Tracks & Times

1. Chasing Ghosts
2. Like We Know How
3. Close To Home
4. We Were Young
5. Sunrise
6. Forces (featuring Dan Berggren)
7. A Car That'll Start In The Cold
8. Maggie's Song
9. We Can't All Go To Heaven
10. Barkeaters
Total playing time:

Credits

Vocals and Guitar: Alex Smith
Lead Guitar: Markus Gartner
Fiddle: Jacob Brillhart
Drums, Bass, Keys: Ross Rice
Bass: Don Barry
Cello: Mike Ranellone
Harmony Vocals: Victoria Heft
Additional Vocals on "Forces:" Dan Berggren
Cover Photography: Jeff Chudzinski
Executive Producer: Jack Radcliffe

1. Chasing Ghosts

We're chasing ghosts all over town
If we keep moving, boys, we might just run them down
They ain't going hard at all and if we caught them they'd still say that they're ok

We talk as if the days are dragging on
But if truth be told I couldn't tell you where the last few months have gone
But oh, they're gone, I know they're gone

And we're flying over skid marks on the road
Never thinking those boys might have had somewhere to go
Throwing shooters out the window, I tip my cap to a wooden cross
Get my eyes back on the road and we're out of sight
Those skid marks you can't see them well at night

You've got a pistol on your hip, your lip puffed out with soggy dip
Don't like the chewing much at all but you always loved to spit
And when they ask you where you're from you say nowhere
And it ain't no picnic there

And we're flying over skid marks on the road
Never thinking those boys might have had somewhere to go
Throwing shooters out the window, I tip my cap to a wooden cross
Get my eyes back on the road and we're out of sight
Those skid marks you can't see them well at night

2. Like We Know How

I want to take you home
The real home
With the wood shed and the sugar shack and all the folks I couldn't fool

I want to sit around the table with my Dad and just listen

It's going to get hold to me, I've heard his stories all before
But you ain't and your going to love him and love them and you'll love me more
My Mamma never has to say much but she's got you figured out

Won't you stay
Stay with me now
Like we know how

We'll stay up late talking, girl this ain't much like them
Mom's nodding off and Dad's drunk, I told you, babe his ears get red
He just loves the way you speak up, make yourself known

When my folks go to bed we'll meet my friends down at the bar
Smoke cigarettes in the parking lot and talk about our old baseball team
I swear you should've seen us babe, we could have gone far

Won't you stay
Stay with me now
Like we know how

There's a pond across the street I used to fish after school
My buddy died there long before we got tired of breaking rules
And every night I'm home I feel that's where I need to be

Let's stay here in the quiet, girl, that moon's Mercury
You don't know who it is or what it is but you know what it means to me
And I think we both know we're going to be here a good long while

Won't you stay
Stay with me now
Like we know how
To come clean again

3. Close To Home

Been up three hours before the sun
Got Snickers bars and my father's gun
My brother's gonna be here by five, we'll be in the woods all night
He's gonna be the only soul I see, the only one around
We've got six million acres here but we're always close to home

There's a lot of rugged country here and it don't get hunted hard
We're a long ways from the freeway and it weeds out the ones that aren't
Interested in sweating through their woolies, want to climb up in a stand over a corn field and watch them
come in, shoot the ones that's on their land
This ain't mine and it ain't yours, boy, but were always close to home

Gonna hike until I cut a track I can't lay a shell across
Follow it until I catch up or I lose him in the dark
With any luck I'll have a drag, my compass will tell me what to do
I can't say that I've been lost before but I've been pretty damn confused
We're a long ways from pavement here but we're always close to home

Tonight we'll meet up, pitch a tent and eat Dinty Moore
Cook it in the can over the fire and try to figure out where we were today
I don't know much about living but this I can't argue with
I don't know where the big bucks are; I don't know where the hell they live
But I don't mind walking in the woods alone, because I'm always close to home
I don't mind walking in the woods alone, because I'm always close to home

4. We Were Young

We used to play like our hockey sticks were guns
Running around the woods behind my house when we were young
When we were young

I remember the feeling in my ears as the blood would pump
But there was something in your eyes that said a Sherwood stick was
Never going to be enough
No bridge we jumped off was ever high enough

And we carved cusses in the trees we couldn't touch
We tried our mothers' patience, but never their love
Never their love

There wasn't much between us back in school
We didn't try too hard but we got it done
Found a way to keep the next door from swinging shut

You took the tests and all but that was never in the plan
Your granddad was in the Corps and you were never one
To sit back and watch a war
So I got a scholarship and you got an M4

They sent you straight off to Iraq
But I never doubted you'd come back
Spent that first year in the sandbox complaining about the heat
While I was getting drunk with rich girls and watching it on TV

You got ten days up north before Afghanistan
Drove through the night to catch my band
And put a ring on your girl's hand
We knew things were getting nasty there, you were fired up and I was scared
You said that's what you signed up for and you were prepared
I don't know if anyone's ever prepared

We played war games on the TV, you said they'd got it pretty close
But your first tour'd been quiet so you didn't really know

And we got raging drunk every single night
We talked about our old hockey teams and our first fight
When I got knocked out cold, when I got the scar between my eyes

First month there you took a bullet in the hand
Wouldn't take the Purple Heart, said you had buddies that would never again would stand
They left their legs in a Humvee back in Afghanistan

If this were fiction you'd have died there
Got off the plane under a flag
But Bradley Cooper ain't a soldier and this world it ain't that kind
It was a car crash ten months later on the West Virginia line

Now here we are again it's the 4th of July
We've got barbecues and coolers full and bombs up in the sky
If you looked quick not a damn thing's changed at all
Except I'm here and you're gone

We used to play like our hockey sticks were guns
Running around the woods behind my house when we were young
When we were young

5. Sunrise

I want to be the sunrise you see over the lake
Your parents took you on
Dragging sticks in the water and saying that you were helping them
I want to be what you feel when you see that place again

I want to hear about the friends you met
When you were too young to cry
About anything real, I want to hear about the ones who stuck around
The ones you'd call before the morning dew, your first year in school
When you were scared as hell and you didn't know what to do

I want to turn you upside down
Show you something that you've never seen before

I remember the rhyme you spoke
We were sitting on the dock
Beside the lake up north where we couldn't see the mortal lights
You'd never call yourself a poet but I don't buy that, you've led a life that merits telling and I'm more
Interested in it than mine

Give me something I'd die to hold
A riddle a bar girl can't unfold
A story I don't have to try to make my own
Turn on the porch light that feels like the one at home

My old man made me a paddle
He makes one for the sons he made and for the daughters we bring him home as well
I want to talk about you with me nephews
When we lie down tired and there's no truth truer than that which we tell

Want you to hold me like they'd hold me
When I knew there was nothing I could do to mess it up
When I knew there was nothing in this world but love

Oh Darling turn me upside down
Show me something I’ve never seen before

6. Forces

Sell the farm, dad, or burn the bar down
Take your tired eyes off this rocky ground
There's work on the river for a man like you
Digging the channel down to let the freighters through
Diggin' the channel down to let the freighters through

Don't sing that song, son, I've heard it before
My back ain't broke through my knees are sore
You can leave if you want, take the single cab
But I've got what I have off of my own land
I've got what I have off of my own land

There's forces here that can't be denied
They're the ones that kept your momma by my side
They're pulling us upwards to something new
There's still plenty here for a boy like you

Gramps was sixty when he had his heart attack
You're fifty-eight, do you want to go like that?
You could drive a loader and stay on shore
Seaway's going to change this town, it's worth working for
Seaway's going to change this town, it's worth working for

People need milk, that's what we provide
What good's it do a town to watch ships pass by
Your gramps believed in this farm, it's where he made his life
And I'll follow that man to the other side
I'll follow that man to the other side

There's forces here that cant be denied
They warm my hands, they get me up at five
You'll get a healthcare plan, time off to hunt in the fall
Yeah and no one will know we were here at all
No one will know we were here at all

You should see the ships they'll be bringing through, old man
It's the Fourth Coast, it's where we'll take our stand
I miss the mornings, coffee in the house
But I know my future ain't milking cows
I know my future ain't milking cows

The boys miss you, though they'd never say
I hired a new kid, but he'll never stay
I tell them you'll be home when the job is through
But when those ships start moving, you will too
When those ships start moving, you will too

7. A Car That'll Start In The Cold

You were sure I'd be more than just a foundry boy
But aren't we all at barely seventeen
This town's too tired to hold us, Della Mae my dear
It'll be a year, maybe two, but we're not yet suffering

We said the time would come for leaving
And by God we'd know it when it did
We'll live cheap for now, get some put away
Believing that gets you through a long, grey day
Oh, Della Mae, our love's a car that'll start in the cold these days
Oh, Della Mae, around here it keeps snowing into May

We drove down all the dirt roads in this town
Kicked up dust but there's something always pulling it back down
Got a one bedroom together out back of the Mobil Mart
It wasn't much but we were proud to make a start

I kept my head down
And I made you proud
And we had what we needed, as they say
But every year we were farther from away

Oh, Della Mae, our love's a car that'll start in the cold these days
Oh, Della Mae, around here it keeps snowing into May

We put two beds in one bedroom
Took the crib my father made for me
Things were pretty tight so we moved out and made it right
I painted the new room blue and we named her Katie

We'd talked of California lying in the back seat of my car
Joked we'd drive until we threw a belt
Drive a stake right there and call that town our home
But that time is never right and then it's gone

Oh, Della Mae, our love's a car that'll start in the cold these days
Oh, Della Mae, around here it keeps snowing into May

Springtime we spend a week in Carolina
I'm a shift manager now and you've got your salon
Katie's got the life we had, a town to raise her tall
We've got Friday nights in my brother's bar
We've got Friday nights playing pool in my brother's bar

8. Maggie's Song

My sister goes by a different name now
I guess she took the first one as far as it would go
She's always liked to make things out of wood
She never felt the warmth of home in stone

She likes things she didn't used to like
She's driving down these rivers that frankly leave me terrified
If I'm honest I miss knowing just where she is at night
But I guess she's had a paddle all her life

Sister don't you listen when I tell you I'm afraid
Don't let me get tired and stuck in my ways
Keep pushing off, just the way you always do
Don't let the current mean too much to you

Sometimes a month goes by without a call
When I'm sleeping by the highway where the trucks run all night long
And I wonder what stars shes under, where she's laying her head
I want to call, but I go to sleep instead
And I do hope she'll go home and see the folks
I hope the hometown keeps its place in her and her her place in it
But I hope she's gone long enough and far enough away
To come back with something to say

Sister don't you listen when I tell you I'm afraid
Don't let me get tired and stuck in my ways
Keep pushing off, just the way you always do
Don't let the current mean too much to you

My sister goes by a different name now
And she might have another before she comes back around
It'll take me a while to use it, I'll forget or resist the change
Maggie's song rewrites itself every day

Sister don't you listen when I tell you I’m afraid
Don't let me get tired and stuck in my ways
Keep pushing off just the way you always do
Don't let the current mean too much to you

9. We Can't All Go To Heaven

I hate driving pizzas round in dirty snow all day
College boys tip for shit and it don't pay
I used to roof houses for my buddy's dad
Twelve under the table, you can make a life with that
But I chased a stack of shingles down a ladder and broke my leg
Healthcare folks don't care if you can't pay

Don't tell me you're afraid of needles
If you ain't rolled awake all night
Trying to find a place to lie that don't make you want to die

I was supposed to be playing ball right now
Wearing that orange and blue
You'd have been watching me from your living room
There were men in suits at all my games
There were calls waiting on my answering machine
But nobody ever made an offer I could afford
I guess I didn't defend that well but boy, I could score

Seems like all the pretty dreams round here
Are riding little white bikes in the sky
But boy we cant all go to heaven when we die

And I wasn't some kind of jock joker
I did just fine in school
If your daughter had brought me home you'd have liked me pretty well
You'd have acted all kinds of hard of course
That's what dads are meant to do
But you'd have loved that I had a job and dressed alright
If you saw me now you couldn't look me in the eye

Ask every little kid in town
What they plan to do when they're old
Not a single going to tell you heroin
So If you find me on your doorstep
Don't say a word, pay and let me go
Because only to me I'm still the boy I should have been

Friday nights I'm high playing video games
With boys I don't really know
These men are not my friends and this is not my home

Don't think for a second I can't tell
What I'm doing here
I hate this couch, I hate that car, I hate the last five years
But I can't see the road to home from here

And it seems like all the pretty little dreams' round here
Ride little white bikes in the sky
But boy we can't all go to heaven when we die

10. Barkeater

I've got some friends here
Who ain't ever gonna leave here
And if they ask me I'd probably say that too

I believe in this town, I ain't stuck; I'm happy and proud
I like the woods and I like the smell in the spring
We can make it here, it's been done
We're barkeaters every one
Though some things can't stay the same, this I know

It used to be a mill town
Like all the others it's been closed down
Frankly I'm getting tired of complaining about that
I never cared for coffee shops
But at least it ain't a Starbucks
Those little places are really giving it a go

We can make it here, it's been done
I'm not ready to cut and run
Though some things can't stay the same, this I know
We can make it here, it's been done
We're barkeaters every one
Though some things can't stay the same, this I know

I used to want to be a lumberjack
And part of me would still die for that
Still not sure I'm cut out for just singing songs
I've been told to move to Tennessee
And I don't doubt there's something there for me
But it ain't home and it ai'nt my family

We can make it here, it's been done
I'm not ready to cut and run
Though some things can't stay the same, this I know
We can make it here, it's been done
We're barkeaters every one
Though some things can't stay the same, this I know