Wilderness

Hello Ohio
Where is it that you want to go?
Is it down through these cities
Or out on the fields
Or all the way
To Westwego

Hello Ohio
All these stories to tell
About those sold down the river
The cannon and the quiver
And all those pilgrims could sell

Let’s roll back in time
See what we find
My friend
Let’s go back in time
Forget this grind
Old friend

Hello Ohio
Tell me where you’ve been
Under the hills of West Virginia?
Or an Allegheny moon?
Or the horses of Union men?

Yo, old Ohio
Take this load full of milo
Let’s roll old Ohio
Let’s go

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Marty Grebb, Bobby Riviere
Guitars: Bobby Riviere, Randy Riviere
Bass: Bob Glaub
Drums: Jim Christie
Pedal Steel: James Pennebaker

Down in the valley
Up on The Hill
Out on the prairie
You can feel it still

Machines are turning
The heat is on
Red lights are burning
As we all run along

This world
This world
This world goes round and round and round

Soldiers are running
Twilight’s near
Headlights are coming
As we live in fear

The left is leaning
The right goes long
Good minds are bending
Between right and wrong

The children are playing
In the late summer sun
But the trees aren’t turning
As the new season comes

The desert is reeling
In burning sand
Is there heaven ever after
In this Holy land

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Marty Grebb
Guitars: Randy Riviere
Bass: Bob Glaub
Drums: Gary Mallaber
Piano: Marty Grebb
Violin, Pedal Steel: James Pennebaker

Tell my people
That I don’t know
Where I’m going
Or what I’ll have to show
But I’m gonna take a little walk
Take a little walk off this line

There ain’t no story
That’s been told
About this vocation
Or how to grow old
So I’m gonna take a little walk
Take a little walk off this line

Don’t know where I’m going girl
Or if I’ll make it there on time
Don’t know if I’ll get there babe
Or if we’ll have a nickel or a dime
I guess what I’m telling you is
There’s something left to find

Conveyor’s are running
Around the bend
Little widgets are running into
Colored bins
I’m gonna take a little walk
Take a little walk off this line

My body’s aching
My feet are numb
My head has been forsaken by
All this lacquer and rum
I’m gonna take a little walk
Take a little walk off this line

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere
Guitars: James Burton, Michael Ward, Randy Riviere
Bass: Dave Roe
Drums: Dave Hawkes

Oh old Kentucky
You are my home
But I’ve been out on the fringes
For so long

Let me feel your fair wind
Through your grass let it blow
Oh hills of Kentucky
My home

Go on, go on, old Kentucky go on
Forgive all my troubles, all I’ve done wrong
I took all this treasure, and sold it for gold
Go on, old Kentucky, go on

There’s a fog on the valley
A smoke on the land
There’s a heart that’s been taken
And blood on my hands

There’s cards on the table
And a shell of a man
But these hills of Kentucky
Stand

There’s a rock on the prairie
A sight to behold
There’s a road across town
Where time’s bought and sold

If I had all those nickels
Would they warm what’s grown cold?
Oh, old Kentucky
Knows

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Marty Grebb
Guitars: Randy Riviere
Bass: Dave Roe
Drums: Jim Christie
Harmonica: Mickey Raphael
Violin: James Pennebaker
Banjo, Mandolin, Accordion: Marty Grebb

Carolina – home of that Englishman
Who built this old wagon behind my home
That’s still standing in the tall grass
Yeah, it was built to last
It made it all those miles over wood and stone

Hard oak and solid steel
A strong heart on iron wheels

His name was Levingood
He burned his name in the wood
Then sold it to a dealer up in Chapel Hill
Then a young family named Pendergast
Gave that man all their cash
And headed for the Ohio
On the Wilderness Road

Carolina was your home
But your destination was unknown

Built a farm on Kentucky grass
Man that land filled up fast
Then it was onto Missouri full of blacksmith tools

There a man named Murphy mused
How it pulled powder kegs and fuse
Then he made the best wagons for the emigrant trails

Down the line to Chimney Rock
And a Fort Laramie Stop
Where it hauled big-eyed miners to Alder Gulch

Then out on the Bozeman Road
Red Cloud lighted it’s load
And rolled it down a hill into Rosebud Creek

That wagon set along that prairie stream
Until 1933
When a sodbuster wanted all of that ground

Then back in ’75
My old man brought it back alive
Then set it back down
And let the prairie heal … let it heal

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Michael Ward
Guitars: James Burton, Michael Ward, Randy Riviere
Bass: Dave Roe
Drums: Jim Christie

Washed tables for 50 cents
Used warm water and the air to dry
But cleaning stables took common sense
And a good wheel barrow that I could drive

The morning paper has all the news
Of the fortune that’s theirs to lose
As this coffee warms my hands
That have grown as hard as this broken land

Here in Alkali
All I have to do is survive
In Alkali
I just have to stay alive

They gave me a rifle and 40 rounds
And a chance to save their crown
When the cotton that grew up all around
Turned red they called it sacred ground

And the merchants all rubbed their hands
Would we save their fertile lands?
When the general drew up his sword
He spilled the blood of the simple man

Jeremiah would you carry my body home
Don’t let the sun bleach these Cold Harbor bones
Tell Hell’s fire it can’t have this southern soul
I’m going back to my Tennessee mountain home

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Marty Grebb
Guitars: Randy Riviere
Bass: Bob Glaub
Drums: Gary Mallaber
Harmonica: Mickey Raphael
Pedal Steel: James Pennebaker
Organ, Banjo: Marty Grebb

7. Let’s Get On With It (3:51)

Way back in 1973
Those boys from cross county
Got a hold on me

Took me from
The only country
That I knowed

Left that
Good dirt
For their city gold

I said let’s get on with it
We’re a long way from home
Let’s get right off the deep end with it
Cause it’s cold to the bone
Don’t worry none honey
We can get on on the phone

When times got hard on Old Man’s farm
We stepped it up
And built the barn

Didn’t know my name most of the time
But we had a lotta fun down that line

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere
Guitars: Randy Riviere
Bass: Bob Glaub
Drums: Jim Christie
Harmonica: Mickey Raphael
Lap Steel: James Pennebaker
Organ: Marty Grebb

The winter’s on the rails
The plaster and the nails
Back home

My senses all have failed
Still these hands send up these sails
Alone

Now all I really want
Is what we had

Little kids run from town
See them gather all around
On shore

These arms have tossed the lines
Through Hell Station and the mines
What for?

Tell her I’ll be fine
Holding anchor and writing rhymes
Off shore

But for what I have not known
I’d join the bottom with the bones
In war

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Marty Grebb
Guitars: Randy Riviere
Bass: Bob Glaub
Drums: Jim Christie
Harmonica: Mickey Raphael
Pedal Steel: James Pennebaker

I saw you down in a Coeur d’ Alene diner
Taking orders from wanna-be miners
Looking such a long way from home

In your eyes there were troubled skies
Saw you flinch from a stranger’s laughter
You looked such a long ways from home

What’s that I heard you say?
You’re saving up for a rainy day
Well girl that rain is coming down
So hop on let’s get homeward bound

So hey, you went your way
Running roads where no cotton grows
Reminds me of those days down in Baton Rouge

When a Cajun queen said she liked my jeans
This old guitar and the way I sing
I fell so hard I laid the music down

Remember when we lost our days
Singing Hank songs in your old man’s hay
I can still taste that sweat we had running down

When the thunder came
We’d make our way
Up the sand ridge over Robber’s Bay
And watch all of heaven touch the ground

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Michael Ward
Guitars: Michael Ward, Randy Riviere
Bass: Reggie McBride
Drums: Chad Fischer
Pedal Steel: James Pennebaker
Piano: Marty Grebb

There’s a letter
On the table
That I don’t read

It’s got this photograph
Of Green Meadow
And you and me

If I go back
To that crazy/angry town
If I go back
And you’re not around
It would be alright with me

There’s a letter
Up on the dashboard
That I don’t read

It’s got this message
From an old friend
That I don’t need

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Marty Grebb
Guitars: Randy Riviere
Bass: Bob Glaub
Drums: Jim Christie
Violin, Pedal Steel: James Pennebaker
Mandolin, Harmonica: Marty Grebb

Finally got away
From old General Lee
Now I’m out on the trail
With the sun over me
There’s a valley below
That’s covered with trees
There’s a meadow above
That’s shimmering green

But still I run
Like the three rivers run
To the sea

At Buffalo Ford
I met a mountain girl
Whose smile was worth the stay
And a look at her world
Where the passes wind high
And the grasses blow cold
This is where I could die
When I grow old

It was a settler’s dream
To set down on the land
And rip and turn the soil
Build up what you can
A home is in her heart
And the fire is in her eye
She says look at all we can do
Under these blue mountain skies

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere, Sherrie Pedigo
Guitars: Michael Ward, Randy Riviere
Bass: Bob Glaub
Drums: Gregg Thomas
Violin, Mandolin, Banjo: James Pennebaker

We saw you standing in the sun
As your friends were having fun
Now you wonder what to do
Pretty boy

You got a gift from a man
On a solid wooden stand
Now you don’t know what to say
Pretty boy

Don’t tell me it’s alright
Don’t tell me it’s alright

You held the wonder in your hands
But you had another plan
Now you don’t know to do
Pretty boy

In marble halls and black ties
You couldn’t hear the people cry
Now you don’t know what to say
Pretty boy

Hello little girls and little boys
Did you see the news or hear the noise?
Daddy’s not coming home the same old way
Didn’t you see the news today?

Don’t tell me it’s alright
Don’t tell me it’s alright

© 2008 Randy Riviere

Vocals: Randy Riviere
Guitars: Randy Riviere
Bass: Bob Glaub
Drums: Jim Christie
Lap Steel: James Pennebaker
Harmonica: Mickey Raphael
Organ, Dobro: Marty Grebb

Written by Randy Riviere