•Eight Miles From Nowhere•
[INTRO] [solo resonator guitar enters with a slow slide up to a G chord] [dry close-mic recording] [open-string drone ringing underneath] [slow bottleneck vibrato] [whispered vocal, distant] One… Two… Three… [quiet laughter] [MAIN THEME] [thumb-plucked bass notes on beats 1 and 3] [syncopated slide melodies with heavy vibrato] [percussive string slaps between phrases] [VERSE 1] I woke up laughing in a room without a door There was a number on the ceiling And a number on the floor I asked the man beside me “What are we counting for?” He smiled and disappeared Through the middle of the wall [slide guitar answers vocal] One… two… One… two… three… four… [laughter, panned slowly across the stereo field] [VERSE 2] There’s a little blue bird Singing backwards in my ear He says the world is getting smaller But the sky is getting near I put my shoes on upside down And walked across the sun Everybody started counting But nobody knew the one [short slide flourish] Seven… seven… seven… [percussive string slap] [CHORUS] Oh, don’t tell me where I’m going I don’t want to know There’s a road beneath the river And a moon beneath the road Oh, don’t wake the sleeping number Let it dream a little more Five goes into seven And seven goes through the door [brief silence] [whispered] Four… Five… Six… [VERSE 3] I found a little photograph Of somebody I had been He was standing in the garden With a grin beneath his chin He said, “Come on, we’re leaving” I said, “Leaving where?” He pointed at the ceiling And vanished in the air [laughter builds quietly] Nine… Nine… Nine… [slide guitar bends upward and hangs] [PSYCHEDELIC BREAK] [instrumental resonator guitar] [thumb bass becomes hypnotic and repetitive] [slide guitar circles around an open G drone] [occasional string slaps] [ghostly vocal fragments enter and disappear] “Round and round…” “Round and round…” “Don’t look down…” “Don’t look down…” [laughter] Three… six… nine… Three… six… nine… [voices overlap increasingly] One two three four Four three two one Nine eight seven Where have they gone? [abrupt stop] [whisper] …eleven. [FINAL VERSE] The sun came up at midnight And the morning came at three I asked the empty window If it knew the shape of me It said, “You’re only dreaming” I said, “I know I am” Then somebody started laughing And the guitar began again [long resonator slide] [OUTRO] [descending slide run on the low strings] [thumb-plucked bass slows down] [open G strings ringing] [final resonant open G chord with a slow fade] [whispered voices fading into the room] One… Two… Three… Four… [quiet laughter] “Round and round…” [resonator sustains] [very distant whisper] …eight miles from nowhere. [final open G resonance fades naturally]
