From the recording Singles
I wrote this one for a songwriting contest, and this time I didn't lose! (Because the contest was canceled for covid, but it still feels like a victory.) The contest was called Three Chords and the Truth, a nod to songwriter Harlan Howard's famous recipe for a country song. (He wrote, Busted, Heartaches by the Number, and Why Not Me?, so he oughta know.)
Lyrics
We hacked and we sawed and we split and we hauled
Hatchet, hammer, and wedge
Tossing the hours like so many logs
To the wagon high on the ridge
These old muscles aching have their own way of taking
Me back to the days of my youth
With the firewood's stacked down in the backyard:
Three cords and the truth
In and around and between and about
The strings of our lives came to cross
Woven together through up times and down
We counted as gain and as loss
Like mystical cables, braided and stable
They cannot be easily loosed
A trinity twine to hold us as one
Three cords and the truth
Recount epic victories and rewrite the histories
Interpret philosophies, unravel mysteries
Sometimes they ain't no more use
Than three chords and the truth
Four measures on G chord, and two on the C
Trusted, tested tones
Walk down to the D, let it ring loud and free
And resonate in our bones
We're rhyming in rhythm and blending this anthem
Here in the studio booth
But what makes a song worth singing at all?
Three chords and the truth
© 2020 Dave Nealon