songs from the road
the story
The songs for „The Road“ were written between late 2018 and early 2020. After we met again in October 2018, we rekindled our friendship, Frank helped me set up a studio at home and I just started writing songs again.
It felt very natural again and so they came, one after the other, in quick succession.
Once I realized that each of the songs that emerged described a journey, something that was taking place or describing a different place or things that were happening in a different place and that I used it like a guardrail, the bracket more or less came naturally.
about the songs
„Driving on“ was the first song Frank and I wrote together in late 2018. And, man, we´d been proud! It contains a real connection to the past. It’s not even a love story, it just describes the small part of the frustrating feeling of a relationship that doesn’t work because there are too many things in the room that make getting „really“ together impossible.
And which still seem completely irrelevant. So you look into each other’s eyes, are aware of the facts and, despite the many unsaid and unrealized things, despite your past together, go back apart into your parallel world. It´s hypothetical, not real.
we’re sitting in a café
telling each other stories
from a past that has passed
a long time ago
at least that’s what I thought
the waitress comes over
and takes down our order
you laugh as you realize
it sounds so familiar
just like the last time we fought
we are each other’s issue
all along the line
we attract, repel each other
all of the time
we build bonds
and don’t even know why
this just happens
and we didn’t even try
chorus:
» this is the way to follow
this is the cause to follow
this is the burden we carry
this is the road we’re driving on
this is the way we follow
this is our course to follow
this is the load we carry
this is the road we’re driving on
we’re driving on – driving on «
later when we leave the place
with fleeting goodbyes
we’ll be in each others heads
it is happening and then
it is happening again
you’ll be back to your kids
I’ll be back to mine
“none of this would have happened …”
this is what your eyes say
but I was wrong before
we are each other’s cornerstones
and centerline lights
condition each other
all of the time
we build bonds
and don’t even know why
this just happens
and we didn’t even try
chorus
It is my deepest belief that sometimes you just need to be there for someone without really doing anything. Just to give the security that there is someone you can confide in and lean on. That’s the story of „Waste a minute“, a buddy song, the rest of the story is very personal.
Every song I tackle starts on an acoustic guitar. Always and in principle. It’s important to us that all songs can be broken down to that one guitar and vocal to manifest that it’s a song, not a patchwork or painting of sounds or a simulated construction. When I record, in most cases there is a „throughout track“ that includes that basic version. And that you can always go back to if you have to start from scratch in the arrangement. „Waste a minute“ is, according to the simple statement, also musically the simplest song of all. Which doesn’t make it any less beautiful.
it’s ok to be sad
alright to let it flow
it’s an awkard situation
for you and me I know
sometimes life’s just bitter
and you do not know what hit you
when you’re down
but don’t hesitate
don’t even waste a minute
just call
it’s funny how
certain situations
can make you feel so small
and unworthy of it all
it’s ok to shut the world out
alright to let it go
and come down
but don’t hesitate
don’t even waste a minute
and do not wait
don’t keep it inside you
at all
just call
so if again
something causes trouble
I will come around
and we can share a bottle
we can talk or keep silent
whatever’s best for you my friend
but don’t hesitate
don’t even waste a minute
and do not wait
don’t keep it inside you
at all
just call
just call
I moved away from my hometown about 20 years ago, for professional and personal reasons. Since I was 15, 16, 17, I wanted to get away from the city that was too small for me. I don’t remember exactly why, but the world always seemed bigger.
Whenever I’ve returned in the past 20 years, I’ve been fascinated by how few memories surround me when I seek out the significant places of my youth. Yet mixed in with that indifference is a melancholy feeling of a place where you can’t stay because you have to move on. I found myself finding this very sad and then wishing I had a stronger connection to the place where I grew up. But I sort of have and I cannot explain it. Everytime I return, it makes me rather sad. So „The way it is“ is more a cynical notion than lived reality.
Originally, I didn’t want to shortlist the song for the album. But Frank was rock solid behind it and the guys found something in „The way it is“ that I didn’t see. So the song stayed.
it’s been a long way home
it’s never been easy but this was hard
this road we call life
makes you stop sometimes
chorus:
» this is just the way it is
this is just the way things go
sometimes it turns out alright
sometimes it does not
it’s just the way it is «
it’s been a long time since I’ve been here
and I’ve not counted the years
it must have been some
and now I have come home
chorus
and I will stay for sure
there’s no way I will leave
this road we call life
makes you settle down sometimes
chorus
I’ve always been very romantic sitting on a bench by the river when I’m writing a song. Never happened. So I tried it, notebook, beautiful day, bench, river, at the border of the sea, right on the harbor. At the place of my choice, the most beautiful place in the world for me. Not far from home, that is. And it worked. The images produced at this point are so concise and striking that you can not help but actually just translate. That’s how „Part of me“ came about, describing the sometimes impossible and stupid situations in life when you want one thing but do another and neither side is particularly happy with it.
But there are reasons for everything, good or bad, that’s another matter. So here are two trains of thought in dialogue, both exploring the respective extreme. This is one of 2, 3 songs on the album that deal with a tricky situation in life from different angles.
sitting where the river bends
near the shore where the harbour ends
deciding how to continue with life
part of me cannot resist
to accept it that we all exist
to fulfill our parts and serve a greater good
like all the boats put to sea
need directions and a place to be
there’s so many strings attached
and nothing has been won just yet
chorus 1:
» part of me cannot resist
to break out and to insist
to lead a good life
to leave the good life
part of me just wants to give
part of me just wants to live
and lead a good life
then leave the good life behind
leave it all behind «
the rain it won’t come down no more
instead the seagulls flood the shore
assembling for a journey west
a part of me asks itself why
some wait for answers from the sky
when on the ground we are best
it doesn’t seem too much to ask
for a place among the content
there’s so many strings attached
and nothing is achieved just yet
chorus 1
chorus 2:
» part of me cannot foresee
is it such a great mystery
to lead a good life
then leave the good life
part of me is letting go
the other one just does not know
how to lead a good life
and then to leave the good life «
sometimes a part of me
just does not know how to decide
while another part of me
always wants to hide, wants to hide
do we know where we want to go
are we aiming high or laying low
while we are we watching this river flow
chorus 1, 2
None of the songs on the album have even a hint to do with the time before 2018. Except for „Don’t say you don’t“, I’ve been humming the chorus for 10 years. But I never had the peace, reasons or mood to make more of it or complete the song. So now was the time to clean up with that ghost and bring the song to an end.
And it was actually the only song that gave trouble from the beginning and one of the few that went a lot of rounds before Frank and I were satisfied. First there were discussions about the tempo (halftime yes, no), then about the general sound, then the guitar sound, then backing vocals and and and. The song, with its indifferent and rather affirmative mood, plays down the content of the song, another very memory-laden love story that happened exactly like that (Beach, Beer, Rain down the windows) between a woman and me who didn’t really want to until I couldn’t anymore.
I remember it was late in april
we’re both laughing out loud
you’re pointing at castles through the screen
me seeing only clouds
you are at the wheel
hammering your nails upon your teeth
the mixed-tape is a nightmare
I feel nervousness beneath
and with the speed of light
completely lossless
our two worlds collide
and while I felt this could be right
you’re getting ready for a fight
chorus:
» but don’t say you don’t
don’t say you don’t want this anymore
don’t say that you can’t
walk through this door
don’t say you don’t
don’t say you don’t «
rain was flooding down the windows
like an endless train of thoughts
and while it’s going down the drains
we’re drinking the beer we bought
on the chilly beach you’re different
I felt your breathing on my skin
and I knew for sure that I’m not the guy
but I valued the attempt
and with the speed of sound we’re hopeless
when we watched our worlds collide
and while I felt this is leading somewhere
you found the flaws everywhere
chorus
time was all we needed
time was all we had
time was all we wanted
and time was all that we got
chorus
Similar to „Part of me“, I sat down in a place where I knew I would just have to be patient until images and impressions became a song. In this case, however, I did it from memory.
Sometime Saturday morning, Frank sent me several unused layouts he had written for another collaboration and asked if I could check to see if anything was there. And you can bet there was something there.
„How to get on“ in the version I heard there only had a verse, a bridge and half the chorus. Basically, I brought back the images from the place I described above and within a few minutes wove them into the song that it became. So I wrote back, „I need verse, bridge, chorus twice, then an interlude, then verse, bridge, ref and end. And he wrote „moment“ and half an hour later the track was complete. With interlude out of nowhere. That’s Frank.
When I made the pictures into lines in my head, I had the story in front of me as if it were real. And it was about my daughter, laughing, dancing through the old town of Leer, enveloped by a golden light, there in the places where the sunlight makes its way between trees and roofs. My children are all very special to me, my daughter is pure love, emotion, warmth and joy.
sunlight fighting through the roofs of the city – in a white gold shimmer you walk
I always wondered where this stillness that I’m feeling might be coming from
and I know there’re things to be done
yet in my mind I’m striking ‚em through
chorus:
» and you just keep on laughing now
and you just keep on showing me how
how to get on «
in the distance people are talking but I’m drawn to something else
I always wondered why you can’t tax my patience, where is it coming from
I know there’re things to be said
in my mind I’m striking them through
chorus
you give me a new sense of everything
like a banner that’s unfurled
everything’s alive
around the corner someone is juggling and the colours blur into white
I always wondered how to remember my first times until you were revealed to me
and I know there are things to be done
in my mind I’m striking ‚em through
chorus
At some point, when we already had more than enough songs for the album and we could look at it as a whole, it became clear that all the songs united one theme and that was driving, moving and traveling – bringing distance between one and the other. Not really in a spiritual sense, but more proverbial. If you understand „Here is home“ as the beginning, the feeling of hopelessness and homelessness that the song only describes but does not resolve, „For the road“ is the (good) end. With the realization that there need not be any real, tangible goals that signify an ultimate end or the final achievement of a lifelong dream. Or, if there are, we spend so much time trying to achieve them that the ratios become distorted and the importance of the transfer from-to is made much smaller than it is. And the path that is not understood as a component eats up so much that we should respect that sometimes we just do not get there. And that’s perfectly okay. To put it very simply, it’s sometimes hard to keep in mind that you can decide about tomorrow now.
it’s a good three hour drive up to the coast
the car’s filled up and ready to go let’s start chasing ghosts
there’s no need to log off, we are done here just let us go
and on the ride we’ll talk about what we’ll do
we don’t have much time, don’t have enough time to wait
we’ve wasted so much time and we’ll be doing just fine
if we only get in the car and drive
chorus:
» I am one for the road, I don’t turn around
I don’t need to arrive, I just need to drive
I am one for the road, I will never be bound
only then I’m alive when I can drive «
because I’m one for the road
I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot
I guess there’s not much that I forgot
we’ll be losing quite a lot but we’ll bring the the old times back
and not much time will pass until we’re back on track
I know what is mine, I won’t be standing in line to wait
and we’ve wasted so much time and we’ll be doing just fine
if we only get in the car and drive
chorus
we’ll be running on rails, there’ll be wind in the sails
and we won’t wait because we’ll never be late
we’re made for the road, we don’t turn around
we cannot be bound because we are
we are made for the road
When Frank and I met, he’d already done a couple of seasons of Nashville, I was just starting out. I was a couple of times about to watch an episode and then I read „country“ and then I thought, nope, don’t do it. No country. When I was little we always had music on but more monothematic. I remember Hendrix, of course, the Beatles, some Byrds, the Kinks. And Johnny Cash. My dad had an LP, I think, and although I never really warmed up to the music, there was something mystical, dark about the voice that always attracted and repelled me at the same time. When I saw Johnny Cash drunk on TV as a child, this impression was solidified.
When you start watching „Nashville“ with that kind of attitude, you’re very quickly very surprised at what’s listed as country today. We watched a lot of Nashville episodes, and when I eventually picked up the guitar to write „Here is home,“ the influence was totally fine.
As the beginning of the album, „Here is home“ describes homelessness, loneliness and a functioning life with no hope-giving elements. I used to feel that way. And when I start with „I miss my sons …“ in the second verse, I’ve had a tear in my eye a time or two, because it takes little to become aware of that feeling.
Homelessness is a powerful, albeit negative, to all kinds of nonsense inspiring basic feeling that I do not wish on anyone’s neck – and this is the bridge to Johnny Cash, with whose voice from the early seventies I associate mainly this feeling.
In the first version, „Here is home“ was what it was supposed to be, a pretty sad song that sounded like it. And nothing is more boring than that. But then Frank saw something completely different and broke with the mood with a four to the floor approach. And that was spot on. The slide guitars and the dominant, acoustic rhythm guitar characterize the first song and then somehow also the album and form almost a quintessence.
I was waiting
for a car to come by
to take me away
to where it’s worth another try
it’s going gone
I’m going on
not going home
it’s going on, I’m heading on
not going home
I’ve been thinking
about what was and what will be
yes and I’ve been hurting
now there’s nothing left for me
it’s just no fun, heading on
without a home
where is home, where do I belong
if not here
it’s an endless winding road
and all your riches are afloat
I want to feel, I want to feel
here is home
I miss my sons
and I truly miss my daughter
driving on
there’s not one minute
I haven’t thought
about her
and I’m alone, I’m heading on
towards no home
I’m drifting on, from now on
without anyone
it’s an endless winding road
and all your riches are afloat
I want to feel, I want to feel
here is home, yes it is
here is home
it’s an endless winding road
and all your riches are afloat
I want to feel, I want to feel
that here is home
My wife and I – and indeed a whole part of my family – are collectively driven by the urge to go north, to a place on the coast where we both feel maximally at home. Whenever difficult decisions have to be made, a lot of nonsense happens and things don’t go as they could or should, this place is the one that really brings us back down to earth, showing us the things that are really important in life. I won’t give away where it is, but people tick differently, are not fazed, and always come out ahead. Even if the clock says otherwise, things go slower, much slower. And even if the days are the same length, they seem longer, with more content. Sometimes I’m afraid of time, because it seems to run faster than in my childhood, when days didn’t want to end. Here it is not the same but similar.
„For a moment“ describes what we (or at least I) feel when we are there. That it is possible to take a distance, to keep away from ourselves what means anger, displeasure and nerves and to make peace for a moment with all the circumstances that keep you away – from whatever.
on the shore of the river
the cold makes me shiver
my hands deep in my pocket
the outer part of the harbour
the first time I saw her
my thoughts they just skyrocket
and the sky opens up
and the clouds above me they race
and the rain’s pouring down
and splashing in my face
for a moment
to the car in the lot
where’re the keys that I forgot
my hands deep in my pocket
through the mist and the rain
there’s an answer in my brain
my thoughts are like a train
and the sky opens up
and the clouds float at a different pace
and the rain’s coming down
just as if creating space
chorus:
» for a moment all is at peace
it’s not like before as if it’s something more
for a moment everything’s at ease
it’s not like I want it but it seems I need it
I’ll be waking up giving in to this dream
for a moment «
and the sky over the sea
has a different shade of blue
than anywhere we’ve been
with eyes open wide
we’re freezing the moment
we know it’s heaven-sent
and soon it is over
and we know that this will end
in our hearts it’s this place
we know we must not bend
chorus
oh but we’ll be waking up
and it’s not as it seems
for a moment
I never understood why sails, sailboats, being on the sea, nothing around you but deep blue water hold such a fascination for me. I don’t even know how to sail, it’s complicated as shit.
But sailing on the calm sea, on the North Sea, along the coast high past Denmark and Norway towards the Northern Lights would be the ultimate north for me. The loneliness and powerlessness, coupled with the permanent uncertainty at sea, the bottomless, inscrutable depths that can’t even be guessed at, and the seagulls that, when you’re heading north, signal land and hope nearby on the starboard side.
The fascination with the image of the endless, mystical sea also comes from an album I cherish and have listened to at least 10,000 times, Sting’s 1990 album Soul Cages. Not only that we listened to it up and down back then, in the band’s first phase. But it contains a lot of inspiring images of ships, sailing and the sea. It may sound strange, but we’re drawing a thread from the ’90s to now.
on the horizon there is sunlight
through the fingers of my hand
it sparkles like gemstones so bright
and the course is north-northwest
wind is blowing and we pick up speed
hearts hammering in our chests and soon water is all we see
chorus:
» sailing on – on a silent sea
sailing on – to where we want to be
it’s just waves and the sky
and seagulls at the starboard side «
in the distance there are lights
in the icy northern sky
we see the shapes of islands in shadows black as coal
and the cold slowly creeps
through the buttons of our coats
and we can sense the deep as the water turns to ice
chorus
and everything is silent
and the ocean open wide
there’re shooting stars and shiny beads
high up in the sky, high up in the sky
chorus
The protagonists in this song struggle with hopelessness on the one hand and the courage to tackle something on the other, because decisions have to be made, you can’t put them off. The perspective is that from disillusioned hopelessness, wondering if you have to decide at all.
„No difference“ is a very theoretical scenario. Suppose we do all that we intend to do and nothing changes? The question is asked: We can never be sure. It’s never clear before our eyes. But does it make a difference? And does it matter?
From the point of view of the song, I wasn’t sure at first whether I wanted to do this song or not. I thought it was too heavy and too frustrating. But Frank helped „No Difference“ gain luster and grace, a cover that contrasts with the frustrated lyrics. Which in turn makes it very appealing and contrasting.
do we play it safe
will we risk it all
leave everything behind us
and start all over again
and then – no matter how you see it
and then – no matter how you feel about it
it makes no difference
do we really need to ask ourselves
what is at stake
do we really need to worry
that it’s too much to take
and then – no matter how you see it
and then – no matter how you think about it
it makes no difference
whenever the sun goes down
there’s weariness in your eyes
now will there be a next time around
will it be too late to realize
and will it make a difference
the sky is open
and the road before us is clear
clouds are shifting through the screen
the destination’s getting near
where we’ll go – no matter how you see it
where we’ll be – no matter how you feel about it
it makes no difference
whenever the sun goes down
there’s weariness in your eyes
now will there be a next time around
will it be too late to realize
whenever you or me are down
we recognize that time flies
it is never far, it is always near
it is never clear, and we are never sure
will it make a difference now
whenever the sun goes down
there’s weariness in your eyes
now will there be a next time round
will it be too late to realize that time flies
and will it make a difference
it makes no difference
„Everything changes“ tells the story of two different guys who face different challenges in life and have no place for each other as friends. How to deal with each other especially as friends, when things no longer work as they should and you feel that a change is coming, it may be that things change. And not everything can stay the way it is. Sometimes it’s better to accept and embrace that instead of arguing and being offended. Things end. Things change. Other things become relevant. The hopeful thing in this song is the invitation to let the day, be day, get together and drink to all that makes no sense at all in life. And when you think about it, that’s a lot.
Of course, such a multi-layered story can only be abstracted in a three and a half minute song. But I tried.
From a musical point of view, Frank’s arrangement was very early on as it became in the final version. We didn’t have to tweak it much to know that we had built a real treasure.
it is complicated
not a simple matter
you always had the brains
and I’ve got the hearts
you seem irritated
but I know better
I feel it in my veins
in this we’re worlds apart
come on let’s call it a day
we won’t be solving this anyway
I guess I can’t go on
guess that I can’t make it
you’ve got to keep it up
for the sake of it
I’ve been the one that’s strong
now I just can’t take it
you’ve got to add it up
for the both of us
come on let’s call it a day
because there’s just nothing left to say
chorus 1:
» let’s just keep silent
and drink to all that makes no sense
in the end everything changes «
chorus 2:
» let’s keep silent
and drink to everything we’ve had
in the end everything changes «
you seem down and lost
I’ve been there before
but it was long ago
long before we’ve met
let’s just not adjust
the way we are thinking
we can’t pretend we are better off
not being young again
come on let’s call it a day
we won’t be getting there anyway
chorus 1, 2
chorus 1, 2, 1
let’s keep it down
and drink to everything we’ve lost
in the end everything changes