Ever write the date only to pause, pull your hand back and feel a little dazed for a second? In a “wow-how-is-it-this-day-this-year” kind of moment? These moments still me, center me, in a frighteningly human way. That future you wondered about, the plans you made and re-made, it all happened and it is passed, but still, it is all there…the years wrinkled into your skin, tied up tight in your neck and shoulders and ribs and brain cells…but how could it move so quickly, and for what ends, exactly, at this juncture?

Some of my favorite songs are about wandering, about that recognition of time and space. This one never gets old. With a subtle harmony, brush strokes of rhythm and bluegrass auxiliary, this song is one of several from Peter Bradley Adams I find quite timeless and centering, although wistful. I find his style inspiring, as folk-pop/Americana like this can sometimes feel too contrived, or too country. Adams, though, has a gift for the perfectly timed rhyme, measure for measure and syllable for syllable, I find his music stirring without being intrusive, memorable, without digging under the skin. Simply sweet, sad songs, for sweet, sad nights in need of calm, meditation and dancing.

If it weren’t for such a pleasing melody, everything about this song would be sad. But it burns even and tempered, a campfire at dusk, a pensive walk through the tangled woods of memory, where setting suns and rising moons peak through the trees.

“When my blood runs warm with the warm red wine

I miss the life that I left behind
But when I hear the sound of the blackbirds cry
I know I left in the nick of time

Well this road I’m on’s gonna turn to sand
And leave me lost in a far off land
So let me ride the wind til I don’t look back
Forget the life that I almost had

If I wander til I die
May I know who’s hand I’m in
If my home I’ll never find
And let me live again

The longer I run
Then the less that I find
Sellin my soul for a nickel and dime
Breakin my heart to keep singing these rhymes
And losin again

The longer I run
Then the less that I find
Sellin my soul for a nickel and dime
Breakin my heart to keep singing these rhymes
And losin again

Tell my brother please not to look for me
I ain’t the man that I used to be
But if my savior comes could you let him know
I’ve gone away for to save my soul

If I wander til I die
May I know who’s hand I’m in
If my home I’ll never find
And let me live again

The longer I run
Then the less that I find
Sellin’ my soul for a nickel and dime
Breakin’ my heart to keep singing these rhymes
And losin’ again

The longer I run
Then the less that I find
Sellin my soul for a nickel and dime
Breakin my heart to keep singing these rhymes
And losing again
Losing again…”

~The Longer I Run 
Peter Bradley Adams, Leavetaking