TheRoadsNotTaken

Around the fires of my youthful freedoms
My dreams worn down to the honest bone
I still hear that restless highway rumbling
I know her hunger as my own
We choose our sides
Across the thin lines
Where you know
You can't go back again
But when you're searching
Home's anyplace
That will take you in

Now this old soul is just a suitcase
It's filled with everything I own
We've crossed the bridges
We've paid the tolls
We've gone the distance all alone
As I shake the dust down off
This faded wanderlust
It seems to me
Theres got to be something more
When I get to feeling
That I've passed
This way before

Signs on the street say where I'm going
Sign of the times do too
Still I find that I need some direction
Standing at the intersection
Of the roads that I've not taken
And where I want to be

Now forward motion
Is not a destination
And the past
Just the last place you've been
And that freight train mile
Ain't nothing but a measurement
The longest journeys
Still lie within
Standing off the shoulder
I'm a little bit older now
But its still the questions
My life recalls
Cause the answers
Don't come easy
If they come at all

Now there's a heartache
That's longer than the highway
Broken in the places
Embraces once belonged
And there's a restlessness
That don't know where it's going
Sometimes a victim
When it stays a bit too long
So we slip away in perpetual motion
Driven by our notions of uncertainty
The winds of change
Rearranging you and me

Signs on the street say where I'm going
Sign of the times do too
Still I find that I need some direction
Standing at the intersection
Of the roads that I've not taken
And where I want to be

Around the fires
Of my youthful freedoms
My dreams worn down
To the honest bone
I still hear that restless
Highway rumbling
I know her hunger
As my own
We choose our sides
Across the thin lines
Where you know we can't go
Back again
But when you're searching
Home's anyplace
That will take you in

In the winter of 1987 Peggy and I were living in an apartment on Locust Street in Warwick, New York, when Mark came over and first played us this song. And what a beautiful song it was! Dreamy and calming with a style that walked the line between folk and country with out really falling into either camp. The music was etheral I recall Mark making the casual declaration that he was going to keep this tune pretty much for himself as a more of a solo effort. Again, not unusual for us.

     I had an instrumental version of this song down on tape that I played on a somewhat regular basis, because I enjoyed it so much. But one day, while playing it for the umteenth time, all sorts of lyrics started flooding in. Over the course of a few weeks I wrote them all down. I'm a little fuzzy on what lyrics Mark had written out but I think thats because he was still working everything out on his end when I started to bug him to listen to what I was coming up with. I really made a nusance of myself.

        In my defense, its all Marks fault. The music elicited very introspective emotions and even brought about a change and a maturity to the way that I would write in the future. Marks music has always had that effect on me which is why I enjoy working with him so much. In the long run, Mark must have heard something worthwhile, because he allowed me to bring my lyrics in. Or maybe, I just wore him down over time. I may never know.

     'The Roads Not Taken' was, in retrospect, to me, evaluating our lives right up th the moment of that song itself. The version that appears on the CD comes from a recording session that took place in the living room of another apartment that Peggy and I had on Oakland Avenue, in the same town of Warwick, in late fall of 1991.

      For the record, this is one of the very first songs that Peggy did production work on when we crystalized the idea of putting out our very first CD of music. The song was remixed here at Witchwood Productions in 2004, where Peg added phase shifter and depth to a very long and straight forward take of guitar and vocal. It sounds completely different from the basic recording that Mark and I put down.
     .Something that appealed to the creativity in all of us. Just another road we chose to take..

I remember the recording of this song at our apartment on Oakland ave. in Warwick, NY. Mark and Doc
recorded take after take and this version is the one I liked the best after listening over and over to them all. I very much loved the husky inflections in Doc's voice and Marks harmonizing which had more of a flair in this version. I had intended to put all their songs on CD but I first had to learn how to digitalize the tracks and work with them on various wave editor software.

One day I was playing with The Roads Not Taken and it seemed to be v e r y long and monotonous. I cleaned it up, added some reverb, some phase shifter and who knows what else and played it for Doc. He hated it. Then said "let me hear it again." The second time he loved it We were'nt sure what Mark would make of the new Witchwood sound as Mark is more traditonal, but my point is "you can't please everyone so you might as well please yourself and I loved it.