaming yet.
See, I set out to touch the moon,
but I couldn’t get past the sea;
then the moon, she danced across the waves—
that night she came to me,
I sang, and the moon, she danced with me.
(instrumental)
It ain’t about how you bargain,
it’s what you give when the rest will not.
It’s an empty hand and an open heart
when the song is all you’ve got,
yeah, this song is what I’ve got,
oh, my song is what I’ve got.
‘Cause the poem don’t need the pen,
and the priest, he can’t speak for God.
You gotta dance as graceful as you can
‘till they lay you down in the sod—
no, I’m not afraid ‘cause I know, some day,
gonna lay me down,
gonna lay me down to rest in the sod.
Also available on...
Also available on...
Friday Feb 14, 2020
Friday Feb 14, 2020
Featured song from 2017's Refuge LP
Love You Perfectly
All my love
All my doubt
All the things I've done
All the things I could do without…
Oh, it's you
You are the one who sees me through
Yeah, and it's me
Gonna try to love you perfectly.
On the day we met
I didn't yet know you owned my soul
I only saw your beauty there, on the surface shining
Waiting to make me whole.
Oh, it's you
You are the one who sees me through
Oh, yeah and it's me
Gonna try to love you perfectly.
We are joined in this dance
Every day and every hour
We will share every delicacy
Every sweet and every sour.
Oh, it's you
You are the one who sees me through
Yeah, and it's me
Gonna try to love you perfectly.
Oh, it's you
You are the one who sees me through
Yeah, yeah and it's me
Gonna try to love you perfectly.
Watch original music video here!
Friday Feb 07, 2020
Friday Feb 07, 2020
Featured song from 2018's Gravitate LP
Heatwave
Three dogs and a hammock
And a cool breeze after a hot day
Heatwave in the canyon
You’re singin’ Eagle and the Hawk from memory
Seems like we were just kids
Thirty years and a lifetime away
Seems like all the hard times
Come and go like a heatwave…
Open the windows, turn off the lights
Bring on the thunder—flash in the night
Rain on the rooftop… try as we might
We can’t get to love, until we burn out the fight.
Until we burn out the fight.
Two kids and a red jeep
On a dirt road up to the mountain top
Late nights in the basement
Watch ‘em sing and dance like they’ll never stop
Watch ‘em grow through the tough years—
Middle school, boyfriends and bullies—
You and I learned the hard way
Hearts burst when they get so full, please…
Open the windows, turn off the lights
Bring on the thunder—flash in the night
Rain on the rooftop… try as we might
We can’t get to love, until we burn out the fight.
Until we burn out the fight.
(instrumental verse & chorus)
Ten years and a few more dollars
Maybe we’ll both leave our jobs
Spend weeks on an island beach
I don’t know, what are the odds?
But right now I want to hear about your day—
The crazy things your co-worker said.
I want to tell you how I missed you last week
When I was in some distant hotel bed…
Open the windows, turn off the lights
Bring on the thunder—flash in the night
Rain on the rooftop… try as we might
We can’t get to love, until we burn out the fight.
Open the windows, turn off the lights
Bring on the thunder—flash in the night
Rain on the rooftop… try as we might
We can’t get to love, until we burn out the fight.
Until we burn out the fight.
Seems like we were just kids
Thirty years and a lifetime away
Seems like all the hard times
Come and go like a heatwave…
LIVE version appears on...
Friday Jan 31, 2020
Friday Jan 31, 2020
Featured song from 2018's A. Dream LP
Alone
He was alone, he was alone.
She was alone, she was alone…
And we’re born, and...
And we’re born, and...
And we’re born, and we don’t know nothin’…
Gotta find a face, gotta find a place…
Gotta find a heart, gotta find a hand…
He was alone, he was alone.
She was alone, she was alone….
Link to Joseph Marshall III's The Story of the Flute Maker on Spotify
Friday Jan 24, 2020
Friday Jan 24, 2020
Featured song from 2014's LIVE in the Black Hills LP
People As Tall As Mountains
There's a bird here,
It has a broke wing
And there are coyotes
On the prowl;
And there are people
Forgot how to sing,
They are broken Somehow.
There is a pine tree
Once struck by lightening
Its needles red-brown
As blood;
And there are people
As tall as mountains
Who now have fallen
Right where they stood.
There's a bird here,
It has a broke wing
And there are coyotes
On the prowl;
And there are people
Forgot how to sing,
They are broken Somehow.
There is a pine tree
Once struck by lightening
Its needles red-brown
As blood;
And there are people
As tall as mountains
Who now have fallen
Right where they stood.
They have fallen…
They have fallen,
Right where we stood.
Watch LIVE performance video here.
Watch Official Music Video here.
Originally appeared on...
2013's Edge of the Known LP
People As Tall As Mountains
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Featured song from 2015's Circuitous & Before the Great Divide: Remasters LP
In the Hills
Something’s blowing through the Hills tonight
something’s riding on the wind
Orion’s lying down beside me now
just to comfort his old friend
I can’t remember when we made the change
I can’t remember what went wrong
I’m just here waiting for the wind to shift
bring me words to sing this song
I never said I didn’t love you
you never said you didn’t care
so why am I here with the lonely stars
while you’re crying, crying somewhere out there
Here’s a river that’s run empty now
you still can see the polished stones
after all the care she gave to them
the river left them all alone
And there’s a storm cloud waiting in the west
to fill the lowlands with her tears
she’ll move the mountains when the levies break
like they haven’t moved in years
I know I told you that I love you
but you never seem to hear
that’s why I’m heavy as a lonely stone
and I’m crying, yes I’m crying way out here
(instrumental)
I want to tell you that I’m sorry
I know that’s only words
how can we make things work
when we’re just too far apart to be heard
The Hills are singing me a song tonight
I listen hard to catch the tune
they say the winter is approaching fast
and I must be leaving soon
The trees are putting on their autumn coats
the squirrels are gathering their store
I pledged myself to you ten years ago
how could I ask for more?
I left the house and you were crying
I didn’t know the words to say
I still don’t know just how to comfort you
but I’m coming home, I’m gonna try anyway.
Featured song from 2015's The Road Behind LP
In the Hills
(instrumental version)
Also appears on...
2011's Tasunke Witko Film Soundtrack LP
In the Hills
(instrumental version)
Welcome to VOTE SPEARFISH WEEK!
Vote here:
https://smallbusinessrevolution.org/small-business-revolution/main-street/season-five#voting-form
The nationwide vote is on! Help Spearfish, South Dakota win $500,000 for small business. The winning town is decided by popular vote. We need you to rally your friends, family, co-workers from across the nation to vote for Spearfish. Let’s get the word out to vote for Spearfish.
Spearfish needs your help to be featured on Season 5 of Small Business Revolution.
Vote every day, from every device you have.
1) Share daily on social media and ask everyone to share your post and to vote.
2) Call, text, email, or message any acquaintances from across the nation and tell them about voting.
Sunday Jan 19, 2020
Sunday Jan 19, 2020
Featured song from 2000's Topo: Acoustic Landscapes LP
Across the Canyon
(instrumental)
Welcome to VOTE SPEARFISH WEEK!
Vote here:
https://smallbusinessrevolution.org/small-business-revolution/main-street/season-five#voting-form
The nationwide vote is on! Help Spearfish, South Dakota win $500,000 for small business. The winning town is decided by popular vote. We need you to rally your friends, family, co-workers from across the nation to vote for Spearfish. Let’s get the word out to vote for Spearfish.
Spearfish needs your help to be featured on Season 5 of Small Business Revolution.
Vote every day, from every device you have.
1) Share daily on social media and ask everyone to share your post and to vote.
2) Call, text, email, or message any acquaintances from across the nation and tell them about voting.