Hey floyd,

What a great image and equally great philosophy. I can see myself quoting you to my students!
Quote:
a raging river starts high in the hills
from a single drop of rain

Right now, I'm sitting here with my fingers poised over the keyboard and they have no idea what to type. This is a bit of a nuisance because I'm so incredibly impressed with this song that I have to think of something to say that does justice to how very much I enjoyed listening to it.

The ballad-meets-country-meets-folk-meets-floyd feel is EXACTLY (and I mean 100% 'exactly') perfect. The strings worked for me. In fact, when they came in, my first thoughts were, "What a very polished sound! I don't think I've heard strings in one of FJ's songs before. Really nice."

Also ...

... the way you developed the hook was incredibly skilful. Once again you have taken me another couple of miles along the road to my becoming a better songwriter. Without exception, I always learn something from every song you post. Today's most important lesson was how to use AABA form to tell a story. By the way, I love the lyric variation in the repeated B and final A section!

For me, and I've said it a few times on this forum, AABA always works incredibly well for an isolated moment in time. In a sense, this is the music-form/lyric equivalent of the Aristotelian unities of Time, Place and Action. Pat Pattison calls this isolated moment, the "Now" of the song.

Because AABA has such a strong sense of 'the moment', when I listened to this song, the image of a father/husband talking to a friend and telling them about a cross-section of his life was incredibly vivid in my head. In this way, what was a story came across as a first-hand reflection, like it was being told by a storyteller - and a mighty fine storyteller at that!

Thank goodness that even though my fingers didn't what to type, my brain got them working in the end smile

Mega-congratulations on a brilliant song.

All the best,
Noel

P.S. Congratulations on 37 years, too. That's something to celebrate!

MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2026