(November 2018 "FROM THE ARCHIVE") - "Black Harvest"

The original paper that I wrote the lyrics to this song on is dated December 5th, 2002. I was 16. I can vividly remember the evening that I wrote them.

I was looking out my window and watching the sun set. Technically, it was still the Fall. It didn't quite feel like Christmas, but the Winter was fast approaching. It was that strange in between time. All of the leaves had fallen. The trees were bare, but there was no snow. There was nobody home at my house, and nobody outside. There was an eerie glow about everything. This haunting moment inspired me to write a poem about what I saw.

2 years later, my 18 year old self remembered this poem and decided to use it as lyrics for a new song I had written on the guitar. The lyrics fit nicely with the melody I had already been humming. I did a recording of it on our 4 track cassette machine. (I never got the hang of that thing, so the audio quality is, admittedly, poor. But I kinda like it.) We included it on our 2nd EP, known as the "Stehm-O", in 2004.

I have long carried on a love affair with the Autumn season, and it has been a source of creative inspiration for as long as I have written songs. I celebrated its glory and dreaded its passing in our song "The Moon", and I fret about it's fleeting nature in "The Fox In a Hole" from our latest album Grappling. In "Black Harvest", the beauty of the Autumn is at its very end, and in this moment looking out the window, I write about watching it take its very last breath. As the dread of the cold and the darkness comes in, I remember the splendor and the color and I long for it. But like every year before that and every year to come, it's gone too soon.

I was going to wait until December 5th, the anniversary of when I wrote the words, to post this song. But posting it now is a different kind of opportunity. I invite you to listen to it, and then remember that right now, the Autumn is not gone just yet. This song may be about death, but the trees are still red and orange and yellow, not yet brown and gray. I can still lay on the ground and watch them fall, not just step on their brittle shells. I can still get away with wearing just a jacket, instead of a coat and gloves and hat. There's still time. The end is in sight, but there's still time. Maybe this song will inspire you to take that walk in the woods before it's too late and let the leaves fall in your hair. To appreciate the fleeting beauty.

-Dan McGowan

(P.S. The "trees, trees..." at the beginning of the song is me accidentally recording myself warming up my voice, but when we were mixing it, we thought it sounded cool so we kept it.)

The trees lost their blankets in the frozen gray wind
Winter brings its certain glow of Black Art Poetry
Fading sunset leaves the sky as blue as ice
It's five o'clock, my curtains darken
My windows are showing me

The silhouettes against the sky, like clusters of thorn nests
And the remaining orange is swallowed by The Moon;
Calling forth its Night Army
The Ruler of the Sky
And its legions of blue and gray stars 

The branches waving woefully like skeletons at the sky
Their arms reach up and beg for the forgotten sun
A silhouette beneath the sky
A portrait of the cold
The remaining orange is taken by The Wind
All these things
They show me Autumn's passed me by again
Too soon, too soon...

This recording of “Black Harvest” was performed by:

Dan McGowan - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar

Recorded at home, 2004