This Old House
Posted by Dave at 11/27/2017 2:12:17 PM
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This is one of the first songs I wrote when I got "serious" about songwriting in, oh, 2005 or so. It's a love song for my house. This house is an old plain country house, built in 1892. So it's a love-hate kind of relationship. She's big and roomy and creaky and drafty and needs a lot of work. But we sure did love her. I say did because we moved out of there in 2012 and sold her. The new owners tore her down and put up two very nice McMansions. It's hard to drive by there these days. And it's a little hard to listen to this sad song because I wasn't true to it--I did go somewhere and abandon her.
Technical note: This was recorded in a single take using the middle-side microphone technique, with the condenser mic in figure-8 mode and the track panned to left, a copy of the same track panned right and its polarity reversed, the second (dynamic) mic in the middle, and mixed down to a stereo track. The middle-side technique gives a nice, full, wide sound. The room was almost empty during the recording, which gives a hint of a reverb-like effect. No effects were applied to the recording.
This Old House
©2006 by David Langford Smith
Got a yard where the grass just won't grow
Got a roof that leaks each Spring
Got a front porch ceiling with a little mildew a showing
Got floors that bounce like trampolines
But this old house
Feels like a family home
Got hidden ceilings 12 feet high
It's been here 117 years
It ain't going anywhere
Neither am I
Got a faucet upstairs where the hot water runs a little yellow
Got a rose bush that keeps grabbing me I guess I'm gonna have to whack
Got something oosing from the walls that looks a lot like jello
got a bathroom tile with s San Andreas-sized crack
But this old house
Feels like a family home
Got oak trees 110 feet high
They've been there (some of them) 150 years
They've dug their roots
So have I
Got a back yard with chickens and honeybees
Got a treehouse and lots of room
Got a hammock in the woods where I can hear the breeze
singing Summer's gentle tunes
But this old house
Feels like a family home
Got hidden ceilings 12 feet high
It's been here 117 years
It ain't going anywhere
Neither am I
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