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This was actually written a number of years ago, and I've been playing it for several years now, but I just recorded it...


These many years on
© 2016 John Voorpostel

These Many Years On

I farmed my best in younger years
put down roots, I like it here
I cleared the trees and picked up stones
and used them all to build our home


fields I've sown, the gathered crops
have shown this land I cared a lot
sunsets came and disappeared
and counted out these many happy years


now I swear I hear the night talking
it says the moon's about to fade
so before it goes, I want to say
thank you for being here
these many years on


I've shaped these acres to my mind
carved out straight as arrow lines
I've always been a simple man
so simply give my body to my land


now I swear I hear the night talking
it says the moon's about to fade
so before it goes, I want to say
thank you for being here
these many years on


they say that life is mostly in the mind
but mine was in my land in straight as arrow lines


now I swear I hear the night talking
it says the moon's about to fade
so before it goes, I want to say
thank you for being here
these many years on


now I swear I hear the night talking
it says the moon's about to fade
so before it goes, I want to say
thank you for being here

Hi John,

This is a nice live performance of a beautiful song. Those high notes sound great. I can feel your gentle soul pouring through the lyrics.

Mike

Hi John,

You inhabit the well built story line and evoke the connection and life and land in a very poignant way....Good work!

iggy2

Thank you for looking in Mike.


Actually wrote most of this in Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Had visited "de Postelhoek" which was first mentioned in 1395--and definitely known to be owned by my ancestors in 1600. Was a neat moment to introduce that to my own kids at the time. So the concept of a man and his relationship to his land was very personal and is probably what Iggy felt coming through


And thank you too Iggy--now you know the rest of the story.

Small world, John:

Your song has a great deal of potential. Thanks for sharing the "backstory" with us. I have Dutch-American ancestors and appreciate the tenacity they instilled in us. Man's relationship to "the land" is indeed personal... and so important.

Thanks for sharing. It deserves a full-blown demo.

----Dave

Hi John,

Soft
Gentle
Beautiful
did I mention...lovely.

Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

John,
Something about honesty and simplicity that can just work. And it got better with repeated listens. It is not easy to distill something so broad as the arc of life to a clean, clear metaphor (even if you were actually a farmer. I suspect you were as I know how important straight rows are).
And I like the melody on the bridge. Good work.
Tom

Thanks David--I just knew you had a bit of greatness in you

More of the story. Back about 1900, the last Voorpostel on "de Postelhoek" was young and married, but unfortunately passed away. His widow remarried a neighbour and their descendants now live there and farm that land.

That family, by the name of Bonnes, have also been in the area for generations, so all is good there. I went to visit them way back when after graduating from university, and kind of appeared on their doorstep unannounced. They were very hospitable and actually gave me a copy of the young freshly married couple's wedding photo. The "grandmother" was a daughter of that union.

My own grandfather grew up there and loved to hunt and fish, so he knew every back road and trail and footpath....which came in useful as he smuggled stuff across the German border in WWI---when Holland was a neutral country. de Postelhoek is only a kilometer or 5 from the border, so I guess it was just too much temptation for him

I had no idea you were a farmer, John. Or maybe you just created this character and it isn't you at all.

Good down to earth lyric, John.

Vic

Hi Calvin, thanks for taking some time to step out of the Bone House to say hello

Yes, nice and simple does work here. I actually recorded it so some folks could learn it as we plan to play a gig next week and this is on the play list... it feels good when almost everyone you play a song for likes it


No Tom, I am not a farmer. Did grow up in a town that was the centre of a very rich area of farmland and that was largely settled by the Dutch. We were part of the community because of church, school and culural connections, so I defintely knew a lot of them...that and of course my own family history.

So yeah, nothing like a neatly furrowed field

Hey Jim...as noted, not a farmer, but farming IS in my DNA and family history...and I was definitely exposed to well managed farms growing up. So yeas, I defintely know the value of straight as arrow lines

Hi Vic..thank you too for dropping in ..

Good song that emotes a hometown like vibe. You can almost feel the importance the subject has to you through your melody. Nice work John!

Good 'down home' tune with some nice prosody.

I wish the guitar accompaniment was 'bigger' in the mix to really support the vocal.

The vocals are a bit pitchy at times but they work. I think the harmony you put here:
"thank you for being here
these many years on"
should be on both lines instead of just the first line. There was one time in the song that the harmony was not there and my ears missed it. If you are not going to put it on every time, I would just skip the first time, and not somewhere in the middle of the song.

Overall, I liked it.

Peace,
TC

Thank you James..glad you liked it. One of my better ones in terms of lyric, melody and people seem to like it here and when I play it. So all is good


Thanks for the "fine tooth ear" TC. Good of you to point to how my home style recording can be improved. Definitely a newby when it comes to the "engineering\production\arranging" side of this. And not to invalidate what you say, but this was not meant to be anything other than "hey listen to what I came up with". So thank you for listening and suggestions.

Great lyric John
Best of luck with this one.
Travis