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Little River Sessions

by Will Stenberg

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1.
I don't know just where I'm going. I only know that I have made a start. The only other thing I'm knowing: I have love in my heart. Darkness sometimes will enfold me. I can't avoid it; I'm just not that smart. But I have someone who will hold me. And I have love in my heart. Every morning I shake off the indecision. I get up and prepare to do my part. Asking for the valor and the vision. Asking for more love in my heart. I may not have a great and might purpose. There may not be much money in my art. But the one thing of which I can be sure is. I have love in my heart.
2.
Troubled Man 03:20
I know this witch in Austin and she's saying prayers for me. Got rabbis in California. I got monks in Kentucky. And I feel all of their blessings like the laying on of hands. But someone's gotta tell me why I'm still a troubled man. And I've been loved by some women and they loved me very well. And I guess I must confess I put most of them through hell. When love was on the table I took one look and I ran. Why am I so insistent on being a troubled man? Chorus: A troubled man is hardly worth the trouble. A troubled man is troubled in his soul. A troubled man, he don't know where he's going. When he thinks on it, it chills him to the bone. So many opportunities have fallen in my lap. But when the world is working, that is when I choose to nap. And when the world is napping, that is when I make my plan. Night-time is the right time when you're a troubled man. I don't think it's sexy, no, and I don't think it's cool. And it's not 'cause I'm an artist and it's not 'cause I'm fool. It's something deep within me I must try to understand. But until that day arrives I am still a troubled man. Chorus
3.
To do the things I said i’d never do, causing pain that will outlast me. To break a heart that’s always been so true: I wouldn’t put it past me. If you want to know what I’m capable of, you can go ahead and ask me. If you want to know if I can turn my back on love: I wouldn’t put it past me. Oh, I wouldn’t put it past me. To risk it all, to risk everything I've gained, to let my dirty deeds unmask me. To take the one I love and fill her life with pain: I wouldn’t put it past me. To wake one day and say it’s time to put an end to all these demons that harass me. To face the truth, to truly make amends: I wouldn’t put it past me
. Oh, I wouldn't put it past me.
4.
I tossed and turned till I woke up. I poured some coffee in my cup. The sun shone through the sky of gray. I made my peace with death today. I stepped outside, I checked the wind. Blowing from the east again. Facing east I paused to pray. I made my peace with death today. I walked the streets, surveyed the scene. I observed the old routines. I knew they’d all be washed away. I made my peace with death today. I came back home, I mixed a drink. The sun began to sing and sink. It burned away my deep dismay. I made my peace with death today. I heard some friends from long ago. speak to my soul so soft and low They told me they were all okay. I made my peace with death today. Into my narrow bed I crept. As darkness fell I simply slept. Simple, safe, surprised to say: I made my peace with death today.
5.

The later rounds were kind of rough, but tough guys thrive when times get tough or so he told himself as he went down
. It’s a goddamn stupid thing to do which he knew as well as you but no one knows when it’s the final round. The bell rang high but far away calling back the distant days when he was just a kid in Sunday School. "Do not Kill" is the written word but no one said and he’d not heard that you could not regard your fists as tools. Chorus: 

And oh, in the later rounds he just went down and down 
 and down and down and down
 and it was sad to see that boy go down. There’d be money, there'd be girls. There’d be a place in this old world for a kid with nothing else to give except his hands, except his heart except his love, except his art except his life, which he so loved to live. So here’s a song for all the boys long forgotten in the noise, lost in the brighter glow of bigger names. They never really made their mark, just shadow-boxing in the dark, but they burned as bright as any flame. Chorus
6.
I have known many kinds of summer. We’ve all known many different kinds. Some are golden, some are just sun-soaked bummers.
 None of them have ever been this fine. Chorus: This is the summer of whiskey sours. This summer I can’t get enough. This is the summer of hours and hours and hours 
 of whiskey sours, and the oneI love. 
 I’ve waited a long time for this summer. God knows I’ve waited patiently. God knows how I need this, God knows how much I love her.
 God knows I paid the cost, now I am free. 
 Chorus 
There is a soft wind. There is a long light. There always was a small chance 
things would turn out all right. Chorus
7.
It's bliss every time I kiss your apocalypse. I can feel the fires of Armageddon every time you put your pretty little hat on. Yeah: you're a beautiful girl. Baby, you're the end of the world. When you sigh the birds fall from the sky. And every time you give me your love, the oceans, they turn red with blood. Yeah: you're a beautiful girl. Baby, you're the end of the world. You're the final battle between evil and good. You got eyes like heaven and lips like Hollywood and I'd kiss them but I don't think I should. Ain't no prophet ever could have foreseen this: how we break the seventh seal, baby, every single time we kiss. Oh yeah: you're a beautiful girl. Baby, you're the end of the world. First Verse Chorus
8.
See About Me 02:15
I know you're pledged to someone else. Baby, don't expect so much of yourself. Everybody needs a little break from the monotony. He can have all your tomorrows; tonight come and see about me. I'm not asking you to leave that boy. I don't want to see anyone's life destroyed. All I want is one night of your life; he has the rest for free. He can have all your tomorrows ... I'm not saying that you're not happy. Or that you life's a bore. All I'm saying is it's not a crime to want just a little bit more. He always seemed like a real nice guy. I don't want to make any nice guys cry. All I want is an apple. I don't need the apple tree. He can have all your tomorrows ... When you lie down between your sheets with your man in your hands and your cat at your feet you can smile to yourself and enjoy some nice memories and think about the time when you came and you saw about me.
9.
The road has not been kind to you as any fool can tell but everything it's put you through you've really done to yourself. So if you need some sympathy then get on the microphone. Play those sad sad songs, my friend: that beautiful bitch and moan. But I just can't be bothered with all of your hard luck. The devil, he may care but frankly I don't give a fuck. A catastrophic cliche that we've all seen before. Just a ragged replay of a role that's nothing more. Than another big sob story about a life that's gone astray. But a man can't be the victim of the choices that he's made. So it might be time for fixing cars, writing books or driving trucks, The devil, he may care but frankly I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck what you do out there. If you're headlining Carnegie Hall or just drunk in a ditch somewhere. It was once about the music. Not it's about the misery. And the devil, he may care for you. I try to keep him away from me. Well, maybe you will make it through. Then again, maybe you won't. But there are those who care whether you do or if you don't. I may not be one of them. The fact is I am not. But somewhere someone's dreaming of just a touch of the gifts you've got. So feel free to remain down in the mire and the muck. The devil, he may care but frankly I don't give a fuck.
10.
A crow in the twilight as it flaps then takes wing. A whippoorwill in the darkness as it stirs then it sings. A train whistle calling across the still desert plains. The great howl of thunder, the soft fall of rain. The wind as it leafs through the leaves of a tree. A stream as it carries those leaves to the sea. The sea as it hurls its great waves at the shore. The rhythm, the rumble, the rest and the roar. The hum of the wheels as they roll through the night. The soft hiss and crackle of those bright neon lights. The buzz of the barrooms, the shouts and the cheers. The love and the sorrow, the truth and the tears. The swing of a door as it closes behind a jilted young lover going out of his mind. The pad of her footsteps as she heads down the hall. Then the rev of an engine, then the silence that falls. A New Orleans brass band in dazzling array. An old-time Cajun picker in a shack by the bay. The chant of a chain-gang and a church-house’s choir. A young child playing with a stick and a wire. Ten thousand nights, boys, in ten thousands bars, I heard all these things in Buddy’s guitar.
11.
I know you're pledged to someone else. Baby, don't expect so much of yourself. Everybody needs a little break from the monotony. He can have all your tomorrows; tonight come and see about me. I'm not asking you to leave that boy. I don't want to see anyone's life destroyed. All I want is one night of your life; he has the rest for free. He can have all your tomorrows ... I'm not saying that you're not happy. Or that you life's a bore. All I'm saying is it's not a crime to want just a little bit more. He always seemed like a real nice guy. I don't want to make any nice guys cry. All I want is an apple. I don't need the apple tree. He can have all your tomorrows ... When you lie down between your sheets with your man in your hands and your cat at your feet you can smile to yourself and enjoy some nice memories and think about the time when you came and you saw about me.

about

I always had this dream about how I wanted to make a record.

Not in a recording studio, and not at home on a laptop in some rented room.

I wanted to do it in a house in the country, rigged up with recording gear. Invite a bunch of musician friends. Their friends, too. Assorted partners, lovers, accomplices, sidekicks, dogs. No set recording times, no schedule, just free, open days filled with music, good company, good food, good booze. Loose ideas for songs, learned on the fly. Ragged harmonies, ideas explored then abandoned, others fully realized in the moment. Waking up on the old ratty couch and taking a sip of last night’s beer before grabbing my guitar and working on the idea for that day’s session.

Oh, and the year is 1973. Forgot to mention that part.

Things run along really smoothly for a while, but the free love that’s going on starts to backfire. Jealousies and tensions rear up. The music gets darker, develops a cruel edge. Bikers arrive and some harder drugs move in. After one late-night swim under a full moon, one band member doesn’t return. Presumed drowned. Or was it black magick? That keyboardist had a witchy vibe, and a grudge.

No one ever finds out. The record comes to an abrupt halt. It is shelved indefinitely, then rediscovered decades later, a cult classic: to some, a masterpiece, to others, a shamble.

(In fact the missing band member is found alive years later, living on the streets of Santa Cruz, unable or unwilling to talk about what happened, just babbling about a song we had never gotten around to recording, something called The Chant of the Rhubarb Man).

Anyway, I wasn’t able to find a way to pull off this dream, time travel being only one of the obstacles. But a few years ago I did get together with some musician friends in a cabin in the woods. We hung out, and ate and drank, and drank, and made a record live in a room, the way they used to.

We were all interconnected, but had no previous history as a band. I showed them the songs, we ran through them, then recorded. The results are raw and real: authentic performances with all the dynamics and beautiful flaws and moments of inspiration that come from people actually playing music together.

One day we took a break to visit the widow of a great musician friend and borrow some of his guitars to record a tribute I had written to him. The first line of the song is about a crow, and if you listen, you can hear that a crow cawed just as we started rolling. That was pretty amazing, and apropos for Buddy Stubbs.

So, this is that record: not the imaginary one from 1973, but the real one from a couple years back. Being real, it can only be better.

I love it, loved the process, and in a perfect world I would never record music any other way than this: a bunch of friends in a house in the woods with nothing to do but hang out and play. May it happen again.

credits

released October 12, 2020

Kevin Carducci played bass and did backing vocals.
Stuart Markham did backing vocals.
Henry Nagle played electric and acoustic guitars, mandola, pedal steel, and did backing vocals.
Will Stenberg sang the lead and played the rhythm guitar on his trusty Martin. He did a backing vocal at one point too.
Buddy Stubbs did a perfect, unannounced guest vocal as a crow.
Jamie Voss played drums and percussion.

Recording took place August 28-30, 2018.

Stuart Markham was the recording engineer.
Henry Nagle was the mixing engineer.
Henry was also the producer, with marginal input from Will.

Will wrote all the songs himself except "The Later Rounds," which had an important contribution from Susan Reilly: the beautiful outro.

Scott Roat gave us a good deal on the cabin, and access to his beautiful dogs.

Will would like to thank all of these folks for making this happen.

Art by Jacob Hewko.

Jacob's Etsy: etsy.com/shop/rabbitblast
Jacob's Instagram: ferric.decay

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Will Stenberg Portland, Oregon

Will Stenberg is searching for the perfect marriage of text and tune, mediated by himself with maximum honesty. He spends a lot of time writing songs and has a vague, persistent hope that there is an audience for them. He is from a small town, has lived in various parts of the US, and is full of love and unease. ... more

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