Thursday Thoughts – Oh Mexico

Sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low Moon so bright like to light up the night Make everything all right James Taylor. I heard somewhere that he wrote that song when he was supposed to go to Mexico and got sick and couldn’t make the trip. Last week I did make the trip. Flew down to Los Cabos for a few days of reflection and sunburn and whale watching and surf sounds at night, so loud the waves kept me from sleeping. While I was down there I felt such a funny combination of perfectly relaxed and completely dissatisfied, longing for something just out of reach. Which sounds sort of like complaining and sort of over-the-top cliche emotional, but it’s the best way I can describe how it feels just before I start to write again. I hibernate in the winter. I only figured this out last year, after panicking for the umpteenth time that I would never write again, I’d dried up, it was all over! Then I realized, as spring approached and I got this itchy longing feeling that then started spilling out into new songs, I realized oh – I just hibernate. I have seasons too. What a relief. Why did it take me 20 years to figure this out? I have no idea. Sometimes I’m slow. So I knew, when I had that strange feeling last weekend, that something was getting ready to trickle down into a tune. What I wrote yesterday is sort of about Mexico, and sort of about everything. It’s about uncertainty, physical and emotional walls, the unknown, death, life, the fear of the journey and the willingness to keep walking. So here are the new lyrics, and I’ll debut the song next week with the boys at my show. Some Answers Hide I fell asleep and woke up down in Mexico Truth be told I don’t even know I don’t know how I got there There were fevered dreams of ripping seams and hearts that broke Thickening clouds of billowing smoke Filling up the air And there’s things that you ain’t never gonna know It don’t matter now how rough or smooth the surface of the road There’s ways that you can learn how to ride But some answers they just hide Some answers they just hide I sat out underneath the burning sun down on the beach Watched the whales dance and breach Felt the song just out of reach Yeah I waited till the air cooled down and night began to fall Saw the buzzards dive and call Heard the seagulls flock and screech And there’s things that you ain’t never gonna know It don’t matter now how rough or smooth the surface of the road There’s ways that you can learn how to ride But some answers they just hide Some answers they just hide Well you can sit for days inside your haze And wait for truth to flow It might come fast it might come slow It might never come again and you don’t know That’s how it is You just don’t know When I came home it all looked changed The atmosphere was clear Time can make things disappear Or it can make life one big test In the end we all say what we want to say It might or might not make you stay Who knows if something’s a sin anyway Until they ask you to confess And there’s things that you ain’t never gonna know It don’t matter now how rough or smooth the surface of the road There’s ways that you can learn how to ride But some answers they just hide Some answers they just hide

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