The end of 2000 and beginning of 2001 saw a South Bend return. Well, perhaps a layover.

I left Bloomington and, while waiting to point toward whatever was next, I stayed in a room in my parent’s house by the St. Joe river and actually recorded a couple of albums.

Most of the songs were about the South Bend area and my feeling the same dull ache to get to anywhere else that wasn’t South Bend (or, really, Mishawaka).

It was like being a teenager all over again.

Many of those songs will likely show up later.

For A Song (Dear) isn’t about that, though. It’s based and might possibly have been written in Bloomington before the move back north.

It’s a good example of my writing more direct pop songs but not yet being able to shake off the wall of sound I had spent so many years striving for.

If you listen in headphones, you will see what I mean. The acoustic guitar is really about 6 different acoustic guitars.

I say “acoustic” – it’s my old Parker Nightfly doing all the guitar parts. In fact, I think it is the only guitar I had at that point, acoustic or otherwise.

The Parker is actually sitting just a few feet away from me as I write this. It’s probably the closest thing to a “vintage” guitar I own now, ironically.

This is For A Song (Dear) from the album Smokestacked & Steepled, recorded in 2000 in Osceola, Indiana.

If the video is slow to load you can find it on youtube HERE.

For A Song (Dear)

Striving toward a future night
And I can’t believe
How real and solid it became.
At least, it did for me.

But the future’s always moving, dear,
Along a rocky line
Till you find your way.
Hope I find my way tonight.

Here beyond this town
In the future we’d planned those nights.
Here beside the chosen few.
I guess I hoped for something better to do.

Home for another night
Of touching on the phone
Didn’t help to hide the simple fact
I still slept alone.

Well, the future’s so uncertain, dear.
Hell, so is the past.
Or was that a way
To believe this couldn’t last?

And by the time we walked away
It seemed that there was nothing left to say.
So what was left, the right and wrong,
Is going cheaply, for a song.

Driving on the freeway
On the way back here
Memories hang and linger
Tearing on tears.
Miles stacked against us.
Miles left behind
And you know that there was something here.

So I look for future nights,
But I can’t believe
I’m still filling space inside myself
Where you were meant to be.

But the future’s always changing, dear.
I guess that’s the way
Of dispelling any wonders
Of where we’d be today.

So longing nights and witful days
The passions come in fitful waves.
Till you can’t discern what’s real or not,
Romantic dream or vicious plot.
And all the time, and all we mean,
The changes happen everywhere, it seems.
And all the rights and all the wrongs
They’re just going for a song.