Eighty-two Feet of Water

Eighty-two Feet of Water

While I was on the road with a band a couple years back we found ourselves in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri playing a two-nighter at one of those lake side bars where three stories of verandas look down onto the stage and dance floor. On the second day before our show there was not a lot to do, so when one of our local contacts offered to have us come along on a boat delivery he was making I jumped at the chance.

 

Lake of the Ozarks is a resort town and lake in central Missouri that was created by a dam built by a depression era work project like so many in the Midwest. The lake is a long winding serpent with hundreds of tongues and coves in what were once hundreds of creeks and gulleys.

 Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri

The pontoon boat we were riding in slowly made its way through the curves while speed boats, including hydroplane race boats for a big boat race that was on the lake that weekend, passed us like we were standing still.

I was fine with the slow pace. We had a whole day to kill and I was deep in thought as I dragged my hand lazily in the water going by.

Since this was an artificial lake, I was thinking more about what was beneath the waves than buzzing along on top of them.

What did the bottom of this lake look like back then? And now? Were there still the ghosts of trees reaching skywards in vain? How many cabins and old farms were we passing over? What stories and memories had been buried by the relatively new lake? How many dead bodies were down there?

I would never know the answers to these questions, so like any good story teller, I made up my own.

I thought up a man in a cabin who refused to leave after the dam was built; someone who would rather drown than relocate. But why?

He was troubled, haunted. He had a destiny.

A story started to form in my head, both there in the boat and in the plentiful hours riding in the bus in the days and weeks afterwards. After a long evolution of story and song refinements, it became the title cut to my album.

“Eighty-two Feet of Water”

©2008 Joel T Johnson

After the Great War

They joined the merchant marines

Sailed around the Cape of Good Hope

In the worst storm they’d ever seen

The man on watch didn’t see the reef

That brought the good ship down

He alone watched from the rocks

As the other eighty-one drowned

(chorus)

In eighty-two feet of water

Eighty-one sailors lie

There’s one man left who’s haunted

Why he alone survived

He could feel that water pull him

When he was anywhere near the shore

The ocean had its eighty-one

It wanted just one more

He could hear their cries every day

And through each long, long night

Arizona might be dry enough

To feel alright

I moved him from Lake of the Ozarks to Arizona in the story both because of the irony of how dry it is and because I’m not sure many people know about Lake of the Ozarks, whereas everyone knows about the Hoover dam.

(chorus)

In eighty-two feet of water

Eighty-one sailors lie

There’s one man left who’s haunted

Why he alone survived

Eighty-two feet of water…

He lived for years in a canyon

Near the southeastern side

Of the Colorado River

He still couldn’t sleep at night

The dam was almost finished

It would stop the river’s flow

The Army Corps of Engineers

Said he would have to go

Here I prolong the verse to tease the chorus and transpose the piece up a half step in pitch as the story kicks into high gear.

But he would not be moved

He knew what had to be

And let that water take him

Like his brother’s in the sea

In his chair, in his small home

Silence fills the room

Eighty-two feet beneath the waves

A fitting peaceful tomb

(chorus)

In eighty-two feet of water

Eighty-two sailors lie

There’s no one left haunting

There’s no one that survived

Eighty-two feet of water…

Originally, it was “seventy-two feet of water” but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

I have been talking a lot about our recent trip and the shows I played while in Rochester but I have only mentioned in passing the album and its release.

My album "Eighty-two Feet of Water" is out!

I have had some really good feedback so far. I got an email confirming that a station I sent download links to in a DJ in Belgium is playing the song I just described and likes the whole album.

A guy that deals in CDs at a flea market had 10 copies of my CD and sold them out in one day. He wants twenty more ASAP. The way these things go, I'll really know I'm on my way when I get my first scathing review.

But I can wait.

The Album and/or the individual songs are currently available as a download on iTunes, Amazon.com and CDBaby.com

The physical disk will be available in about a week at CD Baby and Amazon.

Personally, I recommend the download if you listen to your music that way. You will save at least four bucks.

A great many of the 300 CDs I could afford to duplicate, I will be sending out as promotion so CD and download sales will help me pay for the next, larger duplication run.

I’d love to have your support by listening to the song samples by clicking on the above links for Amazon.com or CDBaby or using iTunes if you have it, choosing one song you like, and downloading it for a just a buck.

In the coming weeks I will be telling stories of the origins of some of the other songs on the album.