steve carroll

In this episode, Mentone, CA’s Steve Carroll shares the story behind his song “Fall.”

Lately I’ve been in the habit of ending each show with this song. It has a nice flow to it. Poetic and emotional, and resonant, maybe it echos within people a little after I finish, which is a good way to end, I think.

“Fall” was inspired by a conversation I had with a friend of mine. It was her first winter in windy Chicago, and we were going back an forth about her experience during those first few months. She said it was cold and lonely, and that the wind blew bitterly cold off the lake. I just kinna sat and listened to it all, when one of her statements caught me a little by surprise. It was such a small observation that that’s why I think it hit me like it did. She said the snow in the city was so dirty and ugly.

I think someone who had grown up in a big city would have never made that same observation, but for her this was important. After all, snow should be something white and beautiful, but the city pushed it aside, making it dirty and ugly.

When I sat down to write “Fall” I meant it to be just about her experience, but what came out was really a broader statement than that. It’s about how we all, myself included, can take for granted those things that we should really enjoy. How we can ignorantly or greedily drink down the gifts of each day and not once think of the purposes for those things that have been given us or from whom they were given.

Fall

It falls on the lovers,
and the cheaters and the cry’n,
on the hands of the guilty,
and the tongues of the lie’n,
on the backs of the hopeless,
and the heads of the prayerful when they don’t.

It falls on our fathers, and mothers and daughters,
on the skins of the aged, and breaths of our hatred,
in every mouth open wide, it tastes the same.

And we let it fall,
in the cups of our hands,
and we drink it in,
but we don’t understand.

Though the black in our veins,
it runs through our cities,
in every alley, oh profaning mercy, still it falls.

And it falls for our harvests, and brimming our waters,
though none should be grateful for its presence, still it falls.

And we let it fall,
in the cups of our hands,
and we drink it in,
but we don’t understand.
And I let it fall,
in the cups of my hands,
and I drink it in grinning,
but I don’t understand.