Nields Fun Countdown T Minus 1

posted June 9, 2011
Kerrville Folk Festival, 1996


(Jay is going to be fine! All is well!)

Below are drawings of the Nields through the ages, by members of the band other than Katryna. Guess who drew which?

And here are the lyrics to the new song we will be singing at the Iron Horse on Saturday night.

You Come Around Again


When exactly was the day that you forgot to play

Wasn’t there a point of no return?

One day you were running up the hill to beat the sun

Running with your friends until your lungs burned

Now your hill is made of paper, dishes and the laundry

And getting folks to know that they are good

Your kids say, Mom, would you throw the ball?

Catch me if you can, you know you could

You know you could.

You come around again

You come around again

You come around again.

If there’s anything at all I’ve learned in these twenty years

You’d do well to learn the minuet with fate

No one mourns that clever thing you didn’t say in time

No one ever died because you slept late

“Oh, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

“The two of us are on our way back home.”

We had a dream, we took the crayon

Drew it up and walked on purple crayon land

Till you came too.

You come around again

You come around again

You come around again

Yesterday I watched our children pick up our guitars

They grabbed them by the tail, and man, they swung

They pulled the music from the air and made it all their own

Soon they will recruit that baby drummer

So who’s to say that this is it, or this is something new

I think you know I never left the ball

I left the mark, I left the shoe, and then I hid behind the curtain watching you.

You looked so sad

But what could I have done?

The story made me run

But I came around again.

Nerissa Nields
May 16,2011
©2011 Peter Quince Publishing

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Read More Like This

The Road and The Vaster Wilds: Anti-Odysseys (Part 3 in an ongoing series)

By happenstance, I read Cormac McCarthy’s 2007 apocalyptic novel The Road and followed it with Lauren Groff’s latest, The Vaster Wilds. It was September, technically still summer, but both of these novels take place in life-threateningly cold weather, and each author made me feel that cold, that terror of being consumed by the natural world, an awareness of the scarcity of essential resources, the distrust of other human beings–even our intimates. As I revisit these novels today, fittingly on Halloween, when the air in Massachusetts has grown chill and my body continues to fight against that novel corona virus, I find myself sharing some of these primal fears. When the terrain is unknown and the enemy invisible, who and what can we trust?

River Roads

Here’s the strange thing about me: I can completely forget I’m a musician until I arrive at the gig. It’s as though that part of me is a set of clothes for another season, kept in a moth-proof box in the attic, out of mind until the weather changes.

Confessions of an Undecided Democrat–And Why I Will Remain So

I started, a few weeks ago, to write a piece on the Democrats, to confess that I was still undecided. I still am today, less than a week before my state’s…

#NieldsXVII Story Contest : Week 13

This week’s question was a little out there, and we weren’t disappointed with the responses. The winning answer was both fun and thoughtful. It made us think a little of that line of Shakespeare’s, about music being the food of love. Thanks to the winner and everyone who participated this week. We’ll see you again on Monday!

The Doctor Is In. 25¢ Please.

It’s not like I woke up one day and decided I was the next Dr. Andrew Weil. Or worse, Dr. Phil, God help us. No, it happened like this. My…