The Barn

I'm from New York.

In LA, or really anywhere else in the world besides where I grew up, I have to be a bit more specific...

Upstate New York.

In most of those same places, specifying “Upstate” is not enough. Most people will still start talking about New York City and asking me if I know of some great pizza place or how often I get into the city, as if “upstate” means some neighborhood just north of The Bronx.

I find there's only one thing I can say to shut them up about NYC.

“Waaay upstate.” I say, “think cows, not sky scrapers.”

And yet sometimes, I still get a blank stare. So I explain to them that visiting New York City from where I grew up was much like driving from LA to San Francisco and that the big city closest to us was actually Toronto.

So, when I say I'm from New York: picture a dirt road, a dairy farm, a fifteen minute car ride to do almost anything and a beautiful view of a lake a mile down the hill.

I never minded living in the country. It was always a source of pride to me. The dairy farm was a neighbor's, not my familie's so I hung around and worked when I wanted to, but was never obligated to get up at Oh-dark-thirty every day of the week and help feed and milk the Holsteins. Never-the-less, I spent plenty of time helping; calling and herding the forty cows into the barn, locking them in their stanchions, placing feed in front of them and strapping on the milking machines and scraping up their poop up when they missed the trench behind them. It was something to do and my help was somewhat valueable to the farmer even though I'm sure I was essentially an annoying little kid.

The farmer, Stu, or 'Stooky' as he was known, was a quite a character. His CB handle was “The Barnes Road Cowboy” Gruff and earthy, his method of 'contenting' his cows was to play country music and swear at them whenever he got the chance.

Once, when my brother was walking up the road past the barn, Stu called out “Hey, it's Matthew piss-head Johnson”.

That was pretty mild. At a very young age there were very few new words a sailor could have taught us that we didn't already know.

During harvest time the neighborhood would come together and help bail and store hay and straw. While Stu drove a bailing machine in the fields, another neighbor would shuttle full wagons of hay back to the barn. I would hold up the trailer tongue of the wagon while the tractor backed up, then I would drop the pin in place, climb to the top of the mountain of bails in the wagon and enjoy my ride back to the barn. Once there, I would wield a bailing hook and help place bails on an elevator, a chain-driven conveyor of sorts, that would shuttle the bails up and into the barn. I liked bailing straw more than hay. The bails weighed about half as much and didn't leave a layer of alfalfa dust on one's sweaty skin.

An elevator somewhat similar to the one we used.

No one was paid, it's just what we all did at harvest time.

It was more than a fair trade. For the time we spend working in the barn we spent many times that playing. The barn itself was a child's paradise. The barn was, to us, a space ship, a fortress, a castle. He had ropes we could swing from. There were a thousand places to hide. We adored the place and so did our friends.

Was it dangerous? Sure it was.

Did I do stupid things that I shutter to think about now like go hand-over-hand in the rafters, twenty some feet off the floor from one end of the barn to the other? You bet I did.

Was I ever injured beyond a cut or a scrape? Never.

Over the years I have taken a number of hits from the electric fence that bordered two sides of our yard which felt just like being body punched with a dump truck (explains a thing or two eh?). I never had the misfortune of peeing on the fence, but a friend of mine did once in amongst some bushes where he could not see the wire. He said it felt like someone “took it and ran with it”.

My parents as well as Stu, the farmer, expressed concern about our playing in the barn. We were banned from time to time but they could never make it stick. We loved the place too much.

 The barn in the summer of 2003

For all the dangers we faced: sharp objects, hanging, swinging and jumping from great heights, climbing on all sorts of farm equipment, there was only one thing we were actually afraid of...

Rats.

We knew they were there but there was an unspoken agreement between the kids and the cat-sized rodents. They had the run of the place at night, and we got the day shift. No matter how much fun we were having, we headed home in the evening the moment we saw the odd rat running along a beam.

We kept our end of the bargain and they kept theirs.

When I was older the barn had other purposes. I took two or three girls to the barn for a 'roll in zee hay' on a number of occasions.

Stu died some time before I moved to LA. He had sold off his herd some time before that. Every time I visited home, the hundred year-old plus barn with its hand-hewn beams seemed to be sagging a little lower and have more wood shingles missing. By the time my wife had the opportunity to see my childhood paradise, parts of the hay loft floor had collapsed into the milking room. It would have been fool hearty to so much as set foot inside the place.

The last time I was at home for Christmas was in 2007. The barn was looking in particularly bad shape. It had drooped notably since the last time I had seen it and it made me sad to look at it. My wife and I both noted this when we arrived from the airport.

We had our own problems at the time too. I had been on the road with a band for about six months and the strain of my being away from home most of the time and my making less than half my normal salary was wearing on us both.

Having used all our money to fly home, we had nothing left for Christmas gifts. I had decided that I would record some songs for each member of the family.

In the weeks prior my lap top had died. It had been a long and frustrating process of getting the new one up to speed and working properly. Getting my music software installed and working with the, then brand new and buggy as hell, Windows Vista took years off my life, it felt like. 

I eventually got everything working but we had flown to New York the week before Christmas and I had not yet been able to record a single note of music that would be everyone's Christmas gift.

After I arrived, I borrowed a bass guitar--a "Rogue" bass, and a Tascam US-428 USB audio interface (for recording to a computer) from my good friend, Jim. 

I had no idea what I was going to write. The pressure of hacking through the swamp of computer problems and the time it took up left me feeling completely drained creatively. I wondered if playing the same twenty-or-so Eagles tunes night after night for months had taken its toll as well.

Once set up on my brother's old room—my Mother's current office—I messed around with a few bass lines and programmed a drum beat with the Cubase stock drum plugin. I knew I was going to need more and I wanted them to be real things. I looked around the house for instruments or anything interesting-sounding that my parents might have lying around. 

I collected the following: A brass meditation bell, A rain stick, a frame drum and a native Amercian flute which I had to teach my self to play... toot sweet!

After a day of recording I had a groove and some ideas for some other parts, enough for one song.

My original intent was to write a song for each member of the family. It was clear now with only days before Christmas that it wasn't going to happen unless I churned out four or five crappy tunes as fast as I could. It would have to be one song for everyone. I felt like a heel but I had no other choice.

Still I had no idea of what to write about. It had to be something that would be meaningful to everyone without being sappy. I was drawing a big blank.

I am not sure if I was thinking about the empty page of my unwritten song when I went to bed that night or if I was thinking about the strong winds roaring outside. Especially after moving to LA, I do appreciate some good old fashioned nasty weather on occasion.

That night Audra awoke to here inexplicable sounds. Sounds she had never heard before but that approximated thunder and a jet engine. The sound would come around every fifteen minutes and last for a few seconds. She thought perhaps it was a distant snow plow.

I slept, as I often do, soundly. I heard nothing.

The next morning I had agreed to go into town with my mother and work with a charity that gives toys and other things to unfortunate families. We had to leave rather early. As we started up the road I heard my Mother gasp. I turned to see nothing. 

The nothing I saw was in the location of what used to be the barn, the play ground I had grown up in and around. A structure that had been around since long before my parents were born, perhaps my grandparents. 

 

It was a heap of rubble. I couldn't believe it, something that had been around my whole life was now gone, never to return.

Ironically it had been gusts of wind from opposite the usual direction that had been slowly making the barn lean over the years.

I had lost my barn.

But I had my song.

The lyrics came quickly. Now, I had to sing and record them. Having no mic stand, I had to hang the mic cable from a nail in the rafters of my parents' basement. As I recorded numerous tracks of lead and backing vocals I could hear the floor creak from my parents walking around and their talking above me. I thought about going upstairs to remind them I was recording but I remembered my organic philosophy of recording and let it all into the mic.

Of course my wife Audra, who is a magnificent photographer who specializes in destruction among other things, shot some great pictures of the barn. She also, unwittingly, happened to take the last picture of the barn before it's demise days before. We were doing some work on my parents website quietmeadows.org and we needed a picture of their sign hanging by the road. The doomed barn happened to be in the background. 

 

I used both the picture before and after to create artwork for the CD I gave to everyone for Christmas. 

My parents later held a wake for the barn. I was unable to come from LA to attend. Most of the neighbors came, some new, others that hadn't lived there for decades. They played my song as part of the wake.

Click here to listen to the song as you read on.

The Barn

© Joel T Johnson 2007

Death defying monkey acrobatics

The hayloft of the barn

We weren't afraid of anything

Never broke a leg, never broke an arm

The rats came out at dust

But we ruled from the cock's first crow

Playing war, making forts

While the cows got milked below

It's been years since we were kids

Since the old farmer died

Leaving our barn to lean in the wind

Held together with luck and twine...

(chorus)

The old barn is coming down

Wind, water and time

Take dead trees to the ground

The old barn is coming down

Wind, water and time

Returns all to the ground

We were home for Christmas

Snow was everywhere

The Barn was sagging low

Like an old friend in despair

But no one could have guessed

It was waiting to say goodbye

For us to come and visit

On that cold December night

Some time in the dark

The wind vain it swung West

We thought we heard thunder roll

We thought we heard a jet...

(chorus)

The old barn is coming down

Wind, water and time

Take dead trees to the ground

The old barn is coming down

Wind, water and time returns all to the ground

Early the next morning

I took a look outside

That was quite a wind last night

And then, I nearly cried

Our old barn lay in ruin

It's true for us all

One day when the wind shifts West

I too will lean and fall...

(chorus)

The old barn is falling down

wind, water and time

Take dead trees to the ground

The old barn is falling down

Wind water and time returns all to the ground

This song and the whole album is available here.

I will never forget our barn. I can remember details of that place better than somewhere I was last week. Just a couple months ago I had my first visit since the barn fell. Everything has been cleared away. all that remains is the silo.

 

The barn before...

 

 And after.

So when I say I'm from New York, don't picture sky scrapers and subways. Picture cows, a dirt road and an old barn that was, but is no more.

I appreciate your support and sharing this with your friends.

Notes on the Recording:

Most of the original recording that I made in my parents' house both before and after the barn's collapse remained intact. I changed the drums and re-recorded new lead vocals and some backing vocals.

This tune was a favorite of my co-producer from the day I emailed him a copy only days after Christmas. For my CD I was advised... nay, warned not to change too much.

Once again, even though there are parts that sound like electric guitar, this song is a guitar-free zone, there is only bass. The bass tracks are all the original tracks I recorded with one of my friend Jim's basses.

One of the only changes to the bass from the original version was that I passed it through the “Guitar Rig” plug in and gave it a rather nasty distortion in a couple parts to better approximate destruction.