dandelion woman album launch experience
day 2

Welcome back! Today, we’re going to learn more about Joe, personally - his heritage, how he was raised and how these inspired the writing of the 2nd track on the album, which is today’s feature song:

fetch me

Yep, it’s true (and as you can see in the photo, mama was proud:)…but I’m not going to get into that…the why’s, the what-now’s, etc. I’m not even going to really talk about my beliefs or lack-there-of. But I want to give you some background into my heritage, how I was raised, and how these form a context for why I would write a song like “Fetch Me”…

We went to church on Sunday mornings, we went on Sunday evenings, we went on Wednesday evenings, and there was even a week during summer when we went every single day. Some of my first memories are from church. We went to Germantown Hills Baptist, and I remember a lot of really SLOW hours spent laying on the floor underneath hard, wooden pews playing with He-Man figures and GI Joe’s. This is where I was also first introduced to music…not only “This Little Light of Mine” stuff, but the hymns, ya know? The stuff we all stood up and sang with a little bit of piano accompaniment. Speaking of piano accompaniment…

BONUS FACT: The best thing about Sundays growing up was breakfast for lunch. My dad made it about every week when we got home from church.

I don’t believe everyone at church appreciated the honky-tonkin’ styling of my ma’s piano playing, if I recall correctly, but she did play regularly (and led the choir) when I was growing up in that Baptist church. She was probably my first musical influence. I can still see her swayin’ around the house playing her accordion (which she unfortunately got rid of a long time ago). She almost always had music playing. Nothing I would grow up to like much - it was stuff like Amy Grant, Keith Green, etc. But again, it was music, and it was exclusively faith-based. For her, and by extension me, music always had been faith based. Our family heritage was rooted in faith and so was the music we listened to and sang…

…it would be a hymn. I mentioned I grew up going to a Baptist church, but a half-mile down the road from my house was Metamora Mennonite, and that’s where my grandparents went. Again, it was conservative values and conservative music. We sang hymns. My paths and musical tastes have branched into very different directions as I have grown up, but no matter what I do and where I go, I will always be rooted in these churches, the people in them (many of whom are my relatives), and the music we sang. And these roots continue to inspire my songwriting…

My girlfriend had written a poem where she talked about the wind blowing through “dry hollow corn.” That really struck me. I grew up in the middle of my grandpa’s cornfield, and that sound the wind makes in pre-harvest corn is very nostalgic to me. There is a simplicity and a peace in that sound. But it also signals that harvest is near - the cornstalks’ work is almost done. I re-purposed that poem’s line into a song verse, and the rest just kind of poured out. I went back to my grandpa’s cornfield, his church, their music and the messages taught on slow Sunday mornings, and I tried tying it all together in a way that honored all these. And that’s where “Fetch Me” comes from. To me, it’s a hymn. It’s a history. It’s a testimony of my past and my family’s past. It’s our heritage set to song.

and i’d like to give you that song for free…

For a Free, high quality WAV file download of the song, Fetch Me, just hit the Add to Cart button and use the discount code GOFETCH at check out.

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