A year ago I was in Austin for xmas/new year and wrote this on the plane rides there and back. In the track, six bigfancy city characters dream of escaping to Austin. A couple of them do and stay. It’s that kind of place.
(trivia: it’s my only song with a swear word)

“Tonight I’m leaving this big city and all its bullsh*t,
Where my friends have to clear their names
And the snow has to clear itself.
I want to drive all night with some music loud,
Fly away on a song,
Hold you in my arms and get to a place
Where nothing goes wrong.

There’s magic in this crazy world that’s sometimes hard to see
And there’s times I drift away in an Austin dream.”

“I got resolutions to get myself out of this dirty town
B/c the snow is all turnin’ black while all the trains melt down.
I don’t want you wondering just how long it’s been
Since it’s been you
Taking that lakefront road, taking every risk
Just to feel something new

There’s magic in this mad mad mad world you see
Drifting away in an Austin dream.”

“I think they like us there because we’re from far away.”
“That’s why we’re always welcome back
And why we really shouldn’t stay.”
“We got a three-day drive through desert nights
And a couple thousand songs,
But we’re gonna write one more and get one more night
Where nothing goes wrong.”

“There’s magic in this crazy world you just need to believe
That you can live and breathe and die inside a dream.

You see I found myself in Austin that new years eve,
And now I find myself in Austin almost every time I dream.”

Long Road Ahead by Westy Reflector

“long road ahead” is track two from my 2009 record “goodbye monday blue.” i wrote it in 2008 in the middle of everything. now i dedic8 it to #occupyeverything.

this song has carried me over time, so this is homage than more than reinvention. file under: personal #pettyfest.

this wk, some of my #songsfornyc

9.11 did 2 things to my songwriting self: it made me pick up an electric guitar again (after a 10 year break) and got me serious about recording and releasing my songs (beyond homemade cassettes for friends). (more…)

up on soundcloud now…

lyrics i’ve been kicking around for a couple years…

She spent 27 years in an inland town
And she dared herself to rage every time she stopped looking down
And then the ad in the paper said
“Dreams come true, just get downtown and see you know who –
If you want to rage, then we want you!”

She bought an audition dress at Main Floor in the Redlands Mall
And she nearly died when the salesgirl said
“You know that dress, it kinda makes you look…tall”
And then she got up this morning and waited in the queue
Then they said “Sit here until we call for you.
There’s dreamers in front and they queued up, too.” To be

All the rage and out tonight.
All that rage in black and white
In the public eye and out of sight
To be all that rage; and out tonight

Someone told her “Never mind her, just get yourself downtown.”
When her sister said “Give it up, baby, it’ll never work out.”
So now she’s in a folding chair against a fake fake wall
As the sun goes down outside a windowless hall
and she can’t lose her shit ’cause her name’s just called…

Well, she blew them away in that conference room
And now I see her everywhere like a Sun God…

And her hometown paper gave her the whole home page
And now she gets a table where she used to dance a cage
And she’s never alone, now that she’s

All the rage. And out tonight.
All that rage in black and white
In the public eye and out of sight
She’s all that rage; out tonight

17 July 2011, friend of a friend’s country house, upstate ny.

gender-flipped cover of the carter family song from way-back-when.

sometimes i get country-fried. #andiloveit