Roadside Attraction by Jonathan Foster (2023)
The Anchor (Foster)
You’ve been marching along, singing the same old songs
Head looking down, nose to grindstone
You keep rolling on, dragging that extra weight around
On a road that leads nowhere near home
Drop the anchor, fight the cancer
When the chilly winds they blow
Drop the anchor and the rule makers
When you’ve nowhere else to go
I’m your distraction like a new tide crashing
A wave of brightness in the darkness of night
You keep carrying on, the trench of life digs
Muddies up the water you now have to drink
In the partly sunny shadows of the vultures
Hard to grasp if you’re the remains of the day
Loosed chains play the role of hand grenades
The lust grinds the pin on your fingertips
You’ve been worried alone, fighting what you can’t control
Easier said than done, it won’t go away
You stare overboard, starboard right back to port
Anchored here, raise ‘em up, anchors aweigh!
Cottonwood Vines (Foster)
Well I wish I were back in those Cottonwood vines
Trimming fruit in the morning during harvest time
But I gotta keep on moving, driving this fast life
Until the days grow shorter, drive west through the night…
…Sipping me some good ol’ wine
Hearing whispers in the vines
Singing right through super time
That good ol’ country wine
And every time I think about picking up stakes
I hear the songbirds singing and breeze on my face
Whatever shall be, in this high noon heat
Reminding me of the deep notes of a song and drink
Easy like knee high by the 4th of July
A needle in the haystack under cloudy skies…
Well I wish I were back in those Cottonwood vines
Trimming fruit in the morning during harvest time
But I gotta keep on moving driving this fast life
As the days grow longer, it helps me sleep through the night…
The Mountain Echo (Foster)
Shades of fall running the boundary mile
While a subtle bite of winter lines your eyes
To the first hint of spring’s warm summer skies
Old cadence shouts out to the mountain
We recited all the words to gymnasium songs
Dancing in the dark until it was time to go home
Cream colored halls with a cigarette hue
Never stepped inside again, I gave it all to you
Never ending time fleeting like falling stars
In the shadow of the mountain echo
Maybe greener fields are out there to find
When hills can be the hardest mountains to climb
Daydreams of leaving, we would ride for hours
While the longest days would seem to go on forever
What we search for may have always been there
Once had some faith, in the end didn’t care
Never ending time fleeting like falling stars
In the shadow of the mountain echo
Maybe greener fields are out there to find
When hills can be the hardest mountains to climb
Now an eagle flies by Hiawatha’s ghost
Like a gentle fog rising above the fields below
The mountain we leave behind will still be there when we’re old
For the next ones to hold
Never ending time fleeting like falling stars
In the shadow of the mountain echo
Maybe greener fields are out there to find
When hills can be the hardest mountains to climb
When You Leave (Foster)
All along Santa Maria’s rise, yucca, saguaro and fan palms collide
You’ll hear the damn ol’ burro’s cry, in the monsoon’s dream , of rain
And there’s no other feeling when you leave
Go downstream for to take my rest, rustling leaves in this rugged heat
Fifty miles of dry riverbed, returning like a ghost (of yesterday)
There’s no other feeling, when you leave
Heading onto the turquoise trail, strong winds blow in from Santa Fe
Through the riverwash where the songbirds play, ruby slippers of the desert lay (hey)
There’s no other feeling, when you leave
Where the primitive meets the present day, collecting pinyons and new beginnings
Creature comforts of a rain dance song, Santa Maria says come back home
And there’s no other feeling, when you leave
The Warm Light (Foster)
Taking on the world when you’re seventeen
Finding wisdom right after you need it
Flying high and your eyes roll back…
… I was a child running through tall fields
In summertime, overalls, and bare feet
Like the best dream during the sweetest sleep
Chasing the warm light, chasing the warm light
I had fallen down, woke up with a headache
Mama Joan was like a day without the stones
The nurse wide-eyed, they had saved my life…
What if you knew how it ends?
What would you do, what regrets?
What if you were able to come back?...
Time stops, hearts pause, that when near death starts
Out of body, breath, and state of mind
Some say it’s heaven, I just call it living…
… I was a child running through tall fields
In summertime, overalls, and bare feet
Like the best dream during the sweetest sleep
Chasing the warm light, chasing the warm light
Americana Insomnia (Foster)
Take a walk for inspiration, go upstairs for Absinthe
Write a hit song there in Memphis, Tennessee, can’t force those revelation blues
So I picked up more hitchhikers, asked every barstool preacher
Townes passed the day I turned eighteen, the wonder of a songwriter’s dream…
…Another roadside attraction, navigating the weekend
Forever Wild, The Big Easy, to Hemingway’s Key
Everything in moderation, when exercising demons
Knock on wood, I don’t deserve to feel this good
Americana insomnia, windshield jamboree!
My buddy’s driving after breakfast , a plane’s landing on the road ahead
Rare expectations heading our way, delusions of grandeur fantasies
Spin the fun wheel, eat soul food, my guitar needs a little Tupelo glue
In the smell of a honeysuckle spring, when in doubt channel all the Kings…
Was waiting for the big show, needed some San Antonio air flow when I
Saw the flash of four married rings, mister who’s who of the territory
So my friends took me up north, a security man stole my keys
It was a two door Skyhawk, I believe, trying to make midnight, New Year’s Eve
…Another roadside attraction, navigating the weekend
Forever Wild, The Big Easy, to Hemingway’s Key
Everything in moderation, when exercising demons
Knock on wood, I don’t deserve to feel this good
Americana insomnia, windshield jamboree!
The Cuckoo (Traditional)
The cuckoo, she’s a pretty bird and she warbles when she flies
She never, hollers cuckoo, until the fourth day in July
I’m going, up to the mountain, going to build me a whisky still
I’ll sell you, one bottle, for a twenty-dollar bill
Jack of diamonds, jack of diamonds, you’re the meanest card I know
You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold
I’ll eat when I’m hungry and drink when I’m dry
I’ll send you glad tidings and never tell no lies
I still live on the mountain, with my trusted, rusted still
This whole world is changing, but by god, I never will
‘Cause the cuckoo, she’s a pretty bird and she warbles when she flies
Never hollers cuckoo until the fourth day in July
Lander Spring (Foster)
High plains patches of pronghorn snow, fly by night, a little twinkle in your eye
The forest, tamaracks turn a roman candle glow, think back to…
…Lander Spring, a prettier place, I’ve never been
Lander Spring, I’ve never felt so free
Lander Spring, like nothing I’ve ever seen
Lander Spring, wind born memories
Take me back to Lander Spring
Feel all the eyes when you’re from the outside
They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice
And you feel the trickle down has long since dried, it’s back to…
You know there’s a little book right there by the bed
Where all the half-written songs are ready to fledge
In the great untamed of the wind river range we’ll head back to…
What I have come to know is we all have different seeds to sow
Just be yourself, a blue moon rock that rolls
And at the end of the day we’re all just seasons anyway, just like…
The Change (Foster)
Just another tornado coming, every phone puts out a warning
The server uses up all her sugar, honey, baby, sweetie, how are yas?
Everyone puts down a twenty, stands up and files out orderly
Now we’re the last one’s standing, I barely know where I am!
Faster than a raindrop falling, “cross your fingers”
Just another person to be named after this big ol’ hurricane
Plywood and battery store, cleaning up like it’s a war
The experts are getting this right, no one’s gonna sleep tonight
Bomb-cyclone, snowmageddon, Richter scale level tsunami!
Microbursts and nor’easters “cross your fingers and drink tequila”
Just another wildfire raging, brave workers leave their families
Figure heads say all the right things, even when it’s wrong you see
Time passes, the people move on, not the change we’re used to
How dare you provide solutions, in our global little vacuum!
It’s just not a money maker, “cross your fingers and drink tequila”
Just another atmospheric river, storming in giving us fever
Sandbag refills are free tonight, just bring your own bags inside
Give us a crystal ball prediction for what’s next in line this season
We’re all laughing for the moment, but something just ain’t right!
He pauses, at this point… “drink tequila”
Roadside Table (Foster)
All we need, all we need
Is right here under this tree
Reminding us to be still
Thankfully, oh thankfully
This old table’s mostly clean
Waiting for longer days
It’s a new dawn, wash, rinse, repeat
Until you have lived all your dreams
A season’s greeting guarantee
AlI the living things & sounds of beauty
Wrapped in harmony, oh wrapped in harmonies
An earnest expression of the soul
Sometimes we, get lost in our heads
Sometimes I, can’t get over myself
This roadside table is all we need
This roadside table is all we need
All we need is, oh all we need is
Right here under this tree
Reminding us to be still