“Mountain” available from online retailers – here! –> Mountain
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Tag Archives: Blues
Breaking down the songs of Mountain, day 8 – “The River”
Well we are almost there folks. Tonight at midnight we should see “Mountain” start to populate digital music partners around the world. The best way that you can help us tomorrow is to go to any of the sites you use, Spotify, iTunes Music, Amazon Music, Google Play, and save the album into your libraries. We hope you all stream the record tomorrow and enjoy it. The more SAVES and streams it gets out of the gate the more attention the digital sites give it for playlists, so we are hoping for a good day with a lot of action tomorrow. We will update tomorrow morning with links.
Today I’ll break down another song from the album, this is “The River”.
It’s funny to me that today there are artists out there like Greta Van Fleet that are obviously trying to copy Led Zep but say they are really influenced by Aerosmith to whatever. To me, I’ve always worn my influences on my sleeve and I’m happy to tell you where they come from. “The River” is a product of me listening and trying to emulate Johnny Cash, Nick Cave and Chris Knight, probably in that order. The thing about it, is when I try to emulate someone else it still somehow comes out sounding like me because I’m emulating, not stealing. There’s a difference.
The story.
Small one stop light town, man is standing just outside of town beside the river watching a car sink with two people in it. One is his wife, one we find out later is the sheriff’s deputy. He’s praying, and crying as he watches them sink down but makes no attempt to save them. Of course we don’t really understand all that in the first verse yet. I set up the chorus so that initially you would not know if the main character is calming a child standing with him, or if he’s thinking out loud to the drowning victims. I wanted that tension, and for the listener to start thinking. The second verse sets up the back story and explains what has transpired. The third verse we find our main character a couple miles from the scene of the crime, a car comes around the corner and stops to check on him, they explain what has happened, which he obviously already knows.
This song is another song of ours that I would describe as “Southern Gothic”. It’s characters are those like people that we knew of growing up in small towns, and these stories are the kind that we read in the papers. There was a time, before our time, in the 50’s when stories like this would make national news. Guess I’ve always been more influenced by historical things. These type songs are movies to me without pictures. Johnny Cash’s stories always were visuals to me, same with Nick Cave and Chris Knight. This is a southern gothic small town film in a three minute song. I listen to it on headphones and it haunts me. Thanks for reading…..
The River
I was standing by the river, just ringing my hands
I was praying to my savior, try to understand
I was watching that chevrolet sinking down
I was crying for my sweet love as she drown
Moonlight shining in the dead of night
Hush little girl it will be alright
Ain’t no secrets in any small town
Ain’t no secret she was running around
Sheriff got a deputy had his eye on her
Thats a hard lesson he had to learn
Moonlight shining in the dead of night
Hush now childl it will be alright
We all gotta go, when we gotta go
We all gotta go, but when we gotta go
I saw headlights coming down the road
They say a car went off the hill down where the river flows
Say it sunk to the bottom and two people drown
Deputy and my wife ain’t been seen round town
Moonlight shining in the dead of night
Hush little girl it will be alright
Solomon 8:7 KJV -Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.
Breaking down the songs of Mountain, day seven – “The Great Unknown”
TWO DAYS until the official release of Mountain. So much news coming your way today, new reviews, new playlists adds, continued success leading up to this release and we want to thank all of you again for your role in helping getting the word spread and turning people on to our music.
Today I’ll break down the first track on the album “The Great Unknown”. Lyrically this is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. It’s set in the open western landscape as early Americans travel west. The songs meaning is really that no man knows his future. No two days are exactly alike in our lifetime, and if you make plans and think you know exactly how your life will go you can bet it will not follow that path. I was focusing on settlers moving west and how that must have felt, not knowing what the future would hold, so many obstacles, such beautiful land, how native Americans must have felt. Life was so hopeful then, but also so fragile.
First verse a stranded young husband has lost his wife, standing on a hill, looking up and questioning God. Meanwhile his brothers have made it out west and have hit gold. Their sister broke, has turned to prostitution in an effort to stay alive.
Second verse we have an man coming back north from a train robbery in mexico, perhaps to get money to start his family back home. In the meantime his wife at home has taken up with another man, by the time that he gets home he has lost what he sat out to build.
Third verse a solider has returned from a battle and finds a war tribe has destroyed his home and killed his family. It discusses the topic of revenge and war and how that cycle never seems to end.
The Great Unknown
Young man stands high on a hill shakes his fists at the sky above.
Down below in the valley there’s a grave with a name of a woman he loved.
Out west cross the rivers and plains now his brothers striking rich with gold
Their sister in hotel room working money off a man she knows
Just beyond the great unknown
Are the answers that nobody knows
Just beyond the great unknown
Are the answers that nobody knows
Pale rider on a jet black mare, got a rifle and a .44
500 dollars from a train he robbed down south in Mexico
Back home now his wife got a suitor, got a ring and an evening gown
By the time that he reach Sioux City, she done laid that poor boy down, down, down
Just beyond the great unknown
Are the answers that we will never know
Just beyond the great unknown
Are the answers that nobody knows
Red man with a scalp in his hand on a horse that he calls war
Soldier just beyond two days ride walks back in through his front door
Someone always gotta debt to pay, someone always gotta settle the score.
No matter how the blood is shed, someone always wants more, more, more.
Breaking down the songs of Mountain, day five – “Friend of Mine”
FIVE days now until the release of MOUNTAIN. We have some very cool announcements coming, and more good news. We have surpassed expectations and could not be happier about things happening in the Cold Stares world. So much of our success and these good things are because of YOU, our fans being relentless in spreading the word. Press release on Sleeping With Lions coming shortly today. In the mean time I’ll break down one of our favorites from the album “Friend of Mine”….
This one comes from my love of the poetry of delta blues. Son House, Skip James, story songs about real people. Lots of hidden stuff in this song, but it’s mainly about our character who has seen nothing but bad luck. In the end, he knows things are going to go south and when he stands before God he’s thinking “Hope I’m gonna find you’re a friend of mine”. I always loved the line in the first verse “I ain’t gonna lie I ain’t gonna pay rent”, which I borrowed theme wise from Thorogood’s version of “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”, where the landlord says “that don’t confront me, as long as I got my rent by Friday”. Our character is down on his luck and already decided he’s not paying the rent. The following line “Devils in the meadow and the dogs been sent”, means I see the trouble coming, and about all I’m going to do is let the dog out to go handle it.
Verse two things have caught up with the character and the police are at the door. Probably a number of things they could be there for, and perhaps none of them our character has done, but he knows his string of bad luck continues. Doesn’t say how the incident proceeds, but we know that he’s got bullets beside the bed and we find in verse three that he’s now on death row and heading to the gallows.
The line in the chorus “I’ve been standing on the levee since I was 6 years old” is a reference to the Levees we hear about in the delta blues songs. Lower Mississippi was notorious for flooding, and a lot of early delta songwriters referenced the Levee as kind of the last defense against the flood. I always loved Son House’s “Levee Camp Blues”, which also is where our song “John” was inspired from. Anyways, “standing on the levee since I was 6 years old”, simple interprets into- I’ve been waiting around since I was 6 years old for something bad to happen. Fairly hopeless, and maybe that’s the environment that our character grew up in, or around, but he’s felt damned from very early on. This is one of our songs that I would consider “Southern Gothic”. It certainly lends itself to the southern gothic novels, and for characters that I’ve grown up around all my life. Hope you enjoy-
13 blackbirds sitting on a fence
17 dollars that my good girl spent
I ain’t gonna lie, I ain’t gonna pay rent
Devils in the meadow and the dogs been sent
Oh Lord bless my soul
Been standing on the levee since I was 6 years old
Oh Lord when it comes time
Hope I’m gonna find your a friend of mine
16 bullets on the side of the bed
Telephone ringing right beside my head
Knocking on the door it’s the county law
Trying to figure out what I’ve done wrong
Oh Lord bless my soul
Been standing on the levee since I was 6 years old
Oh Lord when it comes time
Hope I’m gonna find your a friend of mine
15 years I’ve been waiting on the line
Preacher said “boy its about that time”
Hangman waiting at the gallows edge
Gonna try to tie a rope up around my neck
Oh Lord bless my soul
Been standing on the levee since I was 6 years old
Oh Lord when it comes time
Hope I’m gonna find your a friend of mine
Breaking down the songs of Mountain, day three – “Killing Machine”
7 Days till the release of “Mountain” now. ARE YOU READY?
I know we are. Watching “Sleeping With Lions” stream 15,000 plays last night alone has us on cloud nine. Thanks to each and every one of you for continuing to demand your friends add it to their music libraries!
Today I’m going to break down- “Killing Machine”.
This is my (ct) current favorite song on the record. I like the cinematic visual of the song, the meanings and references. I’m hesitant on a few of these songs to continue to describe them too accurately, because I know that they can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. But for now, I’ll tell you what the song means to me.
I had finished up the last season of “Hell on Wheels” (which is great if you haven’t take the time to watch), and was thinking about some of the characters. Thinking about who we are as people, and the things that add up to make us into that specific human who can take another’s life. Someone who has had his wife and family murdered and sets out on revenge during the civil war. My father, and step father sent to vietnam to fight and kill other humans for reasons they didn’t understand. My wifes’ grandfather sent to Germany to fight and destroy evil. Indian warriors fighting to save their land. All these situations that have brought men to the point where they would take another humans life. It’s heavy to me. First verse in my head is an obituary of a civil war soldier when our nation killed it’s own, brother against brother. The second verse the plight of the Native American post civil war. The last verse the great world wars. There are some hidden references and meanings in some of the lines, and I will leave that to the listener to decipher. The song is a character study on why these men became men that could kill and the heaviness and scarring that killing left upon them.
I would love to see the song make it to a television show in 2019, it’s certainly visual to me. Thanks for reading…. See you tomorrow with a break down of “Gone Not Dead”.
“Killing Machine”
Another man dead I didn’t want to kill
Another soul lost that I didn’t will
Another man’s pain that I didn’t feel
Another dead soldier laid on a hill
Killing machine, oh Killing Machine
you bought yourself a Killing Machine
Run for the hills navajo let’s go
Run through the streams and the valleys below
Run through the dreams of our fathers before
Passed in the night with blood on the door
Killing machine, oh Killing Machine
you bought yourself a Killing Machine
Pitch them down from the 2nd floor
Pitch them down to the dirt below
Kiss their mothers with lips so cold
Foreign soldiers never do grow old, do they?
Killing machine, oh Killing Machine
you bought yourself a Killing Machine
Breaking down songs of Mountain, day one – “Sleeping with Lions”
We are 9 days away from the release of “Mountain” now. We thought it might be cool to break down some of the songs from the album for you guys. We’ll start out with our single “Sleeping With Lions”.
Pre-cancer, so around late 2011 I had the main riff of the song and it had morphed into a song called “Come Apart”. At that time it was angsty relationship song with what I felt were sub-par lyrics. We were playing the song out some and had even cut a demo in the studio. “Come Apart” didn’t feel up to snuff to me, and so it didn’t make the cut. Move forward two years and I was in the middle of chemo and radiation fighting cancer. We were doing everything that we could to move forward and keep recording. I literally was in the studio with Brian and Greg with a rash covering my body from the chemo trying to cut guitars. It was during that time that I kept coming back to this powerful guitar riff, and the opening anthem type melody. It just felt like it deserved lyrics that would match the power of the riff. I had been reading and focusing on people that had faced great adversity and overcome through faith. Two men really stood out to me, one was Job and the other Daniel from the bible. Both having to survive on nothing but faith. I could really relate to that. At the time I was also thinking about legacy, and that if something happened to me, any lyrics I left behind I wanted to inspire people. I was driving home one night and starting singing a line in my head over the guitar riff. “I hold the light that lights the pathway”. The way I write a lot of times is to construct the entire song in my head. I write a line, repeat, add another, repeat two, and another repeat three, until I’ve written and memorized something until I can make it to a pen and paper. By the time I had gotten home I had the chorus. “I hold the light that lights the pathway, I hold the key that locks the door, I mark the steps that lead to freedom, I swim the sea that leads to shore”. It was a declaration of giving 100% trust and faith to God that he would lead me through whatever was to happen.
I sat down and wrote the rest of the song in probably 2-3 minutes. The first verse I imagined a prisoner, locked away with no hope. Metaphors for a woman trapped in an abusive relationship, a kid stuck in a bad home, someone fighting disease, people silenced for their views, anyone trying to overcome. “Well they took them a hammer, and they took them a nail. And they built you a prison, and they made you a cell. And they gave you no ransom, and they set you no bail. No view of a heaven, yea they gave you their hell.”
Second verse came easily as well, and it is the story of David which still makes me shudder to think about. “Daniel on his knees, he continued to pray, and the king he forbid him, and they led him away. And they laid him with lions, and they told him goodbye. They returned in the morning, just to find him alive.” It is the universal story of faith and perseverance.
Forward months later, and I was on the mend and we cut the new song which was now “Sleeping With Lions”. With no releases immediately coming up we sat on the song. Forward a couple years and we had given some songs to our new publisher who was synching songs to television. Out of all the songs he had to pick from he kept telling me that “Sleeping With Lions” would land somewhere. I wasn’t so sure, and didn’t see it as a single. Sometimes this happens when you are very close to a song and it seems like it was just written for your circumstance. Regardless, I said sure, give it a shot. A few months later I got the call that it had been chosen out of our songs for the “Animal Kingdom” show on TNT. The rest as they say is history. “Sleeping With Lions” then followed up to be placed on ESPN’s coverage of the X-Games this fall. We have a good inclination that you will also hear it on something big in 2019. It was released October 1st 2019 as the first single off of “Mountain” and was added to 12 Spotify Editorial Playlists. To put that in perspective, on our last album “Break My Fall” and “Head Bent” were added to ONE each. Previous releases saw NO playlists placements. “Sleeping With Lions” is currently doing 10-15,000 streams per day and has done 180,000 since October 1st at the time I’m writing this.
I want to add one more note while we are on this subject. Bands ON record labels release records and spend tens of thousands of dollars to have consultants recommend their songs for Spotify playlists. Even after doing that, most do not see any of their songs make the editorial playlists. Those lists are the new top 40. The fact that we have released this record, WITHOUT a label, without consultants, paid for by our fans, and had this success solidifies that it’s a new world out there and this can be done without labels. It requires a lot of hard work, a lot of hustle, and more than anything a lot of FAITH. See you tomorrow with another track explanation. CT
Sleeping with Lions on Spotify
Call or post a request for “Sleeping With Lions” on SiriusXM Octane or email Octane@siriusxm.com them and help us continue the success.
“Sleeping With Lions”
Well they took them a hammer
And they took them a nail
And they built you a prison, and they made you a cell
And they gave you no ransom, and they set you no bail
With no view of a heaven, yeah they gave you their hell
But I hold the light that lights the pathway
I hold the key that locks the door
I mark the steps that lead to freedom
I swim the sea that leads to shore
Daniel on his knees, he continued to pray
And the king he forbid him, and they led him away
And they laid him with lions, and they told him goodbye
They returned in the morning, just to find him alive….
I hold the light that lights the pathway
I hold the key that locks the door
I mark the steps that leads to freedom
I swim the sea that leads to shore
Over 100,000 streams on Spotify for “Sleeping with Lions”
“Sleeping With Lions” from the TV show Animal Kingdom is the first single off our new full length record “Mountain” set for release on Halloween. Yesterday we crossed over 100,000 streams in the first ten days! Thanks to everyone streaming and saving and sharing.
Get the song here-
Sleeping with Lions
And request it here!
SiriusXM Octane
“Stuck in a Rut” used in Dodge commercial!
Very proud to announce that you can now hear The Cold Stares song “Stuck in a Rut” on a new Dodge commercial. You’ll find it on the Velocity channel on Roadkill Nights as well as Dodge’s website and social media. As car fanatics, I’m sure a lot of you know what this means to us. Absolutely stoked.
Tracks off for mastering!
Tracks sent off for final mastering touch up for vinyl this morning. Here’s the song listing for-
MOUNTAIN
1-The Great Unknown
2-Stickemup
3-Under His Command
4-Friend of Mine
5-Gone (Not Dead)
6-Wade in the Darkness
7-Child of God
8-Sleeping With Lions
9-The River
10-Cold Black Water
11-The Plan
12-If Your Way Gets Dark
13-Two Keys and a Good Book
14-Killing Machine
15-Mountain
Review from across the pond
Some press from around the globe- please see translation in screenshot below. Yeah, this totally made our week- 🙂
