Like Fallen Trees

Playlist

License $25

Free download

A gentle nylon-string acoustic guitar accompaniment to a lament for the passing of time and of old friends. "Thank God there still is some real music out there in this VengaBoy-world" - Roger Haggstrom

singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso

David Kilpatrick

Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.

I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.

Song Info

Genre

Acoustic • Acoustic Folk

Charts

Peak #3

Peak in subgenre #2

Author

David Kilpatrick

Rights

David Kilpatrick July 2000

Uploaded

January 20, 2014

Track Files

MP3

MP3 5.4 MB • 160 kbps • 4:41

Story behind the song

The Internet songwriting newsgroup - rec.music.makers.songwriting - voted on a title from many put forward, for members to write a song. 'Fallen Trees' was the title, and this song was written to fit. It is not a contrived or deliberate song; had the words not emerged from a little thought and use of imagery, more or less of their own accord, I would not have done this. The first two verses were noted down from free singing, along with the tune. The rest of the song took about 30 minutes to complete after a week of background processing. The recording is an unedited single take, and is the first take; I did play it through three times, as I find that often this produces a better results, but mishandled the digital recorder and only got one. Lowden S25-J nylon string jazz guitar, internal piezo, AKG C1000S on guitar, Beyer M105 vocal mike. Roland VSS-880 hard disk recorder, final mix with Reverb and Dual Compressor/Limiter applied.

Lyrics

Like fallen trees
After a summer storm
We lie our roots laid bare
For the world to see
We little dreamed
In days when we were young
Such times would ever come
To you and me

Once all our friends
Stood by to shelter us
We grew up side by side
And reached up for the sun
They braved the winter winds
To do their worst to us
And never bowed to them
For they were strong
But as the years passed by
Time stole the strength from them
We watched them fall and die
One after one
We saw their small birds fly
Not to return again
The nests are empty now
And all are gone

Some felt the axe's blow
Some fell by the surgeon's knife
Some burned their lives away
Before their time
Some died in winter cold
Some fell by lightning's strike
Some died by slow decay
Of heart and mind

When we are gone
Our generation past
Who will remember us
As we do them?
Each morning's sun
May be our lifetime's last
Each breeze of evening
May whisper our end

Like fallen trees
After a summer storm
We lie our roots laid bare
For the world to see
Like fallen trees
Our limbs are bent and torn
Our branches broken now
Like fallen trees

We little dreamed
When we were young and strong
Such times would ever come
To you and me

On Playlists

Comments

Please sign up or log in to post a comment.