The Howling Song
A cowboy in the desert night awaits his fate as he hears it drawing closer.
THE HOWLING SONG
by Tyler Morrison
LYRICS:
In the middle of the desert
Where the air is dry,
You can burn in the daylight,
You can freeze at night.
I have lived in the city,
I have lived on the prairie,
But I’ll die in the desert
And become a coyote.
Ooo-oo-oooooo, ooowoo-ooo!
I hear them callin’ from the darkness,
Howlin’ at the moon.
I add my voice to the darkness;
I know I’m going soon…
Awoo-ooo-ooooo, ooo-wooo-ooooo!
AUDIO:
Background:
There isn’t much to say for this one; it must have come to me in a flash, as I don’t remember writing it, to be honest. It’s certainly the simplest song I’ve written; I only play two chords on the guitar for the whole thing (G and Em). But I think that simplicity adds to the stark nature of the lyrics, and it allows for the actual howling of the protagonist and the coyotes in the song to be the focus.
I am certain, however, that I was inspired by the music of The Theater Fire, one of my favorite bands and one I consider woefully underrated. To understand The Theater Fire, imagine the Decemberists had come out of Fort Worth, Texas, and they mostly wrote Western songs with Southern Gothic lyrics about cowboys, gunslingers, ghosts, and the Wild West. I was definitely drawing from that tradition of creepy campfire tales with a Western theme in mind.
