Northwest Americana
Northwest Americana
Northwest Americana was recorded in the heart of a brutal Central Oregon winter at Grange Recorders in Sisters, OR.
Travis Ehrenstrom - Vocals, Guitar, Mandolin, Banjo, Harmonica
Mark Karwan - Bass
Ricky Newton - Drums, Percussion
Grace Caston - Vocals
Casey Parnell - Vocals, Piano, Organ
Jennifer Banning - Vocals, Xylophone
Aldo Arechar - String Composition for Empty Space
Dove String Quartet - Strings on Empty Space
Produced by Casey Parnell
Engineered and Mixed by Keith Banning at Grange Recorders
Mastered by Ethereal Mastering
All Song Written by Travis Ehrenstrom
Album Art Courtesy Folly Cove Design Guild
Isn’t it crazy? Isn’t it mad?
Living in a world on fire,
There’s no turning back.
Let’s go dancing, you know the place.
I want to feel something, I need to see your face.
Smiling underneath a jar,
Of swaying lightning bugs.
Oh Annie, we we’re raining.
Oh Annie, it’s a flood.
Oh Annie, won’t you let me take you home?
You in your white dress, I see you move and sway.
Annie your nightmares are mine to tame.
I’ll buy you roses, and precious jewels,
In precious metals, I’ll hang the moon.
Way up there between the stars,
In endless summer sky.
Smiling underneath a jar, of swaying lightning bugs.
Way up there between the stars, an endless summer sky.
All of this, more of it, every time we try.
I sang her name across the valley,
Soft in the wind, rain, and snow.
She heard my call, I came to find her,
Pretty little eyes and her heart a jewel.
I headed west and she did follow,
Sleeping under stars in the desert at night.
She didn’t mind, she grew to like it,
Even as much as to call it home.
It ain’t no hurricane,
Love is a wild flame,
Burning in our hearts tonight.
Sunday morning, wake up early,
Take her to the river on a bended knee.
She closed her eyes and started crying,
The prettiest tears I’ve ever seen.
It ain’t no diamond ring,
Love is a finer thing,
Burning in our hearts tonight.
Someday later, before a sunrise,
a glimmer in the eyes of a baby boy.
She holds him close, and begins to wonder,
If he’ll ever make it to the voice of a lovers song.
It ain’t no easy way,
Love is the hardest thing,
Burning in our hearts tonight.
It ain’t no hurricane.
It ain’t no diamond ring.
It ain’t no easy way,
Love is the hardest thing,
Burning in our hearts tonight.
Sunset coming,
His Darkness called him.
The man who hung the moon is gone.
He closed his eyes, and whispered softly,
“Deep into the night, with a happy heart.”
Love at the end of things,
Love is everything.
Did you think it’d be different?
Waiting under a train.
Seeking out a sure vibration,
That’s getting further away.
Did you think I would notice?
The way you hide your eyes.
Say you’re all I need to wonder.
I don’t even try.
Take me to water,
Hoping for a flood,
Waiting for a river that will heal us all.
One time I was younger,
I want to stay that way.
Paint the light between the darkness,
Keep the madness away.
I see you in the corner,
I want to take you home.
Let me be your sure pretender,
Just tell me when to go.
So you say you feel it?
That your life is not your own.
There’s a time for every season,
I should know.
In the end we were vacant,
Two souls exposed.
All that lies between the waypoints,
Is all that’s left to show.
My friend, the darkness knows no limit.
Someday, the sun will shine through.
I give to you my word, and all the strength that I can bear,
If freedom is a river, we'll swim.
I'll sing you my song weeping willow.
Grant me the patience that I need.
In a broken world, in complicated times,
Kindness is your branches aglow.
Silence in the storm as winter passes.
Redbird flies south for the year.
As the season change, will our lives remain the same?
Spirits in the snow, an angel dance.
I wish I was that dance I’d cause a lightning.
Electric as a hanging neon sign.
In the midst of fear and evidentiary trial,
Take me in the night and hold me.
I dreamt that I was dying,
A soul so unafraid.
I felt your hands against me,
And slowly, they slipped away.
I added up the hours,
One time when I was young.
At every age, in every moment,
I felt, that I’d seen enough.
Take me in your arms and hold me,
I’m mostly empty space.
Maybe one day we’ll get over this.
Maybe someday, things will change.
I hope that you remember,
Those nights when we would dance,
In the tiny place that we were living in.
I hope you smile, when you think of that.
One day I want to wake up,
To a world not burning down.
A place so far away, so desolate,
There’s no one around.
I dreamt that I was dying,
A soul so unafraid.