FAWM: "To Be Revealed"

To Be Revealed

2025 by @raspberry33

Liner Notes

#skirmish To Be Revealed. #folk #uke #singersongwriter #history

Here in New England, the forest has regrown on homesteads that were once farmed and occupied in the 18th and 19th centuries. If you're out hiking, you'll occasionally run across an old foundation, or a boundary wall made of fieldstones that someone laboriously dug out so they could plow. Well, the land here is rocky, and many early settlers left for the flat and fertile Western Reserve (Northeast Ohio) and then onto the great plains. But, there are stories to be revealed. What secrets can we imagine if we stop and look? The line about the headstone came from a newspaper article I read today where infant deaths were so common, headstones sometimes only recorded the year a child was born, and not necessarily the name. Enjoy! This is skirmish #40 for me, so I'm feeling a bit like Casey Kasey completing my American Top 40 collection for February. Thanks @jem for a great prompt. PS: The lyrics are mine; I ran out of time to do a proper demo so #AI was used for the backing track. This one might be promising enough to do a formal demo sometime in March, when we all take a deep breath!

Lyrics

(Verse 1) In the shadows of the pitch pines Where whispers ride the breeze There's a secret waiting for us Where the forest meets the trees Roads that narrow down to foot paths As we stop and look around To see what secrets might be found

(Verse 2) There are traces of the past Fieldstone walls now overgrown Once this place was someone’s homestead Once this place was someone’s home Look right here, there was a cellar Over yonder was a barn Pull each thread until you have a ball of yarn

(Chorus) To be revealed, like from an outpost Above a waterfall A needle in a haystack A crumbling pasture wall The settlers came and went Taking off for better land If we think about it Will we understand?

(Verse 3) Will we find the truth in silence In the shadows of the night Or will we have to sleep here until the dawning light The echoes of the canyons are memories unbound Can we ever see what secrets might be found?

(instrumental)

(Verse 4) I can feel the heat of summer and the chilling winter cold There are stories if you listen and secrets to be told What’s this headstone that’s inscribed with just a date and frozen tears Why did someone’s child only live two years? (Chorus)

(Verse 5) ‘Should we look with eyes wide open or shut them to look back Were there stories here of good faith in the remnants of a shack If we’re stranded in the darkness can we localize by sound To find the light we haven’t yet found

Comments

@otamus 2025

This is great! It highlights the archaeology of the area /to be revealed/ - as we go discovering what could have been in the future of the early settlers and comparing it to how it actually turned out. Then looking to the future of what this locale could be in the future yet again - and could teach to the next generations. We have homesteads in Colorado that are like that. I also recall the rich histories of these types of places when I was hiking the wilderness of Spain.

@jem 2025

This is such an epic ballad. The storytelling and visuals are so powerful that they draw you right in to every verse. The idea of looking closely or spending time in a place as it's history unfolds to you is very well developed here. I really like your poetic and musical treatment of this story and would fully encourage you to stick with this and do the formal demo you mention. thank you for responding to this prompt, and for your kind comments on my song.

@markg 2025

I bow down to you. Cool song and production in a skirmish. Wow, there are many stories buried in those old farms and graves This is AI? I'm wondering how remarkable I'd sound if I entered "how else can I say 'yes, dear'"

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To Be Revealed

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