DakotaMoon

Oh Dakota Moon
You've thrown me into a swoon
And got me loving a girl I never wanted to
The lights in the north
Arch like melting moon rainbows
And slide into the lake
As I'm playing my guitar
Underneath the falling stars
Thinking about my life

I haven't done that much
And I guess I've done some bad things
Still I always felt there was someone up there
Pulling the right strings
But the one string that's not been pulled
Is the one that brings you love
And I feel that string might make of me
A puppet not controlled
A puppet of my love
Born of the Dakota moon

But fill me anyway
With the love
And the living tune
Fill me, Fill me
Like the silver sky
With the northern lights
And the Dakota Moon
Fill me
With the love
And the living tune
Like the silver sky
With the northern lights
And the Dakota moon

You find her talking too fast
In those too short conversations
So you talk a little slower
Not to give yourself away
But you see she's making efforts
To find reasons for small favors
And you know her eyes drift to you
In the quiet parts of the day
But tomarrow I'll wake
And I'll walk down by the spillway
And the morning lake will sparkle
Like a thousand tiny suns
The morning moon will still remain
But I won't see it the same
And all I know tonight
Will be a mystery again
Oh, a mystery again

But fill me anyway
With the love
And the living tune
Fill me, Fill me
Like the silver sky
With the northern lights
And the Dakota moon
Fill me
With the love
And the living tune
Like the silver sky
With the northern lights
And the Dakota moon

This is another song that Mark composed in the summer of 1974. I have always thought that this piece of music really showcased a very sensitive and mature transition in Marks writing style. Its very beautiful and its very dark, and its very exposed. So much so, that it really caught me off guard at the time. This was not the kind of song that Mark sat down and spun out. It was almost as if he lowered all of his defenses and just let the song come through him, as opposd to, from him...
     Or maybe it was just the Norhtern Lights, which he had never seen before, putting together a love song over a series of nights on a cross-country trip through the Dakotas.
     Years later, in 1984, I added another demension to the song by working out a spacey background backing vocal when it was rerecorded at the Most Production Studio in Boulder, Colorado. . It was an after-thought, and a happy accident for me
     The production engineer at playback thought that the song was too stripped down, too simple, next to the other songs that had been recorded. Mark had already laid down all his guitar and vocal work and returned to New Jersey. I felt like we were tampering with the songs integrity and had to be coaxed into doing the additional vocals.
     It all worked out okay, and Mark acutally liked the end result. Over the years, Mark has also made his fair share of changes in the song.
     Peggy has always liked the Most Production version of the song and digitally cleaned and spiffed it up for inclusion on 'The Roads Not Taken' CD in 2004.