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about
I wrote "Tornadoes" on May 8, 2019 while hiking around Radnor Lake with a pen and notebook in hand. A week later, I was working on this song in the studio with my friend and producer Ryan Corn. The relative speed of that turnaround gives "Tornadoes" a freshness to my ears, the optimism of a new chapter.
"Tornadoes" is a song countering discontentment and impatience and the grass that seems withered on this side of the fence. I have a history of stiff-arming options I perceived as safe and comfortable. But I didn't expect the adventurous route to demand so much of my patience. I look at other places I left behind and think of the exciting things that must be happening there. "If only my life was busier," I tell myself, "then I would be happy."
But perhaps those days I perceive as wasted are actually opportunities to trust the One who gave them to me - to be diligent with all my abilities and hopeful for the unfolding of the future and patient with the ambitions of my heart. Perhaps all those metaphorical tornadoes and volcanoes and sinkholes and hurricanes I see elsewhere are purely illusory. Patience and trust are no less required of me anywhere else I could live.
If you too find yourself stuck in those doldrums waiting for something big to develop (because nothing ever happens around here, does it?) - don't throw in the towel. Waiting is hard. Stick with it and rejoice in the place where you are. Take heart: the sweetest fruit rewards the hardest labor.
I realize the lyrics of "Tornadoes" never have any thematic resolution. At face value I suppose they're kind of a downer! This song has always sounded hopeful and fresh and optimistic in my mind, though, and that's partly because the music brings the resolution, and partly because I'm just naming frustrations in order to see more clearly and move forward more confidently. Every time I've listened to this song in production, I have felt better about tomorrow. I hope you will, too.
So enjoy "Tornadoes". And press onwards, friend.
lyrics
I heard there were tornadoes down in Texas
and I was jealous
I read about volcanoes in Hawaii
well, that must be exciting
'cause nothing ever happens around here, does it?
nothing ever happens around here
I know the cost of living somewhere gorgeous
reach up and pick the oranges
where the sinking earth can swallow up a busy street
vanish under your feet
but nothing ever happens around here, does it?
nothing ever happens around here
'cause I don’t feel my heart beat enough
to remind me every gallon of my blood
oh, the quiet life would leave my soul in tatters
distract me from the only things that matter.
I left the Equator for the Arctic
but it leaves me feeling heartsick
hail and hurricane and wave and earthquake
a braver soul do make
but nothing ever happens around here, does it?
nothing ever happens around here.
'cause I don’t feel my heart beat enough
to remind me every gallon of my blood
oh, the quiet life would leave my soul in tatters
distract me from the only things that matter.
I love the things I fear
I fear the things that bore me
and I’m bored by the patience I need to persevere
I love the things I fear
I fear the things that bore me
and I’m bored by the patience I need to persevere
I love the things I fear
I fear the things that bore me
and I’m bored by the patience I need to persevere
I love the things I fear
I fear the things that bore me
and I’m bored by the patience I need to persevere
I heard there were tornadoes down in Texas
and I was jealous
some things you just can't keep things the way you had ‘em
so you just gotta have ‘em
but nothing ever happens around here, does it?
nothing ever happens around here
nothing ever happens around here, does it?
nothing ever happens around here
no, nothing ever happens around here
credits
released August 23, 2019
Guitars, piano, Wurlitzer, mellotron: Owen Stroud
Backing vocals: Frankie Barranco
Drums: Paul Eckberg
Bass, percussion: Ryan Corn
Pedal steel guitar: Andy Ellison
Words & music copyright 2019 by Owen Stroud.
Recorded May-July 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Produced and mixed by Ryan Corn.
Mastered by Joe Hutchinson (Garage Masters).
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