08 I Don't Know Where I'm Going 5:49
6 sec lead-in Radio Friendly
Driving
Woody Guthrie meets Jack Kerouac. “I don’t know where I’m going, But I’ll tell you where I’ve been “
credits
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
Mark Byerly - Pedal Steel Guitar
Words & Music - Jeff Wall
I usually come up with the lyrics and THEN I have to figure out a melody to put with them. Melodies aren't my strong suite, but I had hit upon this simple chord progression. Bm - G, Bm - G, A - G, A - G that just would not leave me alone. Every time I picked up a guitar, that chord pattern came out.
“I don’t know where I’m going, But I’ll tell you where I’ve been “
My wife and I were talking about station wagons, specifically those that had the little flip up seat in the very back so if you were rear-ended by a semi, your children would die first. Life was hard back in the 60’s. We had a lot o extra children. My first car was the family station wagon. A 1974 Ford LTD Country Squire Station Wagon with the wood paneling on the side, an in-dash 8-track tape player, and a giant 460ci motor. And those flip up seats inn the very back for kids to ride in. when you rode back there you no idea where you were going, but you could tell where you had been. Which kind of describes my life. I've never been much for making long term plans, I've just kind of always gone with the flow and let things happen.
“and one thing that I’ve found is you can’t go back again”
This is true. Returning home on leave while I was in the Navy really brought this home for me. The old Home Town just wasn't the same old Home Town anymore. New people had moved in, old friends had moved away. The people who were still there had shared life experiences that I was not a part of, and I had new life experiences that they didn’t. How many of them had ever been to the La Riviera in Old San Juan? (we only went so we knew who to pray for) How may of them had been in a drunken bar fight with a bunch of Marines in Gitmo? Had any of them ever crossed the equator and been allowed to become trusty shellbacks? experienced the terror of a fire at sea? Heard the horrible words “Man Overboard, Port Side, This is not a drill.” We lived in two different worlds now
There is this old Zen thing that says you can't stick your finger into the same river twice. By the time you try to stick your finger back into the river, that water that you originally stuck your finger into has already flowed past. This is an entirely different river that your finger enters the second time. This is a different place and a different time.
“I don’t know where I’m going, But I’ll tell you where I’ve been / and one thing that I’ve found is you can’t go back again”
That was supposed to be the chorus of the song and the song was originally supposed to be about change, but sometimes songs don’t want to be what you want them to be, sometimes they have different ideas and go off in a completely different direction. I guess songs have wanderlust too.