Jon James: "Almira Gulch" (MPR Songs from Scratch, Vol. 2)

This was a blast to do! Here are the lyrics. Notes on songwriting process follow for anyone who might be interested. Always welcoming feedback! Thanks, Jon.

ALMIRA GULCH

Will all our true companions

Never again be taken away?

What if there ain’t no Wizard, Dorothy?

Ain’t no Oz?

No free lunch in the Emerald City…

Would you find that implausible?

Maybe it’s you pullin’ at the levers

And all the Technicolor gloss

Is just superstition behind the curtain, pity

Does that seem so impossible?

But I know your dreams of a better place

Are things simpler back in Kansas?

Do you think in black and white?

No place like home, glowin’ in sepia tone

And Uncle Henry, the sincere one among the boys

Sayin’, “of course we believe you, Dorothy”

Tryin’ to play it up polite

But when sky started groanin’, cyclone started blowin’

Weren’t you all alone and hollerin’ above the noise?

I know your dreams of a better place

With all our true companions

We fly away from this land of the absurd

Far above all her depths and canyons

Almira Gulch will never get the last word

From the ends of the earth to your own backyard

Mouth and mind drink all but won't fill an empty heart

It's all within -- energy and matter, namaste and ohm,

Myriad formulas, nostrums and prayer -- all roads lead home

The limelight, you couldn’t hack it

Though you killed ‘em all with your voice

Came from Vaudeville and filled up their pockets

Filled yourself with whatever …

What’s truth, what’s just a racket?

Did you even have a choice?

Surely cried your eyes outta their sockets

Longed for the days when they used to call you Frances Gumm

I know your dreams

Whole damned world was filled with beauty

Didn’t need no over the rainbow place

They even named my ma after you, sweet Judy

Maybe you seen her out somewhere in space

Wishin’ upon you, you were her star

Singing a lullabye to a flyin’ bluebird

Dark side of the moon, or wherever you are

Almira Gulch will never get the last word

Almira Gulch will never get the last

Word

Adam’s lyrics were a bit a heady, which was no problem per se (been accused more than once of playing with the dictionary myself), but I also had difficulty relating to them as something I might have written.

So, rather than toiling over the square-peg-round-hole dilemma, I made due note of their spiritual tone and simply set them aside. I figured if the perspective he was presenting ended up being somehow outside of whatever I ended up writing, I could use them, arrangement-wise, as a bridge, drawing upon some sort of stark melodic variation or chord progression departure to compare and contrast. In fact, I did end up using his lyrics as the bridge, to useful effect, I hope. But, in the balance, I don’t think there ended up being any marked lyrical mismatch between mine and his.

Generally, when starting lyrics, I try not to get too tied down to any one predetermined subject or story; just start with a simple idea or phrase (even nonsense), put pen to paper, start writing stuff down, see where it goes. I try to establish rhyme schemes early on and that helps words and form come quickly; don’t always know what they mean, nor do I always concern myself with that, initially. Just try to enjoy the process of wordplay and, hopefully, paint vivid verbal portraits. Usually, meaning begins presenting itself as the lyrics develop, rather than me trying to force anything specific. Images and ideas, rhymes and phrases emerge, then I just try to hone in on what makes sense, editing and connecting the dots.

I started out with:

What if there ain’t no Wizard, Dorothy?

Ain’t no Oz?

Sat down with the acoustic guitar, sang the line, set it to a couple chords, then proceeded to hone in on the remainder of the first verse, lyrics, melody and chords. Second verse followed, with the idea of contrasting Oz and Kansas, as in the story itself (at least the film, that is – won’t pretend to have read the book). “Otherworld” versus “home” – and then taking it a step further: heaven vs. earth, God’s will vs. human determinism, intimacy vs. alienation. The notion of writing the verses in question format wasn’t overtly intentional; I suppose spirituality, faith, belief, etc. all have their attendant large question marks.

Then I began recalling how, as a kid, Miss Gulch in the film version had always scared the living crap outta me, much moreso than the Wicked Witch of the West. It seemed obvious to my child mind that whereas the witch was a character based in fantasy, Miss Gulch was menacing in a very real way – the source, the problem that sets the wheel of the story in motion. The destroyer, the devil, death, the reaper, etc. … that whole epic ball of wax.

Remembering how she intended to take Toto away from Dorothy, I came up with the lines:

But I know your dreams of a better place

Where all our true companions never again get taken away

(When arranging the song, I ended up splitting these apart, altering the latter lyric slightly and using it as the opening line, “Will all our true companions never again be taken away?”)

Somewhere around the same time in the lyrical process I considered naming the song “Almira Gulch”, and that ended up sticking.

So, I began slapping all these initial elements together, then wrote a bridge section (music & melody) to Adam’s lyrics. Cheated, ever-so-slightly, cutting out two instances of the word “and” to capitalize on a simple call and response vocal idea. Really cheating? Who knows. Often after writing something, when I go to actually sing it, I’ll cut out a word here or there, or change the phrase a little. An in-the-moment thing. Actually ended up doing that to my own lyrics in a few places during this very song. Compare written lyrics w/ audio.

Still needed to wrap it up with a last verse, outro, ending, something to that effect. I set it aside for a day and came back. When I sat down again, I started thinking about Judy Garland. How, in my mind, and in that childhood mind I mentioned earlier (where, also, the line between actors and characters tended to be blurred, at least for me), there really was no sharp distinction between Dorothy and Judy Garland. Inseparable. Can you really think of one without thinking of the other?

So, I wrote a bit about Judy Garland, thinking about her personal struggles, her unhappiness, her ultimate demise. Adam’s line, “mouth and mind drink all but can’t fill an empty heart”, seemed to ring true there. It then occurred to me that my mother, who passed many years back, was named after Judy Garland, and also admired her greatly. I tried to weave my mom into the lyric a bit. It makes it more personal, obviously, and steps outside of most of what precedes it in the song but also invests me more, as songwriter, in the whole thing, so I figured, what the heck, just run with it. If the line for me between Dorothy and Judy Garland is fuzzy, then so also is the line between both of them and my mother. And I suppose that gives me a unique vantage point from which to tackle this project.

Lastly, I simply couldn’t let this go by without slipping in a reference to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and that whole phenomenon. Too cutesy? Eh. Maybe.

I sang, played piano, Wurlitzer, organ, bass, acoustic and electric guitar

Patrik Tanner played drums, cabasa, concert castanets and Bulgarian triangle.

Patrik engineered & mixed and, as always, provided invaluable input. Thanks-a-mil, pal.

Thanks also, to Adam, for being the spark that ignited.