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Soldier In The Snow

from Ghosts by Bird Streets

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about

While I was on tour some years back, a friend told me about a town in Pennsylvania called Centralia. You can read all about it on Wikipedia, but the short version is this: Centralia was an active coal-mining community in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The town began its decline when many young workers went to serve in World War I, followed closely by the Great Depression. In the early 1960s, a landfill fire spread to the abandoned mines, where it continues to burn today. Over the next few decades, the gases caused by the fire rendered the town uninhabitable; despite several residents refusing to vacate, Centralia is now considered a ghost town. "Soldier In The Snow" is an imagined story of a man, haunted by war, who returns home to tend to the family farm and work out his good years in the mines, only to have the ground cave in beneath him, swallowing everything he held dear.

Basic tracks were recorded on a Yamaha 8-track cassette machine, in a rehearsal space in Brooklyn. The rest, including the never-completed piano track, was recorded at my apartment in Manhattan over the next several years.

lyrics

Papa worked the coal til the dirt took the house
Mama built a home 'round the hole in the floor
The fire underground made it so hard to sleep
Hard to keep your wits about you
In a walking fever dream

Listen close at night, hear the old ghosts howl
Down on the land, used to be granddaddy's farm
Even the wolves don’t come here looking to feed
Everyone’s a zombie and they’re wandering the streets
In a walking fever dream

The ghosts, they come around
The ghosts, they come around
The ghosts, they come around

Papa used to look at pictures from the war
A hundred soldiers standing in the snow
He said all those men are ghosts now
They come around at night
Drives a man to wonder
Just how wrong he’s lived his life
And was he ever right?

The ghosts, they come around
The ghosts, they come around
The ghosts, they come around

Papa wasn’t home when everyone fell asleep
But they say he wasn't far behind
It's been 30 years since they were told to go
But sometimes the land you're on
Is the only land you know
And you can’t believe they’re telling you
In a cadence soft and slow
That your only living dream
Is being swallowed by the coal
And you would give anything
To be a soldier in the snow
A soldier in the snow

credits

from Ghosts, released March 20, 2020
Produced, performed, and mixed by John Brodeur. Recorded at 277 Hudson in Albany NY. Written by John Brodeur ©℗2020 All I Have Is Music (ASCAP)

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Bird Streets Brooklyn, New York

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Bird Streets is the alter ego of Brooklyn artist John Brodeur.

"Introspective art wrapped in beguiling indie rock."
- Music Connection

"Timeless and honest. A fine balance between melody, tension, character,
meaning and relatability that few artists are able to strike."
- The Deli ... more

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