This week’s song is Raccoons and Foxes. You can hear the MP3:

This is one that I co-wrote with Ronnie Jeffrey shortly after my mom’s death in 1998. In fact, I wrote the words at my mom’s empty house a couple of days after her funeral. I wrote both the words and music to My Mother’s House that same week.

I’ll do this one verse by verse.

Verse 1
We lived on top of Nock’s Hill. Down the hill was a creek where we used to catch crawfish. We called it Nock’s Creek, but its actual name is Thompson’s Creek. My dad died in 1968, the year after my sister graduated from high school.

Verse 2
When I wrote this song, mom’s house was packed up and the movers were scheduled to come later that week to move mom’s stuff out. Mom had this great back porch. There were woods all around the back of her house and she’d put dog food and scraps out for the animals every night. She put the food right beside the back door and raccoons and foxes (and lots of possums) would come and eat. It was really neat.

Chorus
Chatham Hill is the cemetary where my mom and dad are buried. There are some photos of the headstones on my Flickr page.

Verse 3
While I was staying at the house after the funeral, I put the feed out every night. It made me sad to think about how much mom loved those animals and how they would miss being fed every night. Late at night, you could sit very still in a chair and watch the animals. If you stood up or moved at all, the animals, especially the very nervous foxes, would run away.

Verse 4
The raccoons (metaphor for the “bandits” that steal what you love) and foxes (metaphor for the things you love) line is leading up to the Bridge, which is the central and most important part of the song.

I talk more about music, particularly music by other people, at Newsome.Org.