When I Bought This Car

from Song Seeds by James Tristan Redding

/

lyrics

When I bought this car a phone call cost a quarter
TV news all interviews about fightin' at the borders
Mom went back to college I quit smokin' cigarettes
A part of me thought this must be the best it ever gets

Damn near twenty years and over half a million miles
Drove it since that Sunday when we both walked down the aisle
Filled it with the good stuff and try not to push too hard
Today we’re runnin’ every bit as good as when I bought this car

* * *

- Nixon was President (or Ford, or Carter, or pick a name)
- I had mutton chops the size of a large gerbil
- we were paying $200 a month for a 2 bedroom house on Jefferson Street
- you wouldn’t eat jello, you said it tasted like plastic
- we had just lost my brother in the ( Vietnam? Korean? Iraq? ) war
- Marianne was carrying Terry’s second child, gosh he’s all grown up now
- I was working two jobs to keep up with the payments
- they had just invented astronaut ice cream, remember that stuff?
- our salesman had a pea green shirt that looked terrible, we couldn’t stop laughing about it
- your aunt Linda had just passed away and left us the money
- we had lent the neighbor our station wagon, he crashed it and that’s why we needed this one
- that was the coldest July we ever had in Cleveland, we both had on long underwear
- we bought a Diesel because it was cheaper then, sure wish it had stayed that way
- see that (stain / mark) on the dash? You grabbed (my coffee / the cigarette lighter) and gave it hell
- (Merle Haggard / Bob Seger / Jim Croce) had just released his second album, we wore that record out
- I used to wear those skin tight jeans, no one ever told me how silly they looked
- you said this car better last because we can’t afford another one, we didn’t believe it but here it still is
- there was no internet, the paper was the only news you could get
- we were driving to Tallahassee every summer to stay with Uncle George in that ranch house
- musta’ put 30,000 miles on this old thing every year
- the horn still worked and the trunk was empty, it had brand new seats and all its mirrors

credits

from Song Seeds, released January 19, 1911

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James Tristan Redding image

James Tristan Redding Nashville, Tennessee

British-American songwriter, singer, audiobook narrator, studio player, Godin Guitars official artist.

Founded global collective www.SongAWeek.org, performance art experience The Under Over: tinyurl.com/uoxuo (song circle underneath a highway) and writing retreat www.TheNashville24.com (annual challenge: write 24 songs in 24 hours).

Cuts by Sarah Harralson, Eli Alger, Emma Gale, David Easterling ... more

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