Been A Long Time

My old band Sparrow Bellows had an outdoor gig that was rained out in October 2012. Sitting by myself that evening in the basement bar of a friend's house where I was staying at the time, I wrote and recorded this song in a single sitting. It was a bummer that the gig was cancelled. But otherwise this song would not exist. It is a fairly straightforward telling of what it was like being on the road with Brian and Sam. This is the first track on a CD that I released on Halloween 2020 called Outsider Looking Out.

"The following is a true story.

Only the names have been changed,

To protect the guilty." ~ Bon Scott *

Pile in the van: Me, B and Sam

Not gonna make it too far

Sam at the wheel, B on the phone of course

I play a little guitar

Been a long time since we did something like that

Pulled into Pittsburgh, started a fire

Barely got out with our lives

On into Jersey where it starts to get fuzzy

Exiles on the Lower East Side

Been a long time

We should go do that again

From the Cumberland River on through Tuscaloosa

To the lot lizards of Lake Charles

Knock on your door at a quarter to four

Welcome to the Dirty South

Been a long time

Wish we were back there right now

Well even mistakes are bigger in Texas

Got high as a mountain but fell

All I remember about Oklahoma:

I was hungover as Hell

Been a long time

Since I was sick on the roadside like that

New Orleans is not the place to get sober

Or even to slow down at all

Wish I could tell you how we got to Chicago

Legend has it we had a ball

Been a long time

I don’t rightly recall

The 17th Level of Weirdness was conquered

With the wall up against our backs

Husbands and lawmen emerge empty handed

From the shit storm that covered our tracks

Been a long time

But I don’t think that I’ll forget that

Been a long time

But I don’t think that I’ll forget that