FAWM: "Yellowknife"

Yellowknife

2 days ago by @hamiltonpoolhall

Yellowknife

hamiltonpoolhall

00:00

Liner Notes

#acoustic #fingerstyle #fingerpicking #onemic

I got the opening line from something my son texted on a visit to the Pacific northwest last weekend. The rest...well, I actually have nothing against Yellowknife at all; it's more a filtering of Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union and a friend's comment Monday night about story songs (re: a lack of any natural ability to concoct them, which I share).

As ever, I wouldn't mind another day to revisit and edit, but my self-allocated couple of hours for this one are up. This is my second complete take.

Lyrics

This may be the most snow that I’ve ever seen in my life
Nothing overhead but grey
I haven’t seen the sun in days
How can anybody live in Yellowknife

Half the daylight’s gone before I even finish getting dressed
On the radio they say
The wind chill’s not so bad today
So I could go out and look for work I guess

I never dreamed that I could miss
The Guadalupe River anything like this

They asked if I’d be staying long, and if I had a wife
I said maybe, I don’t know
They stamped my papers, let me go
How can anybody live in Yellowknife

Comments

@fantex 1d

I like this, reminds me of living in Juneau, AK for many years.

@philnorman 1d

re: the Guadalupe: you can take the songwriter out of Texas, but you can't get the Texas out of the songs 😂

Such vivid details--the radio, the wind chill, the passport. A writing professor called them "arbitrary specifics" and you picked the right ones. You tell a whole story in just a few stanzas, in less time than it takes the narrator to get through customs.

@cmharwood89 2d

I adore the picked melody line and the ABBA rhyme scheme. I've been listening to your songs since my first FAWM, and this is emblematic of your sonic "fingerprint" that has kept me coming back to listen every year. Your playing has such a laid-back and melodic ease, while your vocal delivery imbues the whole thing with a weary sense of resignation. It's sad, but it's beautiful.

@fearlessflight2014 2d

Wow. Really beautiful. I love the unusual rhyme scheme and structure. I agree with previous commenters that the elegant economy of the lyric is exquisite. So many questions….

@pcob1993 2d

You kill me every time... I love your voice and phrasing and your incomparable picking.. just such a lovely, heart-warming inspirational track. And I agree with @davidtaro's observation below about Raymond Carver...
I'll listen to more later ...

@davidtaro 2d

Well, you definitely win in terms of writing a story song - this is like reading Raymond Carver or something. So much said in so few words, and so much in the spaces between (“I said maybe, I don’t know” is just exquisite!). Place name titles are always a winner for me, and Yellowknife just sounds cool, even if it is a bit of a sub-zero wasteland. The playing and singing is superb, as always with you. There’s a nice echo of John Mayer in the main melodic riff. This is my song of the day!

@richaaaay 2d

Such a lovely lilt and pace to this. A simple uncluttered lyric that expresses concisely everything that needs to be conveyed. Your vocals sound great and the guitar work is to die for, economic and precise. I love this song. So good...

@mikeskliar 2d

So great to hear you back here! we need that gentle yet provocative fingerpicking and those sardonic tales! this is a fine one, and there's alot of implied backstory which the listener can flesh out all sorts of ways. Nice one!
(and as a new yorker, I'd rephrase it as "How can anybody live without decent bagels and lox, real pizza and general tso's chicken, but that's just me!)