BORDER RADIO is the intended Volume One of a projected three-volume “wandering stream” of song that has poured pretty continuously since my acquisition of “Myrtle,” the 1950 Gibson J-50—a road-seasoned, slope-shouldered veritable songwriting machine—in 2016. All instruments, I believe, but especially the older ones, are imbued with a spirit, and whoever that ninety-year-old grandma—the original owner—was, down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, who used to strum her cowboy chords and sing on Sundays when her boys pulled the guitar out from under the bed (her palm wearings still visible on the back of the neck; the deep gouges in back of the pick guard, vestiges of her idiosyncratic style), something of her music and the music of her people—who, it happens, are my people—swam forth from the first G chord I strummed when I opened the shipping box and pulled her out of the case. Now, five years and a salmon’s journey later, here are some of Myrtle’s first meanderings. Myrtle’s, I would emphasize, not mine. The songcatcher, even the performer, as those old-time singers of Appalachia knew, is accidental, subsidiary to the only thing of lasting matter: the song. My part has been simply to follow that stream into and out of whatever form it wanted to take in its blithe and busking, wending-wandery way—as free and unregulated as those radio waves that poured out of Mexico ninety years ago from the border blaster stations, flowing over our arbitrary property lines, ignoring our barbed-wired “I”-dentities and ego-buttressed walls. “The song isn’t mine,” writes the poet with the prettiest name, Ana Blandiana, in Seamus Heaney’s translation:
It just passes through me sometimes,
Uncomprehended, untamed,
Lightly dressed in my name;
The way the gods in the old days
Would pass among people
Dressed in a cloud.
TH
ANOTHER SHITASS NIGHT (ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF LIFE)
Everybody’s burning rubber on the high road when they wake up in the morning
Everybody’s blowing by me in the summer with the world to lose
Me I’m stranded here somewhere between the sunny side of life and California
With a blown-out set of Firestones and a broken pair of buckle shoes
Everybody’s anybody always tells me that they going up the country – whoa
Everybody’s anybody always got a lucky place to fly and a fancy ride
No no brother not I
My wishing well’s run dry
Another shitass night on the sunny side of life
Well my mama always told me there’d be golden waiting for me in the morning
Just dream prospector dreams and pay your dues
But the shining silver lining dulls with all my nickel-diming Dollar-Storing
And the Gold Rush turned up nothing but the Blues
Well I say my prayers and light my little candle most every night – whoa
They tell me when I’m flying off the handle just hold on tight, just let it slide
Well that just don’t feel right
Ain't no safety net in sight
Another shitass night on the sunny side of life
Everybody’s anybody always tells me that they going up the country – whoa
Everybody’s anybody always got a lucky place to fly and a fancy ride
No no brother not I
My wishing well’s run dry
Another shitass night on the sunny side
Well I know my sunny future’s somewhere up there fuming on that highway
I know the train-a-coming’s more than just a faint mirage
There’s a hundred ways to run the money and I’m gonna do it my way
If I can only get my engine, only get my engine outa this locked garage
Everybody’s anybody always tells me that they going up the country – whoa
Everybody’s anybody always got a lucky place to fly and a fancy ride
No no brother not I
My wishing well’s run dry
Another shitass night on the sunny side
Another crapshoot lonely roll of the loaded dice – whoa
Another lucky silver bullet right between the eyes – gets me every time
Another shitass night on the sunny side of life
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Tamara Hearon Rowland, Tim Hearon
Lap Steel: Dan Beller-McKenna
Electric Guitar: Tim Phillips
Harmonica: Stu Barer
Bass: Pete Iannitto
Drums: Paul Bernhard
ALL MY BEST INTENTIONS
All my best intentions always somehow end up working in the graveyard
All my best intentions always somehow end up mopping up the floor
All my best intentions always somehow end up playing second guitar
I’m old enough to know
The things you just let go
Don’t get too far
All my best intentions always somehow end up sitting in the dugout
All my best intentions end up starring in somebody else’s show
All my best intentions took to Percocet when 40 pulled the rug out
I’m old enough to know
The things that just don’t show
You don’t talk about
I was gonna be King of the Bengals, King of the Buckaroos
King of the Jungle, King of the Jews
But best intentions like messiahs just climb up on their cross and die hard
With the world to lose
And I’ve grown happy with the wealth of my deficiencies
I’m satisfied to be a sinking star
I’ve come to terms with my outstanding mediocrity
I’ve set the bar
So
Low
The dreams I’ve just let go
Don’t hurt too hard
All my best intentions always end up working midnight at the Walmart
All my best intentions hung their hats up in Las Vegas long ago
All my best intentions send their genuine condolences from Hallmark
I’m old enough to know
The dreams you just let go
They don’t hurt too hard
I was gonna be King of the Bengals, King of the Buckaroos
King of the Jungle, Jesus, King of the Jews
But best intentions like I mentioned just climb up on their cross and die hard
With the world to lose
Like I lost you
Like I lost you
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Dobro: Dan Beller-McKenna
Electric Guitar: Tim Phillips
Bass: Chris Caruso
Drums/Percussion: Michael Jerome Moore
BORDER TOWN GIRL
We were low on tequila as the morning came down
So we coasted on enmity to the next border town
At Diablo’s Cantina caught her first through the flies
She was loading up deadmen, I drank deep with my eyes
Singing Sweet Margarita with a twist and a twirl
And that was my shot with the border town girl
She had eyes black as midnight, take you back to the days
When the hulls of conquistadors cut through the waves
And the spades of Tampico shoveled out the French dead
And the corpses of Goliad danced through your head
Singing Sweet Margarita with a twist and a twirl
Shots all around for my border town girl
She was High California
She was Sonora range
Was the wilds of New Mexico
Before it was known by that name
’Cross the badlands of the Indians
On wild horses we ride
Through the dreamland of the Texians
And all their imagined barbed wire
Singing Sweet Margarita with a twist and a twirl
And that was my shot with the border town girl
Well God help the fools, they building a wall
Ain’t nothing gonna keep me from Diablo’s back stall
Gonna trump every hand they play, when they lay the last cards
They’ll find me in yesterday, back in her arms
Singing Sweet Margarita with a twist and a twirl
Sharing a shot with my border town girl
She was High California
She was Sonora range
Was the wilds of New Mexico
Before it was known by that name
’Cross the badlands of the Indians
On wild horses we ride
Through the dreamland of the Texians
And all their imagined barbed wire
Singing Sweet Margarita with a twist and a twirl
And that was my shot with the border town girl
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Scott Heron, Betsy Heron, Melissa Foley, Kevin Kidd
Pedal Steel: Dan Beller-McKenna
Mandolin: Glenn “Scotty” Scott
Trumpets: Marcus Rabb
Harmonica: Stu Barer
Bass: Chris Caruso, Pete Iannitto
Drums: Aaron Zaroulis
EVANGELINE
Evangeline you don’t come ’round here anymore
Your smile’s gotten strange to me
All your poetry was an open door in the forest floor
To insanity
Wanna do right by your mama, by your papa too
By their big Impala, 1962
Now come on Evie, grab your Chevy, let’s see what she can do
We’ll go holy rollin’ for a while
Evangeline with the far-off name and the wall-eye trained
On eternity
In your cut-off jeans you’re as long and lean as the poets’ dream
Of immortality
Wanna climb into your bearskin, wanna be born again
Eat peyote in the desert with your medicine man
Now come on Evie, grab your Chevy, let’s take her for a spin
We’ll go holy rollin’ for a while
Holy rolling
Holy rolling
Holy rolling
Going out in style
Turning those tricks on the Miracle Mile
Evangeline you’re a junkyard queen and a saint’s wet dream
Of criminality
All your sweet-sixteen and your submachine, they’re reminding me
All is vanity
Save a spot for your grandma, all your Oklahoma kin
Save a spot for the preacherman with his pocketful of gin
Come on Evie, grab your Chevy, let’s pile the whole clan in
We’ll go holy rollin’ for a while
Holy rolling
Holy rolling
Holy rolling
In and out of time
Turning that holy water into gas-o-line
Holy rolling
Holy rolling
Holy rolling
Going out in style
Turning those tricks on the Miracle Mile
You just smile, pretty baby
You just smile like you’re crazy
You just smile and I’ll be happy for a while
Turning those tricks on the Miracle Mile
You’d just smile, pretty baby
You’d just smile like you’re crazy
You’d just smile and I’d be happy for a while
Turning those tricks on the Miracle Mile
But Evangeline you don’t come round here anymore
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Melissa Foley, Kevin Kidd
Harmonica: Stu Barer
Hammond Organ: Chris Plante
Bass: Pete Iannitto
Drums: Michael Jerome Moore
MARY DYER
I came here with the reckoning done
And I saw the scales sink into the sun
And the fields were heavy with the heresy grain
And a lone tree leaned and chuckled my name
Oh up in Boston
It’s a hard falling from grace
Oh up in Boston
Such a dark professing place
Well they welcomed me into the fold
And bound my arms my hands to hold
They kissed my cheek my tongue to check
And knitted me a pretty noose around my neck
Oh up in Boston
It’s a hard falling from grace
Oh up in Boston
Such a dark professing place
They tied my skirts and covered my face
My house of bone and blood to raze
My body you kill, my spirit flies freed
As the big wind taking a dandelion seed
Spin my shroud when I come to die
With a thread too bright for the magistrate’s eye
No tongue can tell nor eye can see
That diamond dangling from the gallowman’s tree
Oh up in Boston
It’s a hard falling from grace
Oh up in Boston
Such a dark professing place
Such a dark professing place
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Scott Heron, Betsy Heron
Mandolins: Scott Heron, Glenn “Scotty” Scott
Fiddle: Betsy Heron
Northumbrian Small Pipes: Glenn “Scotty” Scott
ANGEL WINGS
Was in the flyin' month of June
My baby left me
He changed his tune
And now I'm tryin' so hard to grow
Some angel wings
He took my years
He took my youth
He took a train to Baton Rouge
And now I'm tryin' so hard to grow
Some angel wings
Won't you help me if you can
Mr. Morphine, be my man
I might be good if I could grow
Some angel wings
Oh won't you help me if you can
Sweet Mr. Morphine, be my man
I wanna fly into the sky
I wanna live, I wanna die
I wanna see them big bells ring
I wanna hear my baby sing
I might be good if I could grow
Some angel wings
They might be silver, they might be gold
They might be lead, you never know
I might be good if I could grow
Some angel wings
They might be rags, they might be bone
They might be stitched, they might be sewn
I might be good if I could grow
Some angel wings
They might be diamond, they might be coal
They might be bought but boy you know they might be stole
I might be good if I could grow
Some angel wings
I might be good if I could grow
Oh honey, you hurt me so
I might be good if I could grow
Some angel wings
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Lindsay Lassonde
Electric Guitar: Ralph Sneeden
Dobro: Dan Beller-McKenna
Piano: Chris Plante
Bass: Chris Caruso, Pete Iannitto
Drums: Aaron Zaroulis
WANDERING STREAM
The bars are closed in Bristol town tonight
The wires are down, the AM waves are quiet
And I been calling
On my old Epiphone
Rang a hundred times, you ain’t home
You’re out on the town
In some other scene
Wandering stream
Always out of touch and out of time
The ghost of A.P. Carter walks the line
In the moaning
Of some old lonesome train
He’ll bottle some and bring it home again
Out of the steam
Into a dream
Of the wandering stream
Well that old stream runs out and back again
From across the Rio Grande to Bangor, Maine
And tell me, have you ever heard your name
On the radio
It’ll make the bedsprings tingle out and ring
Wandering stream
And that old stream runs out and back again
From the Grand Old Opry out through the Great Plains
And tell me, have you ever heard your name
On the radio
That border radio
It’ll make the barbed wire tingle out and sing
Wandering stream
Hard to tell the question from the clue
What Sara might have thought, Maybelle knew
In the morning when they’d rise
And wipe the wings of Elvis from their eyes
And follow him down
Out of a dream
Wandering stream
Well that old Heartworn Highway has the sound
Of every Sunday morning sidewalk coming down
And every shooting star that hit the ground
And started to gleam
They’re all holding to the sunlight what they found
In the wandering stream
There’s Hank and Woody, Willie, Waylon too
Patsy, Doc and Townes and Emmylou
In the morning when we rise
And wash the halleluiahs from our eyes
And follow them down
Out of a dream
Wandering stream
They’ll bottle some and bring it home again
Wandering stream
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Pedal Steel: Dan Beller-McKenna
Harmonica: Stu Barer
Mandolin: Glenn “Scotty” Scott
Fiddle: Betsy Heron
Banjo: Scott Heron
Bass: Chris Caruso
Drums: Aaron Zaroulis
ANOTHER TUSCALOOSA SUNRISE
Did the circuit down from Memphis, just a drifter with an emphasis on staying drunk and
stoned
Raked the rounds in Mississippi with a van of New York hippies headed home
Had a little lark in Arkansas with a sassy little Chickasaw, she let me gnaw the bone
Now I’m stuck in Alabama with her pair of pink pajamas on my own
Well that old East Texas highway had an exit labeled “My Way,” now I’ve nowhere left to go
My bar tab’s out of credit and I’m just too dry to sweat it anymore
Birmingham they wined and dined me, Mobile beauties tried to blind me but I still know what I know
It’s no sweet home Alabama to a boy who’s Texarkana to the core
Another Tuscaloosa sunrise and my Texarkana heart is sinking low
I’m down in Tuscaloosa but my luck it up and left for Tupelo
Too much rambling too much gambling restless days and one-night-standing for the soul
Another Tuscaloosa sunrise and my Texarkana heart is sinking low
It’s been double time and driving blind, I tried so hard to clear my mind of all I know is true
But I still see my little darling planting bean rows in a garden two by two
Traded Texas sand for red clay land and heeding every wind at hand, her rooster crew and crew
Now those Piney Woods are calling and tomorrow I’ll be hauling home to you
Another Tuscaloosa sunrise and my Texarkana heart is sinking low
I’m down in Tuscaloosa but my luck it up and left for Tupelo
Too much rambling too much gambling restless days and one-night-standing for the soul
Another Tuscaloosa sunrise and my Texarkana heart is sinking low
Another Tuscaloosa sunrise and my Texarkana heart is coming home
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Tamara Hearon Rowland, Tim Hearon
Electric Guitar and Pedal Steel: Dan Beller-McKenna
Bass: Chris Caruso
Drums: Aaron Zaroulis
MAYBE IN A BLUE MOON
Maybe there’s a gold ring
Lost somewhere in the box spring
Maybe there’s a brass key
Hidden somewhere in the oak tree
Maybe there’s a tin cup
Full of whiskey we ain’t drunk up
Maybe there’s a way to make you fall in love again
Maybe there’s a lucky star’s light
Twinkling out there like a firefly
Maybe there’s a horseshoe
Hanging on outside our old room
Maybe there’s a lucky four-leaf
Growing somewhere on the junk heap
Maybe there’s a way to make you fall in love again
Maybe there’s an old tune
Rising like a blue moon
Maybe make you fall in love again
Maybe in a blue moon make you fall in love again
Maybe with me
Maybe we could find a dark bar
Somewhere on some dark star
Maybe in the smoke’s haze
You’d recognize my old face
Maybe there would be a trap door
Somewhere out there on the dance floor
Maybe it would trip and you would fall in love again
Maybe if I hold tight
And baby play my cards right
I could make you fall in love again
Maybe in a blue moon make you fall in love again
Maybe with me
Maybe if I touched you
But maybe didn’t rush you
If I promised not to bruise you
Couldn’t stand again to lose you
Maybe with the right tune
Maybe in a blue moon
Maybe in that double moonrise
You’d come around again and realize
Maybe there’s a way to make you fall in love again
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Tamara Hearon Rowland
Electric Guitar: Ralph Sneeden
Pedal Steel: Dan Beller-McKenna
Piano: Chris Plante
Bass: Chris Caruso, Pete Iannitto
Drums: Aaron Zaroulis
INDIAN RODEO
I wish I had a pony
A little honey I could call my own
A pretty Indian pony
Take her out to see the Astrodome, where the big stars roam
I’d trade my luck and liquor for a little of the rodeo
I felt my blood beat quicker when I heard it on the radio
That Indian Rodeo, Indian Rodeo
Trash fires burnin’ in a white man’s town
No amount of talkin’s ever gonna turn this rig around
Headlights stretch like arms through the snow
If I find you babe I swear I ain’t ever gonna let you go, never let you go
I’d trade my luck and liquor for a little of the rodeo
I felt my blood beat quicker when I heard it on the radio
That Indian Rodeo
I know she’s out there somewhere, waiting on a calico
When I find her gonna bind her in a blanket of fire and indigo
And I know and I know and I know and I know and I
I’d trade my luck and liquor for a vision of the rodeo
Felt the blood in my veins beat quicker when I heard it on the radio
That Indian Rodeo, Indian Rodeo, Indian Rodeo
If I only had a pony
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Melissa Foley, Kevin Kidd
Electric Guitar: Ralph Sneeden, Tim Phillips
Lap Steel: Dan Beller-McKenna
Bass: Pete Iannitto
Drums: Paul Bernhard
TROUBLED MIND
Takes a Thor to throw the thunder
Takes a Christ to calm the sea
There’s any ways of going under
If you’re anything like me
Burning bridges ’cross the river
I could rail forever on a train
Ride my nightmares out to never
And bring 'em all back home again
I’ve been gone too long
Had to take a little time
I make my bed in a troubled mind
If you come with me
Gonna lay it on the line
I make my bed in a troubled mind
No flash of lightning from the tunnel
No aurora borealis from above
No colder comfort to discover
I kill everything I love
Did I go too far
Had to fly a little blind
I make my bed in a troubled mind
If you ride with me
Gonna lay it on the line
I make my bed in a troubled mind – singing
In the morning I’m alive, it’s all too much to believe
Take a boot as big as God to kick the hell out of me
Take a telescope inside my skull to see what I mean, what I mean
If you see what I mean
I been gone too long
Had to waste a little time
I make my bed in a troubled mind
If you lie with me
Gonna lay it on the line
I make my bed in a troubled mind
It seems I’m always driving ninety
When I dream I can still hear that engine moan
But when I wake I always find me
Still a million miles from home
Did I go too far
Had to taste a little time
I make my bed in a troubled mind
If you come with me
Gonna lay it on the line
I make my bed in a troubled mind
I make my bed in a troubled mind
I make my bed in a troubled
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Melissa Foley, Kevin Kidd
Electric Guitar: Tim Phillips
Harmonica: Stu Barer
Hammond Organ: Chris Plante
Bass: Pete Iannitto
Drums: Michael Jerome Moore
BRING IT HOME CAROLINA
When you’ve finally got dog-tired of all your runnin’
Chasing something that just ain’t ever gonna come around
And your veins have had enough of all their junkin’
And you’ve hounded the last tourist out of town
When you’ve finally made a grave up for your mama
And drove your daddy’s dust clear out of sight and mind
Your old room’s clean and open if you want it
And Bubba’s fridge is full of beer ’bout half the time
Bring it home, Carolina
Spanish leather don’t sit easy on a rolling stone
Bring it home, Carolina
Leave your banishment behind and let that banjo
Roll you baby on back home
Well you say you always knew you had it comin’
Livin’ outa that old guitar case way too long
You didn’t even have a good string left for strummin’
And your head stuck on some Ronnie Milsap song
With your trucker tricks you kept them big wheels pumpin’
And you found there just ain’t fuck all in the world to kill your pain
Somewhere along the way you just lost somethin’
Somewhere in that Smoky Mountain rain
Bring it home, Carolina
Spanish leather don’t sit easy on a rolling stone
Bring it home, Carolina
Leave your banishment behind and let that banjo
Roll you baby on back home, Carolina
Spanish leather don’t sit easy on a rolling stone
Bring it home, Carolina
Leave those Spanish boots behind and let that banjo
Roll you baby on back home
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals: Todd Hearon
Vocal Harmonies: Melissa Foley, Kevin Kidd
Banjo: Todd Hearon
Electric Guitar: Ralph Sneeden
Bass: Pete Iannitto
Drums: Aaron Zaroulis
WHERE THE WELL DON'T RUN DRY
There oughta be an answer on that highway
There oughta be a mansion in the sky
There oughta be a fat paycheck come Friday
And I’ll meet you where the well don’t run dry
There oughta be some beauty in the desert
A little speck of bluebird by and by
A private little bucketful of pleasure
I’ll meet you where the well don’t run dry
Where the well don’t run dry
Sunny days and Meltaways
Beyond the Great Divide
Fortune-wheeled or far afield
You know I will always be on your side
There oughta be a way to live forever
On Church’s chicken wings and cherry pie
Jim Beam and grenadine and Dr Pepper
Man I’ll meet you where the well don’t run dry
Where the well don't run dry
There oughta be a better way of leaving
A way to say farewell without goodbye
There oughta be a heaven worth believing
I’ll meet you where the well don’t run dry
Where the well don’t run dry
Vocals and Acoustic Guitar: Todd Hearon
Classical Guitar: Bobby Squires
Violins: Ellie Dunbar
Viola: Sara Sasaki
Cello: Tess Crowther
String Score by Greg Brown
Arrangement by Eleonore Denig
Special thanks to Lance Youts and Salim Nourallah for their roles in production