Like most people that I know, I have some lingering issues from childhood. I was raised is a dysfunctional family by parents who were raised in a dysfunctional family, who were raised by parents in a dysfunctional family, who were...you get it
I sincerely love my brothers, but we aren’t really tight. One has passed on and the other one and I have hard time being in the same room together without us wanting to beat each other’s ass.
But I still love the little bastard, He’s my brother
One day several friends and myself were sitting around of us were talking about the bicycles we rode when we were kids. I remembered getting a metallic green 5 speed Schwinn Stingray with a T-Handle shifter, a banana seat, a sissy bar, and a wide slick back tire for my 7th or 8th birthday. I was absolutely the coolest kid on Pennsylvania Ave.
How could you not be with a bike like that?
That memory became the basis for this song. The bike part got cut out, but all the rest of it is lifted directly from my childhood|
lyrics
I'm seven years old and we live in town,
on Pennsylvania Avenue.
My Mom and Dad and my brothers and me,
I even got my own bedroom
Summers finally here and we're done with school,-
I just finished the 2nd grade
The weathers so nice that you don't need shoes,
I'm gonna play in the sun all day
On Saturday Morning after cartoons,-
we're going to the Horn Springs pool
when I get in that water I ain't coming out,-
I'm gonna stay until my lips turn blue
We'll stop at the Snow White Drive-in,-
get a corndog and some Ice Cream
see who can eat theirs the fastest,
and laugh when get brain freeze
We're just tow-head kids in cut-off jeans
running wide open with skinned up knees
I know what Heaven means to me
1968 Lebanon Tennessee
I'm gonna spend a week with Grandma,
I'm gonna stay there on the farm
catch a bunch of fish with a cane pole,
play out in the barn
when starts to get dark I'm gonna run thru the field,-
catch a jar full of lightning bugs
then eat some chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream
and get some of Grandmas hugs
Pap says it smells like rain
as he stares off in the sky
we're all shelling peas on the front porch,
just watching the cars go by
later that night under a tin roof,
listening to it rain
singing me to sleep like a lullaby,
with help from the Nashville train-
We're just tow-head kids in cut-off jeans
running wide open with skinned up knees
I know what Heaven means to me
1968 Lebanon Tennessee
Now its 2021 and times flying past
and im really starting to feel old
Pap and Grandma have both passed on
and the farm has long been sold
I live out of state with a house and a mortgage
and a stack full of credit card bills
arthritis, anxiety, and depression
and too damn many pills
I'm at a funeral service for an old friend,
soon its gonna be me
But the Heaven the Preacher keeps talking about
it just don't interest me
when my time is up and I get my reward,
I know where I wanna be
I wanna go back to seven years old
and Lebanon Tennessee
We're all laying on the floor,
my brothers Tom, Tim and me
We're watching the ole Lone Ranger
on a black and white tv
three little wildass heathens,
just as mean as we could be
Fighting the world and each other,
back in Lebanon Tennessee
We're just tow-head kids in cut-off jeans
running wide open with skinned up knees
I know what Heaven means to me
1968 Lebanon Tennessee
credits
from DOWNLOAD - A Little Bit Weird,
released January 10, 2022
Jeff Wall - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Evan Campfield - Bass
Aaron Cummings - Drums
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