Right in the middle of New York State's Adirondacks is a county full of rivers, lakes and mountains; villages and wilderness side by side, sparsely populated with folks who have tales to tell. How different is that from other upstate areas? Maybe not so different, except that Hamilton County has a songwriter with a good ear, a singer with a strong voice to match the rugged territory, and now, a namesake album that is at once personal, regional and universal.

These songs of Alex Smith stretch the expectation of what fresh, new music can say about ancient hills, the communities they hold, and their stories. They ring true because Alex has been studying nature's soundscape, absorbing the seasonal sharps and flats, and listening to the rhythm of mountain folk all his life.

Hamilton County is the place, and this is its voice.

– Dan Berggren, Adirondack Folksinger

Credits

Alex Smith, lead vocals and guitar
Dylan Rice, backup vocals, electric guitar and mandolin
Jake Brillhart, violin
Don Barry, bass
Recorded at Sounds Interesting Studios, Middleborough, MA
Recording Engineer: Corey Sherman
Mastering: SoundMirror
Graphics design: Eric Higgins
Cover and back photos: Noelle Short
Inside photos courtesy of Noelle Short & Bill Zullo
Executive producer: Jack Radcliffe

Tracks & Times

1. This Town: 3:21
2. What I Need To Do: 4:18
3. North Country Girl: 2:48
4. Long Lake: 4:47
5. Hard Hands: 4:38
6. North Point Road: 3:28
7. Tahawus: 4:58
8. My Girl's Waiting For Me: 4:25
9. Raquette River: 4:10
10. Adirondack Blues: 4:06
11. Maybe The Next Place We Land: 5:08
12. Hamilton County: 2:58

Lyrics

This Town (Alex Smith)
There's a town
You can drive on dirt roads with no one around
There's a town
The mountains they are standing and they looking down

There's a road
It carried lumber in another life
Now it's cracked and heaved
The frost it cuts through it like a knife

Chorus:
Oh my town
Are the times all gone that we've been singing about
Oh my town
Don't want to see the day we don't make each other proud

I read the news today
They say in twenty years
This county will be gone away
When the jobs go, please tell me how we'll stay

Chorus (Repeat, twice, as above):

What I Need To Do (Alex Smith)
My name is Tommy and I got a house outside of town
Down a little dirt road before the county line
It ain't much to look at, just a little double-wide
But there's plenty of room for the two of us inside

Life's hard on a single dad when you're working nine to five
But I don't complain, my mama did just fine
Wake up every morning, drag Junior out of bed
Getting that kid on the bus is like pulling teeth out of his head

Chorus:
Don't tell me I'm not strong enough to do what I need to do

You can call me Laurie, and I love my man
He signed up back in high school, when we were seventeen
Then they shipped him overseas to fight the Taliban
I'm as proud as his folks but I just want him back

This bed feels like a football field without him next to me
Sometimes when I wake up and forget for a moment that he's gone
You'll know my driveway, it's got a yellow ribbon tied round a tree
When he comes on home it's gonna be the first thing that he sees

Chorus (Repeat as above):

I go by Ricky, I'm sixteen years old
My mom's a drunk and my dad walked out ten years ago
Brother Tommy hadn't even been born, Dad didn't stick around to say hello
He just slammed the screen door and told my mom he wasn't coming home

Chorus (Repeat as above):

North Country Girl (Alex Smith)
There's a little river running beyond my house
Got a big rock in the middle where we can stand
When I was young I used to fish here 'til the sun went down
Girl sit here and tell me what you smile about

Chorus:
I'm looking for a North Country Girl
A North Country Girl looking for the world

Put your toes in the water girl hold my hand
Watch the sun go down over our homeland
Tomorrow we're ridin' to Californ'
We're gonna see what we see and come on home

Chorus (Repeat as above):

Bridge:
I don't know if I ever want to settle down
But I want a girl, who knows what we're leaving

The songs I sing they mean the world to me
I want a girl who knows what the hell they mean
Who looks at me and says you've got it wrong
When I write something and she don't agree

Chorus (Repeat as above):

Long Lake (Alex Smith)
Where do you go when you don't know what your going for
Where do you run when you can't run no more
And your legs are sore
I go home

Who do you know when you don't know who you are
And you can't even remember why it matters anymore
Oh she knows
Your hometown knows

Chorus:
Oh I look out from the bridge as I'm driving back again to Long Lake
And I see the white-capped waves, and I see the Seward Range again
Oh, oh oh, oh, Long Lake
I love the road that brings me out and I love the road that brings me back again as well

They'll try to tell you there's no future here in the mountains
The school it will shut down they'll say and when that happens who will come
But they don't know you like I know you if they think that's all it takes
To move us all out of our home and make our people fade away
Chorus (repeat as above):
Bridge: This town will always be your home, take it with you when you go
Because you've never seen such beautiful hills as the ones you come home to

Chorus: (repeat as above)

I love the road that brings me out
I love the road

Hard Hands (Alex Smith)
It was dark outside when I left this morning
It's gonna be dark outside when I come home
The boys will be in bed but you'll be waiting
Waiting on yesterday though we both know it won't come

My knuckles are swollen and they tend to stiffen
My hands are greasy and stained with motor oil
I crawl into bed and you rub my fingers
Don't do much good girl, but I don't tell you that

Prechorus:
Because I know, you know, you're all I have girl
My hard hands and knowing that they got that way for you

Chorus:
But Mary Anne
We're not twenty-five anymore
We're not alive anymore
Not like we were back then
But Mary Anne
You keep me going, you and the boys
Just knowing that I work each day for you
And with these hard hands I'll hold you 'til I go on

It's hard to tell that the days are passing
When so little changes but the light
But when I see my reflection in your eyes, that's how I know
That's how I know that I'm alive

Prechorus:
And I know, you know, it's all I have girl
My hard hands and knowing that they got that way for you

Chorus (Repeat as above):

Prechorus(Repeat as above):

Chorus (Repeat as above):

North Point Road (Alex Smith)
This road don't really go to nowhere
But that's just fine with me
I could drive with you for hours in the dark here darling
Just listen to the radio

There's a wall of trees around this road
And all the crazy people in the world
Your highway signs and city lights
They're a world apart from here

Chorus:
Oh, darlin', wont you ride with me
Down where our fathers rode, a long long long time ago, down North Point Road

Anywhere we could pull over
Find a mossy spot to rest and lay our heads
That ever ticking clock's still tickin' but we can't hear it from this bed

Tonight we'll go to an old lean-to
Sit and have another blue, and another brother have no fear were with ya
Bad company ain't a thing to me I hope I never live to see the day this world eats this place alive

Chorus: (Repeat as above)

Tahawus (Alex Smith)
My dad was eighteen when I was born
And my son can say the same
And I'm gonna give him the best start I can
For if not, who's to blame?

Chorus:
We moved out north to the Adirondack hills
That's where we heard our fortunes lay
Settled my family and mined them hills for ore
That's where they said the riches lay
But then the mine closed down

1867, when the axe it fell
They said it was the ore that was to blame
The iron we came for was tainted white
And after six months, back on the train

Chorus: (Repeat as above)

Bridge:
They said there was money to be made
They said there was blue in the skies
I didn't expect them streets would be paved with gold
But I thought if I worked hard we'd get by

We never had much but now we got nothing
And Annie can only take so much running
There ain't another like her to be found
Oh Annie, won't you stick around

Chorus (Repeat as above):

My Girl's Waiting For Me (Dan Berggren)
River driving on the Sacandaga
Riding on slippery logs
Sleeping in a frozen bog
My girl's waiting for me

Hard boiled eggs three times a day
Wet as beavers when we hit the hay
Not much sleep but good big pay
My girl's waiting for me

Big French Joe and I went out
For to break a jam and I heard him shout
"Prenez garde" and the jam went out
My girl's waiting for me

Big French Joe, the logs drowned him
He had no chance to fight or swim
The logs jammed up to the river's rim
My girl's waiting for me

His girl comes to me and sighs
"If he's dead boys I shall die"
"Ma petite," he used to sigh
My girl's waiting for me

We will find him down below
Or around the bend where the water is slow
Floating there with his pike in tow
My girl's waiting for me

Ma petite will wring her hands
As we scrape away at the yellow sand
Bury him by the river strand
My girl's waiting for me

One more night and one more day
And the logs will reach the river bay
I'll skin off these togs and I will say
My girl's waiting for me
My girl's waiting for me

The Raquette River (Alex Smith)
I was born along the Raquette River
And like me she's rolling north
St. Lawrence Seaway calls her homewards
But it'll be a while 'til she sees the sea

One hundred forty-six miles of water
Rollin' through these wooded hills
From Raquette Lake to Akwesasne
To houses, farms and fields

Chorus:
She flows by rich; she flows by poor
Under tracks and over ore
And when we're dead and in the ground
She'll roll along, northward bound

In years before, they floated timber
Down towards the lumber mills
And nowadays, turbines are spinning
Hydro dams they keep the lights here burning bright

Bridge:
The river saw the times
When we worked the woods and mines
But what's she thinking now
When we're being told to forget how

Chorus (Repeat as above):

And once the guide boats floated down Long Lake
Now the seaplanes tip the buoys with their wake
But the river she keeps on running; the river rolls along
Changing with the times like an old folk song

Chorus (Repeat as above):

Adirondack Blues (Alex Smith)
We come from the mountains
They've been our home since we were born
Our fathers and grandfathers
They built the homes, logged the hills, and mined the ore
But it ain't like that any more

Prechorus.
From timber to titanium
Hauled to the cities to make them run
Trucks running north past North Hudson So the lights stayed on in Burlington

Chorus:
There's no way to make a living round here anymore
Even the paper mill they finally closed its doors
They log the land cheaper, way down south
And all we got left is following the rich man's around
Showing him what used to be our home

I want to raise me a family
I want them to know what it means to be from the woods
But we can't survive here
We can't live makin' money two months a year

Prechorus:
I'd love to write a happy song
But I couldn't find anyone to sing along
The jobs we had to keep the power on
Are all being done in Taiwan

Chorus:
There's no way to make a living round here anymore
Even the paper mill they finally closed its doors
They log the land cheaper, way down south
And all we got left is wiping the rich man's mouth
Showing him what used to be our home

Maybe The Next Place We Land (Alex Smith)
There's cardboard boxes on the front porch
Address is painted on the wall
There's plastic wrap here in the windows
A tarp keeps out the snow that falls

The letters fell out of the mailbox
They got plowed into the snow
But even if they'd been read it wouldn't change a thing
The mill's closed down again and we're headed down the road

Chorus:
Maybe the next place we land
We'll find some solid ground on which to stand
I'll find some work for my two hands
And a place to raise my son into a man
It's a long and lonesome road
But I won't ever lose my hope
We'll get on by just like we've done before

We've gotten mighty good at moving
Don't own a thing that we can't fit in the truck
My brother tells me there's some work up in Malone
We can stay with him while I try my luck

Chorus (Repeat as above):

Tommy had time to make some new friends
And Anna found work in the dollar store
As soon as they'e done this I drag 'em down the road
Tommy he don't get it when I tell what the hell we're moving for

Bridge:

And the snow is falling down and we're still ten miles from town
Tommy fell asleep in back to the tire sound
Anna hold my hand and I'll be a better man
I know this ain't the life you planned but it will be
Oh it will be

Chorus (Repeat as above):

Coda:
Will be home

Hamilton County (Alex Smith)
You don't need a sign to know
When you cross the blue line
You can feel it in the air

The trees they come
A little closer now
The horizon feels a lot less far away

Maybe you're driving
In the middle of the night
The beeches form a net to catch your lights

Maybe it's morning
And the sun's just peeking through
Shining off the snow that's fallen, new

Prechorus:
And a little ways past Tupper Lake
Where it opens up and you can see for miles

Chorus:
Oh you will be
On the frost-heaved roads of Hamilton County
The sun shines a little brighter and you know you're home

You wake up in the morning
To the newly fallen snow
A plow rolls by spraying sand upon the road

You'll cook your eggs in bacon grease
And chase them down with black coffee
And leave before the woodstove's heated up

Scrape some crystals off the windshield
Put your auger in the trunk
Five-gallon pail of tip-ups in the back

And set out on a frozen pond
With men you've known since you were born
And in the wind and snow you'll know you're home

Prechorus:
And the houses on the lake are closed
And in this time we call the town our own
Chorus:
There you'll find me
On a frozen lake in Hamilton County
This little town will always be my home
This town will always be my home

All songs, except "My Girl's Waiting For Me," copyright 2014, Alex Smith, Alex Smith Publishing (BMI). "My Girl's Waiting For Me" copyright Dan Berggren, Dan Berggren Publishing (BMI). All other materials, written and/or recorded, copyright 2014, Wepecket Island Records, Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication of this CD or any part thereof without prior written approval is illegal – and takes money out of the pockets of the musicians who made it.